Ryan Adams: Heartbreaker
Anybody who grew up with rock music knows the trepidation with which one should approach a Solo Album, especially anybody who ever bought a Roger Daltry, Robert Plant, or Ringo Starr album. These poor victims inevitably greet the news of a Solo Project with one word: "Why?" Once in a while the record is worth having, and the odd time it's wonderful. But more often than not, the songs sound like the original band with a piece or two missing. Which is all to say, I did not buy this album right away.All I can say now is that I guessed wrong; I should have been in line for this one. Heartbreaker is a fantastic record, and takes Ryan Adams deeper into Country country, again. After the lush, romantic, large-band country-rock of Strangers Almanac (Whiskeytown), this is stark, spare, haunted, and beautiful.
The songwriting is really impressive, again, and makes me hope we have a long time ahead to enjoy Ryan Adams' brain. While the tone of the record is consistent song to song, the song structures vary nicely, from bootstomper ("To Be Young") to psychedelia ("AMY") to devastating torch song ("Call Me on Your Way Back Home"). True to form, Adams' lyrics are imagistic, spiced with clear pleas and the metaphors he writes like nobody's business: "I feel just like a map without a single place to go of interest," ... "Eyes that dance around without their clothes" ("My Winding Wheel").
Studio frills are used tastefully (check out the minimal, poignant strings on "AMY"). While the album sounds off-the-floor immediate, every sound seems to have been considered in the mix. The album loses a little steam near the end, but what can you do? Still, this may have been the best record of 2000. Certainly one of them. Pick this up.
(The only hazard, of course, is having to ask for it. Bypass the whole, loud "Yeah, we have tons of Bryan Adams!" record-store-clerk-situation by stressing the "the guy from Whiskeytown?" part of your sentence. Or just fuck it and yell it loud. Buy Cuts Like a Knife and Heartbreaker in one go. Have a ball.)
Ryan Adams: Heartbreaker. Bloodshot, 2000.
Review by jep. 2nd issue, March 2001.