Ryan Adams

He + band sounded good doing Bad Blood and Style on The Daily Show tonight. He played coy when Trevor said people assumed he was covering the album ironically, but *shrug*.

All You Had to Do Was Stay still getting overlooked the same way it did last year when people were talking about Taylor's album. Best song on either version imo.

"He delivers "Shake It Off" in a grim and determined tone that would be appropriate if he were singing about how conservative politics have decimated rural families at the inaugural Farm Aid"

Can't hate a review with a line like that

Maybe those rural families should have stayed home from the first Farm Aid if they didn't want to be bummed out (by the debut of Van Hagar).

I just appreciate a Farm Aid joke in 2015. Sometimes a reference is so far from topical that it becomes sublime.

Sigh It's now a world full of a bunch of cargo dad pants bands with soulless, bullshit lyrics and about the level of danger you might feel if you mixed hot fries with ginger ale. Fuck that

lol this from a guy who's last album is a Taylor Swift cover record

tbf that's a more dangerous move than any cargopants band is gonna muster

Ryan's super self-conscious, deliberate fashion affectations always kinda bothered me.

New album, "Prisoner" has leaked, out next month. It's all about his divorce. Some really good songs, some boring retreads. The press says he's channelling Bruce Hornsby's 80s work.

Really liked the self-titled, really liked the Taylor Swift, like what I've heard of this so far. It's like he glommed on to what Kurt Vile and War On Drugs have been doing and is sort of doing the same thing but turned around. That is, rather than indie guys nodding to Tom Petty/classic rock etc., this is someone closer to Tom Petty nodding to indie stuff nodding to Tom Petty/classic rock. Meta MOR?

His episode of WTF podcast the other day was pretty good.

There's no reason why I *shouldn't* like RA because I like all of his touchstones, but somehow it's always so MOR that I can't latch on to anything and then the song is over

I like but don't love the new one so far. The WTF interview was very, very good IMO. Live he still brings it. I don't mind the direction on the last couple studio albums, I think the songs are there, but the production is wearisome. I really liked what he did with 1989...

I want to back up my praise a little, I don't like the new one nearly as much as I like self-titled and Taylor Swift.

new one seems a little underwritten (lyrically - but more importantly - musically)

there's no stand-out track like Shadows, for me. a track that UPS the drama.

instead it fedexes the drama

new one seems a little underwritten (lyrically - but more importantly - musically)

I concur, it's *almost* a very good record but it feels like it needed more time in the oven.

i like this better than the s/t because it seems more written, actually. many of the songs on the s/t seem to stop just on the edge of being memorable and feel very automatically written. at least "prisoner" and "doomsday" on this record remind me a lot of love is hell which imo was his strongest record melodically

though "haunted house" sounds like a more unconsciously-written springsteen song than any song on the last few actual springsteen records lol

all right i will admit on second listen that maybe some of these songs could use bridges

Yes, that's it precisely. And we all know that Ryan is exceedingly prolific, sometimes I wonder if he just tosses something off and then moves on to the next idea, maybe gives a quick rewrite/addition before recording and that's that.

instead it fedexes the drama

gheh! :D (for a minute I thought you were taking a socretean approach to understanding the praxis of R. Adams)

but seriously, the super glossy production (which I do like - in a guilty pleasure kind of way) only emphasizes the fact that the songs are a tad too simple.

maybe he should release a lo-fi tape version of this.

self-titled one was jawdroppingly good imo so I'm looking forward to checking this one out but the kv/WoD comparisons aren't encouraging -- even though I like both of those acts fairly well but that's not what I want from Ryan Adams

fwiw the album does not sound like a new war on drugs record

No, it doesn't. I just meant sort of this Springsteen/Petty/et al. classic vibe, but with atmospheric indie reverb and rougher production.

Listening again, I still like self-titled better, at the least as a mood piece.

I think "Haunted House" reminds me of a cross between East River Pipe and Melissa Etheridge.

"Anything I Say to You Now" might be my fave, but it sounds a lot like the last record.

this is good comfort food as were the self titled and ashes & fire. i still approve

It's nice to see people really like the s/t album, because that was my jumping on point with Ryan Adams. The production on this new record is great, but outside of a few tunes (ie To Be Without You, Do You Still Love Me, and Haunted House) nothing is sticking with me like the last album. It's very odd that he wrote over 60 tunes and these are the ones that made the final cut.

Did anybody pick up the box set? I'm interested if he ended up cutting some of the better songs off the album.

In Edinburgh he's playing the Usher Hall, in Belfast he's playing the Ulster Hall. My girlfriend got a bit confused buying tickets this morning... any Belfast holiday tips?

i love sharpling shitting on ryan adams too good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn4vnQg09bw

My younger daughter was singing Taylor Swift songs, and of course she's been in the news again, so I put on his "1989." Still really good. "I Know Places" might be my fave, that and his "Shake It Off."

i'm really digging prisoner (and the b-sides).

don't know any of his other stuff really, he has a lot of albums!

Prisoner seemed like a big let down after the great self titled album, but it has never left my potation since it came out.

happy he's happy/sober, but he's fully settled into paint-by-numbers w/ Prisoner

His recent attack on the Strokes makes me wonder, but I hope he is.

Yeah, well.

for years, Ryan Adams has used his influence in music to lure in and emotionally torment women@melenar & I talked to some, including Mandy Moore, Phoebe Bridgers & a young woman who says her sexual texts w Adams while she was underage killed her dreams https://t.co/OuGkTDzyNQ

— Joe Coscarelli (@joecoscarelli) February 13, 2019

The most shocking thing about that piece is that Mandy Moore went on the record. Given her status thanks to This Is Us, this piece could fuck up his year pretty badly.

This article was texted out as a NYTimes news alert

this guy is simply vile

that was a dark read

i mean, he pretty much oozed LA rock cokehead scumbag vibes but this is worse than expected

ugh

This fuck.

Worth noting that Ryan Adams sent this deranged (and now deleted) tweet earlier today ahead of the New York Times exposé being published. pic.twitter.com/rd8mVkSEQk

— ⭐ amy o'connor ⭐ (@amyohconnor) February 13, 2019

I interviewed him when I was a magazine intern, around the time of Love is Hell. He was repulsively dumb and made a joke about how his bad reviews were karmic payback for his ancestors lynching slaves.

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Christ.

i imagine that a lot of rock star guys are scared right now

— Juliana Hatfield (@julianahatfield) February 13, 2019

Days later, Adams expressed anxiety: “If people knew they would say I was like R Kelley lol,” he wrote.

you ain't wrong buddy

Let's learn I bait

...

What a sad little man.

it’s always “I’m sorry but”. but what!? the women who have come forward have nothing to gain by telling their story. nothing! they risk losing everything though. pic.twitter.com/pJNa5G0jnN

— Sarah MacDonald (@sarahsmacdonald) February 13, 2019

when I first heard him in 2000-2001, saw how he dressed, and how he comported himself in interviews, I thought there was now way this man who probably smelled like a jockstrap from which toadstools sprung would ever make interesting music and was probably a post-rock-boom asshole.