2000: Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker

Hmm, what a load of Rs. This is the last of the Rs, fans of the RZA's solo work will be disappointed to hear. And it's another North American turn-of-the-century wunderkind, often accused of lacking quality control, who went to New York, tried to make it his own and was scarred by the experience. Rufus and Ryan were probably at a few of the same parties back in the day but despite whatever superficial similarities I might point out, they don't sound anything like each other.

Ryan Adams is country. Country for people who don't like country, who like punk and classic rock and power pop and folk and would sooner listen to pretty much anything else than Garth Brooks. He's made a lot of mistakes in his career, rubbed people up the wrong way, stuck with the wrong name and complained too much about it, put out too much, lost momentum and good will, got some terrible reviews and fallen far off the cool list - I sometimes feel as embarrassed about owning up to being a Ryan Adams fan as I do the Manic Street Preachers.

But a fan I am. This is someone who has done a lot of songs I love. So many fine songs. But how many fine albums? That's often seen as the problem. Too many albums, not enough wholly satisfying ones. This, his solo debut, is really the only one which has achieved pretty universal critical acclaim, and having made such a striking start, it's understandable that he engenders disappointment in some quarters.

This, 'Heartbreaker', just works perfectly, from its off-the-cuff Mariah Carey-inspired title to its banterous beginning to its woebegone ending. The supporting cast is, of course, impeccable. Who wouldn't make a great album with Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Ethan Johns, David Rawlings, Pat Sansone etc? ... I wouldn't, and you wouldn't and everyone we know wouldn't, but, you know ...

That opening banter leads into the stomping, simple 'To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)' which, somehow, even after all these years, is still Ryan Adams' greatest song. Who knew it wouldn't quite ever sound so carefree again?

A red herring, they called it, not representative of the mood of the album.  I suppose that's true, though the next few keep the standard up, Winding Wheel, Amy and Oh My Sweet Carolina. Indeed, the whole first half of the album is pretty flawless - the heart of the album is Damn, Sam, I Love a Woman that Rains and Come Pick Me Up, which is up there with To Be Young. Right then, everything Ryan Adams is touching is turning to gold. Miserable gold. [I'll get on to Gold.]

The second half, for me, contains a few too many funereal moans, all splendid in their own right, but a little too indistinguishable, though anyone drifting off will be woken up by Shakedown on 9th Street.

All in all, if anyone listening to this didn't think a star was born, they're either dumber or smarter than me. Ryan Adams will have heard it, and I think he thought a star was born.

So he tried to make an album a star would make, said 'Gold'. I think he kind of succeeded, though many don't. 'Gold' was a reference-heavy, wildly ambitious trip through the modern American songbook. It's a bit too long, it is, though he thinks it's too short.

That's the trouble. So many good songs though.

'Gold' was still Uncut's Album of the Year for 2001. It was hardly a critical flop. The critical flops were to come. The problem, for me, with a lot of Ryan Adams albums was their genre specificity - this is my country album, this is my rock album, this is my impressionistic one. There's a lot to be said for creating a unity, but equally there's a lot to be said for being patient and putting all the best songs you've got in one album and then knocking it together into a unity, as opposed to coming up with the unity beforehand then making the songs follow that.

Of all the genres he's attempted, from country to folk to punk to metal to country-rock to rock'n'roll, for me it's his powerpop that I love the best - the cheesy rocking ones with hooks. His U2 pastiche 'So Alive' is worth more than that band's whole career to me.

He endures, and is actually more successful than ever. His last three albums have all had solid critical notices and Top 20 placings and are all pretty fine, though not as spectacular as either 'Heartbreaker' or 'Gold'.

The wisdom of his prodigious workrate and prolific release schedule is questionable, of course it is, but all I'll say that there are now hundreds of Ryan Adams songs available and lots of them are very good, and I found knocking this compilation down to size extremely tricky.

To be Young (Is to be Sad, is to be High)
Halloweenhead
Mirror, Mirror - Whiskeytown
Oh My Sweet Carolina
New York, New York
Magick
So Alive
Gonna Make You Love Me More
Come Pick Me Up
Avalanche
Shakedown on 9th Street
Drank Like a River - Whiskeytown
My Winding Wheel
Damn Sam, I Love a Woman That Rains
I See Monsters
Nuclear
Stop
Rock and Roll
Don't Be Sad - Whiskeytown
Nobody Girl