Ryan Adams

you just have to mean it.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ryan-adams-on-his-full-album-taylor-swift-cover-you-just-have-to-mean-it-20150921

ok calling this a "novelty-free endeavor" is either reaaalll tongue-in-cheek or just absurd

(this thread was also started 10 years ago and it took 6 years for someone to revive it. i'm not the only person not thinking about him around here...)

There are probably two dozen Ryan Adams threads, I'm pretty sure at least one other was active before today.

This album is definitely a novelty, so I think by "novelty-free endeavor" someone might mean it's not ironic. Which it is not. Which, of course, means it is. (Though it isn't)

i have zero intention of giving this the time of day because acoustic indie covers of pop songs can go fuck themselves always & forever...

― lex pretend, Monday, September 21, 2015

oh please

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

I really like most cover versions from the Speak Now tour, even the lamest ones sounded earnest. Her "Summer of 69" cover is a total highlight.

This improves on the second listen, with diminished expectations. Getting to track #10 wasn't as difficult as the first time.

Even though the arrangements in this version of the album sound more unified than the original, in Swift's version there was a sense of progression from track 1 to 13 that's missing here. The original sounded like there was a story unfolding; this one goes for more of an atmosphere or a kind of mood, but I find it more aimless.

So much hate. I like it a lot.

I can't stop listening to it, I love it

I'm even warming up to 'Style'

i am just coming by to say I love that he turned Welcome to New York into a Springsteen song, it was so obvious looking back now but it kinda delighted me

― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, September 21, 2015

OTM

his version of 'out of the woods' makes me like hers a bit more now, i never took to it til now

― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, September 21, 2015

man i can hear a kate bush cover of his cover of into the woods dying to get out and it is incredible. or tori.

what is "how you get the girl" reminding me of?
there's springsteen in the vocal and "re:stacks" in the guitar but there's also a specific song i can't place...

xpost ooh good call re kate bush

lol at my freudian on "out of the woods"

everyone's namechecking born to run-era springsteen on "welcome to new york" and i listen to the melody and hear "no surrender"

There's one remake with rim taps that reminded me of "I'm on Fire." Which is that?

that would be "shake it off"

and you would be otm

what is "how you get the girl" reminding me of?
there's springsteen in the vocal and "re:stacks" in the guitar but there's also a specific song i can't place...

― resulting post (rogermexico.), Tuesday, September 22, 2015

omg it's "black boys on mopeds"

okay imma stop livetweeting here but this is his best record i'n'it?

I'm On Fire/Shake It Off killed me, like i had to repeat it a couple of times because i was so into it

I have liked Adams for along time but I dont think I've ever flipped out this hard for a whole album of his before

it helps that i like 1989 a lot already though too. i think if you are lukewarm on both it's a bigger leap to get there

I've only listened once and it was with my daughter, but I liked everything I heard. I'm also a long time Ryan Adams fan, and love 1989. My daughter refers to Taylor Swift as "Her Style" and seemed amused to hear a guy singing Her Style songs.

Man this is good.

Anyone who likes this and hasn't heard the self titled, do yourself a huge favor and check it out.

I heard S/T back when it came out and it didn't do much for me, but I'll give it another shot.

i slogged my way through this in the end, did it over the course of two days because i lost the will to live midway through. what a terrible album. i can't tell if he's murdered all of the original melodies deliberately or bc he just can't sing

(i actually had...not high hopes, but hopes, after "welcome to new york", which is indeed much better and even nearly acceptable! then, the rest of it.)

oh lexpaws

btw the intro to "all you had to do was stay" = "just like heaven"

the guitar riff at the beginning of bad blood is wonderwall

read the rolling stone thing today where he said he started doing it by himself with a 4-track a la Nebraska but then went into a studio instead. he also said he had no intention of releasing it and that he was just gonna make it and play it for taylor and be done with it. which i totally don't believe.

― scott seward, Tuesday, September 22, 2015 12:35 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i totally believe this i have a half dozen bootlegged unreleased albums, this could totally be another

he did cover all of Is This It and it's never been released. So it's not like he doesn't have previous

My daughter refers to Taylor Swift as "Her Style" and seemed amused to hear a guy singing Her Style songs.

― JacobSanders, Wednesday, September 23, 2015 1:15 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is adorable

I gave up on him from gold onwards but akm is quite right aboug love is hell, it is pretty good. He often reminds me of jeff buckley there. Another diva. Btw the title track is one of the weaker songs.

― it's the distortion, stupid! (alex in mainhattan), Monday, September 21, 2015 8:44 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i definitely hear love is hell as a precursor for this, he always said it was his morrissey record

"This Love" is like the greatest Sam Smith song ever. And this is just me reading into it, but in his version it strikes me as not a love song but a guy deciding not to commit suicide. Like someone on the other side of a midlife crisis, re-engaging with life.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21101-1989/
Don't agree with Richardson but I think he wrote a very good review

The strained effort and feeling with which he sings the last chorus of 'Style' is exhilirating and puzzling...'we never go out of style'...it sounds like he's pleading for his life...as a listener I feel like consoling him somehow...'ok man, don't worry about it. You won't.'

Time for a reality check for that metacritic score.

that was an admirably straightforward review.

Swift's 1989 songs are written for a specific kind of production—the melodies are clipped, percussive, and designed to hit with force at very specific times. They are written to be electro-pop songs, which rely more on big dynamic changes and repeating cells of melody.

I don't think this is true of most of the album, is the thing. I think it's more the reverse -- they were largely written as Taylor Swift songs, and then retooled and polished as Max Martin productions. Which is why I think the Adams version of "Blank Space" works just fine (even though I think Richardson's right about "Shake It Off"). And the mid-tempo songs, which aren't all that electro-pop on Taylor's album anyway, adapt easily to Ryan's settings.

I don't love the Ryan record, but I like it, and the best 5-6 tracks off of it I think work really well.

they were largely written as Taylor Swift songs

I don't know – this album feels more like a full-on collaboration between Swift + Shellbck + Martin, et. al instead of "Here's some songs, add drum machines to them."

I don't think this is true of most of the album, is the thing. I think it's more the reverse -- they were largely written as Taylor Swift songs, and then retooled and polished as Max Martin productions...

― something totally new, it’s the AOR of the twenty first century (tipsy mothra), Friday, September 25, 2015

Exactly. It's an especially weird position to take given the sentence that comes before, which is kind of the point of the entire exercise: "Every recorded song is the end point of a long road with many possible forks in it—a series of small decisions about chord changes, melody lines, lyrics, and arrangements."

I don't love the Ryan record, but I like it, and the best 5-6 tracks off of it I think work really well.

Can I agree with this and still believe it's among his best records? He's never not done concept albums (the Dylan record, the 70s rock record, the 80s rock record, the Grateful Dead record, the Nashville record etc etc) and this feels of a piece with that project but while I know the sequencing was debated endlessly in the 1989 thread, his 1989 benefits from the original's tight curation.

Everyone's always saying he needs an editor, and what makes this work as a Ryan Adams record is that he doesn't have an opportunity to cover the compositions that didn't make the final cut.

xpost Not like that, more like "here are some demos with me and a guitar, do the thing you do with them."

xpost Yeah, if this were a Ryan Adams album proper it would be twice as long, with original Adams songs in the style of Taylor Swift.

Though as even my lil' daughter (who is not a big fan of Swift's 1989, for some reason) noticed, presented as guy with guitar songs as opposed to big productions really shines a light on the weakness of the lyrics when they lose the top 40 turbo boost.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, September 25, 2015 7:48 AM

pfft what does your lil' daughter know. the lyrics are great. what does she want Jason Mraz?

Man, I'll take Nobel Laureate poet Swift over almost everything else she and her peers like these days.

the Dylan record

which one is this?

Heartbreaker

cool!