I was planning on a carefree Saturday morning, but it took a much more contempletive tone when “The Shadowlands” played on my stereo. I first heard Ryan Adams quite by accident. My brother loaned me a bunch of his music off his iPod and I just hit shuffle. Not only did “The Shadowlands” impact me, but the whole album was perfectly summed up by it’s title: “Love is Hell”. I’ve never had an album go immediately to my top 25 list (It normally takes at least a year for an album to make it on this prestigous list but it was time for “No Need to Argue” to drop off). After such a powerful experience with Ryan Adam’s music, my hard drive promptly crashed and the album dropped out of sight as quickly as it came.
Just recently, however, a friend mentioned that Ryan Adams was one of his favorites (not to be confused with Bryan Adams who is most definitely NOT on my top 25 album list). It turns out he has a new album out: “29” which did not disappoint. “Love is Hell” still takes the spot, though, for me partially because it was my first listen, but also because it’s a two ep set where every song is worth listening to which is really difficult for an artist to pull off.
Ryan Adam’s music is timeless. Stripped down melodies with simple piano or guitar accompaniments are standard. Every song is packed with raw emotion delivered through a mellow, raspy voice. His one hit single, “New York, New York”, is, as usual, unrepresentative of his music in that it’s poppy and chipper. The single made it’s way farther than it would have were it not for September 11. I was turned off by the single when I first heard it because I’m tired of the facination with one U.S. city while the rest of America’s greatest cities get completely ignored. Now, going back to it after having truly discovered the artist I still don’t like the song. But Ryan Adams has already built a pretty large body of work so there’s plenty to choose from.
Are you looking for the most sublime Saturday morning? Try this on for size:
Sleep in until 10:00am, then get out of bed and fire up the coffee pot. Fix yourself some sizzling bacon. Scramble some eggs and chop up some green onions and tomatoes. Pile the onions & tomatoes, some sour cream and cheese on top of the eggs in a bowl and sit down to an empty table to savor each bite while listening to the 7 minute long track “Straberry Wine” off Ryan Adam’s “29”.
Megan and I went to the