OK, so my Ryan Adam's Reviews are ready to roll. And I even had time to run out and pick up 29 today hot off the shelf.... granted I should have left it on the shelf.
I'll start off with a critique of Demolition. Crabby had said this was his favorite Ryan Adams... frankly it might be his only ryan adams cd. My history with Adams began with me picking up Gold at unclaimed baggage for 2.50 and loving it from first listen. I then picked up the Love is Hell series and thought it was pretty good. Then with the whole tripple play this year I was basking in some serious ryan adams. I'd heard Demolition before, almost bought it a few times, but never did.
Well I've given it a few listens and I can see why its Crabb's favorite. Crabb seems to be a different music fan than me, I'm a fan of bands; through good cds and bad. Crabb's music tastes have a definate style that can almost be traced from band to band. Its almost all his CDs make sense as a group. Me I have tons of CDs by a few bands and very few in far between. I have most of the REM collection, most of the U2 collection, Most of the Tom Petty Collection, the three best INXS albums, I used to have most of the Dave Matthews collection but got rid of it as I got tired of it. I used to have oddly enough a couple of Rusted Root cds. I have a good number of smashing pumpkins cds, Eve 6... anyway I usually find a few bands and stick to them and ride their rise and fall of music popularity. Adams is no different, though I still lack a few key albums.
Well Demolition is now mine. Nuclear is a great song to start a CD off with. It reminds me of Gold and New York and oddly enough U2's Vertigo all three start of with these great more up beat songs that sort of stand out among the rest of the record. Desire, Cry on Demand, and Starting to Hurt... might be the best three songs in a row on an album ever... I'm not sure but man that's a powerful three songs that hit you one after another.
And you know I think he might be right... Tennessee does Suck sometimes. An interesting song with some great imagery and a kind of a funny chorus.
Dear Chicago is so much like a Boss song that its erie. You can close your eyes and see the Boss singing it, its such a Bosslike song that it could almost be seen as a rip off. But its great.
Gimme A Sign starts off like a Bon Jovi song or something, its weird, but a cool song.
But all the songs are good, a perfect CD of sorts, no real skippers. Though I think Gold is just as good and can't really differentiate which I think might be better, and Cold Roses is actually up there. I may never have a favorite, I still struggle with picking a favorite U2 cd.
Well all that accolade said about one of his CDs.... now we turn to 29....
Wow this CD was pretty awful, I was pretty ticked off the first time I listened to it. I had read a ton of reviews and a lot of people likened it to Demolition... these people must have been listening to Demolition because it really doesn't have many similarities. Its a rather short CD, only 9 songs.
29 seems like a variation of Beautiful Sorta from Cold Roses. It has the same tone and sound to it... has he gotten to ripping his own material off?
Strawberry Wine (the next song) is a long 8 minute song that pretty much sounds like Ryan on a ucilelee (its a guitar but it sounds bad) just sort of slowly lullabying his way through a song, its pretty long and dull.
Night Bird seems like a reject from Love is Hell and does some funky echo stuff towards the end. It wakes you up, which is good because this song will bore you and put you to sleep up to the echo part.
Then there's Blue Sky Blues, a piano medly that is quiet and slow but a little sleepy.
Carolina Rain... this is supposed to be the Demolitionesque song... its not. It lacks anything to make it stand out, it'd be a filler song on any other cd.
Starlite Diner... boring
The Sadness... has almost a Desperado feel to it, but alas its long 6:43 and is not all that great. It needs something to kick it up a notch.
And yeah the rest of it sucks as well.
I was listening to it while gaming today and finally a song came on that I was really like, "Finally a great song on this blasted CD..." It was Nuclear on Demolition... whoops, looks like no great songs on 29.
Its sad really it just comes across as a real weak performance and songs that lack true depth and emotion. The Lyrics might have it but the music is so bad that the lyrics are really lost. I mean people will be bored if they listen to this CD. It might find its way to Mckay's very fast. Not sure. I might keep it just for the sake of keeping it but unless it pops on my shuffle I won't be pulling it off the self for a spin.
Posted by holtonian at December 28, 2005 11:19 PM | TrackBackThe greatest song Ryan Adams ever wrote was "Come Pick Me Up," and I think it was on an album called Heartbreaker. I hope you have that one...
Posted by: Micah at February 27, 2006 09:27 PM