Ryan Adams
Heartbreaker
[Bloodshot]
Rating: 9.0
Ryan Adams, part-time solo musician, full-time frontman of indie-country
band Whiskeytown, is from North Carolina. As chance has it, I happen to be
from North Carolina, too. Adams hails from a city you've probably never
heard of, a little pit-stop on the way to the beach called Jacksonville.
I've lived most of my life in a tin-shack of a town called Lumberton, only
two hours from Jacksonville by highway. Both towns are small geographical
afterthoughts, and about as "southern" as any place you're likely to find
in modern-day America.
You have to understand, "southern" no longer means cotton fields, plantations
and beautiful belles waiting to escort you to Big Daddy's formal ball. Still,
despite all the changes history has brought us, three things remain true about
the south:
1) It's boring here. There's nothing to do, nowhere to go.
2) The south is beautiful, all small towns and miles of lush, green fields.
3) It's where all the good music you've ever heard was born. Soul, rock,
country, blues, all of 'em from south of the Mason-Dixon line.
In the south, the good music is like sunshine-- you just can't escape it.
This is the place Ryan Adams and I both call home-- this boring, but melodic,
pit of despair. So is it any wonder that Adams, a young man of only 27 years,
is able to craft an album as stark and as enjoyably bleak as Heartbreaker?
Singing in a voice that's just filthy with despair, Adams delivers his first
solo album with the practiced swagger and genuine hurt of a veteran country
crooner. A startling 15-song masterpiece, Heartbreaker is a drinker's
album, an ode to sadness that deals exclusively with all the dark and dirty
corners of the human heart. It's music written in the language of loneliness,
depression, and, above all, heartbreak, in all its varied forms. And it
makes perfect sense that this should be Adams' first solo album, as-- aside
from a couple of notable collaborations-- the material here is far too
personal and focused to have been produced by anything but one man with one
soul.
Heartbreaker shows Ryan Adams sweeping all of the clichés of mass-
produced, "new country" under the rug and tapping into everything that makes
genuine country music unique and beautiful: raw emotion, deep groove and
clever storytelling. There are no simple, melodramatic, commercial-ready
ballads here; the music is too deeply rooted in old-school country music,
folk-rock songs and bluegrass jams to produce anything that predictable. With
that musical philosophy firmly in place, it stands to reason that each track
on the album is a gem, showcasing Adams' considerable songwriting ability and
a way with words that most musicians would sell their spines to possess.
The record begins with the misleadingly upbeat "To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is
to Be High)," a swinging bluegrass number that wouldn't sound out of place
in a honky-tonk. But Adams gets to the business of bringing us down soon
enough. When Adams sings, "I just want to die without you," on "Call Me on
Your Way Back Home," orphans run out into the street and weep. For "Damn,
Sam (I Love a Woman That Rains)," Adams calls on the patron saints of sparse
folk music and lyrical tomfoolery while channeling the troubadour vocals of
early Bob Dylan to produce one of Heartbreaker's lighter, but better,
tracks. Still, even this stylistic similarity is superficial, as the blood-
and-guts of the song are all his own.
Adams continues his winning streak by making great use of a rare cameo by
country-rock legend Emmylou Harris on "Oh My Sweet Carolina," as Harris'
trademark falsetto blends beautifully with Adams' own rich vocals for a
simple, affecting song about one man's longing to return home. "Come Pick Me
Up," a track about a man struggling with a bad relationship and pining for his
cheating girlfriend weighs in as the album's most affecting moment. Gluing
crushing lyrics to undeniably catchy drum riffs, greasy guitar work and
soulful harmonica playing, the song is five minutes and thirteen seconds of
damn near perfect music.
There's nothing terribly complex or tricky about Heartbreaker. In fact,
it's probably one of the simplest, most straightforward albums you'll hear all
year. But this album wasn't written to be complex. It isn't electronica designed
to tickle your cerebral cortex. It isn't music to figure out. It's music to
feel to. It's music to drink alone to. And it's sadder than witnessing your
grandmother's burial.
Heartbreaker is the soundtrack to the last ten minutes of any relationship
you've ever watched crumble before your eyes. It's music for the ruined romantic
in all of us. Usually, that little romantic simply sits quietly, tearfully
watching everything disappear without so much as a single complaint. But on
Heartbreaker, Ryan Adams has not only convinced that voice to speak,
he's taught it to sing. The result is an album of astonishing musical
proficiency, complete honesty and severe beauty.
-Steven Byrd