Ryan Adams

Item: Rock n Roll
Author: Steve Stockman

Rock n Roll

(2003)

Reviewed by Steve Stockman

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Label Lost Highway RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2003

alternative rock garage rock power pop

Stocki finds The Strokes, U2 and Nirvana lurking in the new Ryan Adams album, warns of its din to sensitive ears but questions the expectations of the music critic.

It is hard for the young rock 'n' roll star. The Rolling Stones have hardly changed their formula in 40 years but the young guns in a generation that is conditioned towards attention deficiency and change by their always having a television remote control in their hands have to reinvent themselves every new release. We are the flickaholic generation and it shapes the rock critics expectations. After breaking up Whiskeytown, who had already made at least two classic albums (Strangers Almanac and Pneumonia), Ryan Adams, by the time was in his mid twenties, had released three solo albums of varying textures and hues but all with one thing in common; his genius! Adams toured solo and as a near-punk rocker, he seems to have written eons of songs that would have been left on the shelf ten years ago but live on through downloading in one form or another off the web. He is so big he has arrived at the door of the begrudgers who know they have built him up with the next-big-thing story. Yet now they need to change their story to yesterdays-star-turns-crap in order to sell press to that attention deficient generation.

So arrives Rock n Roll. It is almost as if Mr Adams wants to play into the critics' hands. Maybe the hint was the title of his previous release; the out-takes album Demolition. Adams seems to want to deconstruct and boy, does he. This straight ahead, stripped back rock 'n' roll, which is what he labels it just so as we might not be taken by surprise, is somewhat of a departure. The critics were bound to hate it or were they just glad they had a bone to chew on in bringing him down to the size he was before they started to elevate him to Parsons proportions?

Adams and listeners are more and more acutely aware that the man is a little too talented for his own good. Or again, maybe we have been distracted by the critics and their good! He can turn his hand to too many genres and styles. He can be Bob Dylan or the Strokes, Gram Parsons or U2. It must be hard to decide when so many options are available. Born with a remote control in his strumming hand also makes it difficult for him to not be constantly on the move, which is probably why Whiskeytown ended way too quickly.

Getting away from Adams genius to the actual music recorded and sold, you can hear the disgruntled reviews from the first very loud riff. Yet what you can also hear is the very same spirit that has made the Strokes the Ryan Adams of today. There even seems a nod in their direction in the song being called "This Is It." He does live in the same city, shares a building, and for a time, a management company with New York's new punk rockers. Had Adams brought this album out first and then headed towards an Exile On Main Street or Grievous Angel, would the past and present tense ink of the critics' nib written very different reviews?

You can never say it too often; this is loud and it does rock. A few songs begin with guitar riffs that cause the listener to wonder if the cover has mistakenly dropped a B from the Ryan, but don't fear. By halfway through verse one it is very clear which Adams this is! As well as the Strokes, there are moments, like on "So Alive," when he has stolen Edge's echo chamber and added it to a Morrisey vocal. Kurt Cobains' ghost haunts not only in the grungy ragged vocal chorus of "Shallow" but the wondering with a song like "Note To Self: Don't Die," as if Adams is on some self destruct roller coaster. There are also more familiar structures as in "Wish You Were Here," "Burning Photographs" and "Anybody Wanna Take Me Home."

In the end, Adams is putting his penchant for melody and prolific songwriting abilities onto another musical template. It is likely to be more momentary than Heartbreaker, Gold or Strangers Almanac and there are a few songs that do not grab the attention as Adams so often does but this is nothing more than a direction change, don't fear any of loss of form. Some of his fans have ears that will be offended by the din but we should never confuse taste with quality. Though this album steals its influences from various cult bands of the past 20 years, it sits snuggly alongside the Strokes, White Stripes et al in the time of its creation with some killer tunes strewn across it. It is almost Adams starting to act his age and compete with his peers.

Strangers Almanac never seemed like a twenty three year old record; Ryan Adams was so much older then but he's younger than that now!

Steve Stockman