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Ryan Adams - Gold
a review by Jeffrey Overstreet
Heartbreaker stands as one of the most impressive solo debuts I've ever heard. A million broken heart songs are written every day and performed on an acoustic guitar, but almost every track on that album sticks with me like a classic Neil Young tune or something by a young romantic Bob Dylan. Gold hits the stores with fanfare that says 'Ryan Adams has arrived'. And yet, for this listener, it sounds like he's tossed off the hat he wore so well and he's in search of something new. It just doesn't sound like the same artist. Very likely, it's not. Adams has been riding a wave of enthusiastic reviews while still in a very early stage of his solo career, and he's still experimenting. Gold shows him trying new voices, stronger, whinier, reminiscent of John Fogerty and Neil Young. Some of these voices fit okay, some don't. But for my money, he was fine the way he was. Adams left New York and moved to Nashville, the mess he apparently left behind fueling his lyrics. He sounded like a man in the mood to spill his guts after that third drink. Gold sounds like the testimony of a favored son being given his inheritance a bit early; all of these horns, these big guitars, these big lyrics and epic stories sound a bit premature. And Adams' lyrics bring back that all-too-familiar persona of the young reckless loverboy who's planning on burning out before he fades away. (He even has a song about desiring his own "Sylvia Plath". How's that for a doom wish?) It's as though he's convinced that a good rock star can't age well. (He could look to Young or Dylan for proof otherwise.) "Everybody wants to go forever/ I just want to burn up hard and bright," he sings on "Firecracker". Of course, that might just be a character he's playing, but that thread runs through the whole tapestry. This album starts with a nod to New York. (Nice timing. The song is all over the radio as an automatic salute to the terrorism-battered city.) It ends in Hollywood, and he sounds disillusioned with it already in "Goodnight Hollywood Boulevard." Along the way he scores one southern-fried scorcher, "Enemy Fire". "Harder Now that It's Over" is a heavy-hearted story of jail time, handcuffs, and heartbreak... a three-hankie confession, where the prisoner finally regains freedom only to find himself lonely and caged by by hurt when he discovers his love is not waiting for him. "I'm less than nothing now / I'm the one between the bars." It's the album's sharpest arrow. But the rest sound like a deliberate push into some new voice, part John Fogerty, part Neil Young, with some of the loose phrasing of Van Morrison ("Answering Bell" seems custom-written for Van.) It's admirable how much of this he pulls off, and just how long "Nobody's Girl" builds until an irresistable anthem-refrain takes over. I'm not saying Ryan's talents are kaput by any means. He's certainly the most talented singer/songwriter his age I've seen in a good long while; maybe he's the Beck of alt.country. But I get worried browsing through scrapbooks that boast and bemoan a hundred failed romances and a desire to burn oneself out sooner rather than later. I get worried about the artist instead of carried away by the art.
P.S. I recommend, if you pick the album up, find the version with a bonus disc. That four-song EP is, in my opinion, as good as the full album that accompanies it, and shows a more playful and inventive side of Adams' talents.
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