Ryan Adams

this may not be the thread for it but in the wake of all of this I've seen a lot of "we stan our pop queen who made 'candy,' a real song"-type comments. these are obviously well-meaning but to me always come off strange, and in this case especially strange considering mandy moore very publicly offered fans a refund (and actually refunded at least a couple of people) for her first album. this was before she met ryan adams (which was around 2008, I gather) but I'd be surprised, given what she's said on record about belittling her for "not being a real musician," if that wasn't the sort of latent insecurity he picked up on.

(a weird parallel would be kesha's records, where her old stuff she hates was also the dr. luke stuff, and her mature acoustic career turn was the public break from him, rather that vice versa. and the general current of support for her is "wow, 'Praying' is so much more real." stories like this do weird things to authenticity politics)

also xp -- you can't take a record and extrapolate about the artist being/not being an abusive person (well, you can -- gut feelings certainly can and do -- but you invite false positives.) you also can't argue the converse, i.e. where "X abusive artist made Y record, therefore all records like Y are by abusive artists like X."

but -- and I may be in the minority on this -- once the artist has been revealed as an abusive person, you absolutely can assume their work might reflect that. it doesn't have to, but there's a good chance, unless the artist is so perfect at compartmentalizing that none of their beliefs ever seep into their work, and also so strictly private that none of their work is autobiographical. considering carl newman is on record calling "harder now that it's over" autobiographical, the latter at least is not the case. (I kind of suspect at least a few "my work isn't autobiographical" comments are an attempt to mask times when it is.)

like, for instance, you absolutely can say "woody allen is a bad person with bad underlying beliefs about women, which come out in his movies constantly." this would seem fairly uncontroversial (except among woody allen defenders, obviously) at this point!

ok but my point is i really hate the framing “we should’ve known this entire time bc of the lyrics!!!

people did this with jesse lacey at the time too and his lyrics are much worse in terms of reflecting his abuses and i was mad about it then too bc people were all about emphasizing this secret knowledge that could’ve been obtained through the lyrics that were so OBVIOUSLY from the perspective of an abuser

idk maybe i am the only person who finds this fundamentally obnoxious

I baseline presume that lyrics/books/etc are not autobiographical. I'm constantly let down in this regard. For example, I was caught off completely off-guard when David Foster Wallace turned out to be a depressed tennis player with addiction problems. But that's how I want art to be, ideally - an invention, a creation, something well-thought out that speaks to the listener, not about the author.

maybe people's imaginative powers aren't actually that great.

so does jeff tweedy beat women or not

idk maybe i am the only person who finds this fundamentally obnoxious

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Friday, February 22, 2019 3:44 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You're not alone, believe me. The RS was the self-righteous, 'we're washing our hands clean' type of piece I detest, that doesn't really move anyone or anything forward. I don't believe their intentions were wrong, it just benefits no-one or nothing. Now that Adams' appalling behaviour has come to light, the writers decided to look back at his lyrics through that whole prism. The AC Newman anecdote, that's one you can fact-check. The rest just dies in speculation.

maybe people's imaginative powers aren't actually that great.

― Trϵϵship, Friday, February 22, 2019 2:51 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, yes. I've been coming to realize this.

Fiction is a negotiation between the autobiographical and the fantastical. In many cases autobiography acts as the spark (i.e. Paul McCartney and Jane Asher break up) for an original song ("Hey Jude," written to a kid whose parents are breaking up). I've always objected to journalistic approaches to criticism which looks for connections between autobiography and fantasy because digging up links and creating patterns is what good journalism does ("The songs on thank u, next are about Ariana Grande's relationship w/Mac Miller").

However, to add to what katherine says, once journalism does the digging and finds pathological patterns of behavior, it's fair to re-examine the work, or, if you lean that way, dismiss it.

went to the original link for what it's worth -- with the example there (the change to "Style") the piece isn't saying "the narrator of this song is literally Ryan Adams; all characters are literal" but "it's kind of weird for a man to swoop in and turn this pop song into leering at someone's ass." it's a subtle difference and hard to pin down exactly (more about the act of songwriting than the words themselves), but it's there

also worth noting that plenty of people at the time found the existence of the 1989 cover album to be weird and bordering on, if not actually, creepy. so it's not something people just started noticing in hindsight

yeah, i agree alfred. the relationship between the text and the life of the author exists but it's opaque. in the writing process, experience is transmuted. but still, it shouldn't be a surprise if an author continues to return to certain themes, ideas or situations, because authors/artists are people not wizards and they have preoccupations.

(I fucking hate "Hey Jude" but I heard it in the car this morning and it was the first example to come to my mind)

i don't think the line change in that song is related to adams' abuse of his wife and his girlfriends, or his preying on a teenager. maybe it's objectionable in it's own right -- over-sexualizing a song that isn't his -- but you can easily imagine someone doing that and still not being a sexual predator.

in hindsight, it looks different though, as katherine pointed out. but you could never do it the other way -- combing through someone's lyrics to find red flags and then assuming the worst is true about them

i don't think the line change in that song is related to adams' abuse of his wife and his girlfriends, or his preying on a teenager.

― Trϵϵship, Friday, February 22, 2019 10:25 AM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, no, not literally, doubt unnamed coworker meant it literally either

katherine and brad otm!

as I said before, “we should’ve known" has this implication that there's some small amount of knowledge or examination that would tip the scales to actually knowing someone's abusive, and it's a very close peer to the argument that someone who was in a close relationship with an abuser should have had a moment where they gained that perspective and walked. it's just too close to "they should have known"

as if a single gram of knowledge would clue a person in that someone is an abuser and should be avoided

xp i wasn't suggesting "literally." i was saying like, i don't think someone who wrote a sort of leery lyric in a pop song is more likely to be a sexual abuser than someone who didn't do that, who only wrote christian rock or something

they're independent variables

xp i wasn't suggesting "literally." i was saying like, i don't think someone who wrote a sort of leery lyric in a pop song is more likely to be a sexual abuser than someone who didn't do that, who only wrote christian rock or something

― Trϵϵship, Friday, February 22, 2019 11:03 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

right, this is what I mean by "you can't extrapolate from a record"

that's why i said "as katherine pointed out" in the next post

cool, sorry for misunderstanding

it's ok. i was being sorta redundant

so does jeff tweedy beat women or not

Dreamed about killing someone, and felt all right about it, iirc.

I think it's obviously wrong to say 'we should have known!' but I think conversely it's not wrong to assume that to some extent artists mean what they are saying. Are trying to convey something, which they think is important. I don't think it's wrong to take another look at Adams' lyrics considering what we know now. But I think a weakness in general has been that the cultural sphere has mostly just focused on Adams in the most superfluous way, that he's a bit Gram Parsons, very productive, had a lot of drama. Real critique of his art as art hasn't really taken place anyway.

I think we should ask George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher what he thinks of Ryan Adams' lyrics.

Dreamed about killing someone, and felt all right about it, iirc.

― a large tuna called “Justice” (C. Grisso/McCain)

i'm ok with that song but i fucking hate "she's a jar" and i refuse to listen to it

probably because "via chicago" puts it front and center instead of fucking around with the listener

Mm, 'failed interventions,' you say.

Ryan Adams says he is coming back after facing abuse allegations in February (https://t.co/s3bDvfQzpa)

...his return to social media comes a few weeks after his manager quit when he told her, “I’m not interested in this healing crap” pic.twitter.com/1LqquJoGzN

— Joe Coscarelli (@joecoscarelli) July 20, 2019

(The text sourcing is the ex-manager's IG.)

Countdown to This Is 50, wherein we find out Ryan perved on Rudd & Mann's daughters.

facepalm @ that Adams tweet

read the fkn room, dude

Street justice, Ryley Walker style

I was the one who took a big nasty dump in your trailer at Winnipeg folk festival and stunk the whole thing up. When a tour manager or handler asked if it was me I denied it but it was me https://t.co/b7BbHqZhCs

— Ryley walker (@ryleywalker) July 20, 2019

Apparently the place he's chosen to publish some kind of "apology/confession" one year on is... The Daily Mail.

I've not read it, so the quotes should indicate my ignorance of and skepticism about whatever he's written. What a choice of outlet for his exclusive soul-baring though.

There used to be a big Ryan Adams vs Rhett Miller fued. One turned out to be a narcissistic creep, while the other is a class act, always doing benefits and other philanthropic work. But a Ryan vs Rhett music poll would be interesting

Mandy Moore having none of it:

Mandy Moore talks about her ex-husband Ryan Adams’ public apology over the weekend regarding allegations of abuse. pic.twitter.com/MQ8j2nvY2L

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) July 6, 2020

But a Ryan vs Rhett music poll would be interesting

The first 4-5 Old 97's records have aged way better than Whiskeytown/Heartbreaker, but my tolerance for sadsack white alcoholic shit is at an all time low (Miller was usually funny about it).

I took my friends to see an Old 97s show a couple of years back, at their request, and while I recall being impressed by them way back when this performance just stunk of schtick and we all left early, bummed. Now, Ryan Adams I've never seen be good live, but there are maybe two or three albums of his I like out of, what 30?

you can def compile maybe 4 extremely strong albums from his full discography, I think. Every album has a few great songs.

a Ryan vs. Rhett poll would be worthless bc obviously everyone would vote for the latter because he's not a giant piece of shit, even though personally in the past I was a way bigger fan of the former.

rhett before he became an all-out pretty boy was classic

I will rep for The Instigator over anything of Adams’.

Pathetic little pissbaby

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/ryan-adams-implores-labels-second-chance-social-posts-1235028344/

Paul Rudd’s character in This Is 40 was ready to sign him…

...but then Ryan hit on his daughters.

A perfect indictment of that whole mindset without realizing it! Well done, Apatow!

Also Exile on Meryl Streep, just fuck off, Adams.

https://funvizeo.com/media/memes/ebd65a38e979292d/donnie-snarko-well-well-well-isnt-consequences-actions-meme-df3ca4aee9567df0-6b9ef54ac6fa1786.jpg

literally no one is stopping you from making music anymore, but a lot of people might not want to hear it. you had your business chance and fucked it. go get a regular job like the rest of us and get on with your life.

He'd make a killing on Cameo.