any ryan adams fans?

[tpfkabi]

I've seen that YouTube link on probably 5 official music news websites. He may have linked it on his Twitter even. I'm pretty sure that's a bootleg stream, and from what I've read, it plays the album twice, so it's really about 15 mins long. I guess the Vevo logo on the screen grab and the word 'Official' is fooling everybody. These damn 7" selling out is pissing me off. The Jacksonville one, with 3 non album tracks, doesn't come out until next week and Amazon already says unavailable.

[polkablues]

1984 is available to buy digitally now, on iTunes at any rate. And you're right, the whole album is about 15 minutes long; I wasn't paying close enough attention when I wrote that.

[tpfkabi]

A lot of legit music websites are promoting it as 30 mins, too.
It was released physically on 7" and those can't even hold that much music.

Just re-read the thread. If you've followed his new interviews just this week, a lot of the same subjects were brought up and cleared up.

Because Lost Highway decided to release Demolition, it will probably prevent the unreleased album box set from ever coming out. He owns all the unreleased stuff, but he can't put out the complete sessions because Universal owns the tracks on Demolition. I would think they would work with him, because that would mean more money for them, but maybe because of the sour relationship he doesn't want to work with them?

I finally gave Rock n Roll another chance, and I have been enjoying it.

Of course, now there is a new $100,000 unreleased album he recorded with the Glyn Johns after Ashes & Fire that he didnt want to release because he was doing what the producer want him to do and it just wasn't what he wanted to put out.

Also sounds like he will release an album called Blackhole that has never leaked - the last album he wrote while still on drugs.

Everyone still like...
INTO THE OOOOOCCEEEEAAAANNNNN
?

[polkablues]

A lot of legit music websites are promoting it as 30 mins, too.
It was released physically on 7" and those can't even hold that much music.

You are correct. Nobody (including me) did their homework on that one.

Just re-read the thread. If you've followed his new interviews just this week, a lot of the same subjects were brought up and cleared up.

I recommend the Buzzfeed interview from a couple days ago. He definitely seems a lot more open than in the past.

Because Lost Highway decided to release Demolition, it will probably prevent the unreleased album box set from ever coming out. He owns all the unreleased stuff, but he can't put out the complete sessions because Universal owns the tracks on Demolition. I would think they would work with him, because that would mean more money for them, but maybe because of the sour relationship he doesn't want to work with them?

I have a feeling he has no intention of ever working with Lost Highway again. From the sounds of things, those bridges are well burned. I don't see any reason he couldn't just release a box set of the complete recordings minus the tracks that were on Demolition. If people want those songs, they already have Demolition.

I finally gave Rock n Roll another chance, and I have been enjoying it.

I still love it so much. It takes me back to a time when all of his albums had distinct personalities, which died around the time of Easy Tiger.

Everyone still like...
INTO THE OOOOOCCEEEEAAAANNNNN
?

ALWAYS.

[polkablues]

So I'm pretty sure this Taylor Swift cover album is my favorite thing Ryan Adams has recorded in the past decade. There are a couple misses ("I Know Places" and "Bad Blood", specifically), but the high points are so fucking high.

Adams took the most bubblegummy pop song off of Taylor Swift's album and turned it into an achingly sincere rock song. It's perfect. I could listen to this song endlessly. Probably his best vocal performance since the 29 album.

One of Swift's best songs in its original version, Adams keeps it fairly faithful, most notably turning the modern pop hook in the chorus into this beautiful Roy Orbison falsetto bit.

Probably the worst song on Swift's album, and he turns it into a lost Heartbreaker track. You feel the bass in the bottom of your gut; it's awesome.

Ryan Adams is a goddamn wizard.

[Jeremy Blackman]

I previewed that on iTunes a week or two ago and was very intrigued. I should listen to the whole thing. I kind of wish he had done Red, though, which (I think) is a better album.

[modage]

I agree. It's my favorite thing from him in a decade. The weakest songs for me are the ones where the lyrics seem to be strettttching the most to fit into his style (Blank Space, Bad Blood) but he definitely improves on some of her weakest songs (Welcome To New York, Clean) and makes them some of his best. I like "I Know Places" but agree it doesn't touch hers, my faves are Wildest Dreams, Style and especially This Love which includes the emotional high point of the entire album "When you're young, you run!" (x3)

[polkablues]

I don't think he ever cracked the code to I Know Places. What makes the original song work so well is that dynamic shift between the tense, driving minor-key verses and the big, open major-key chorus; it creates this great sense of pessimism building and building and then just getting shoved aside by optimism. Ryan Adams' version keeps the minor/major shift, but you never get a sense that it knows why it's doing it.

Contrast that to songs like All You Had to Do Was Stay or This Love, where it feels like Adams understands the meaning and intention of the song on a far deeper level than Taylor Swift does.

[modage]

Yeah, that's what I really like about it. Once you get over him changing some of the inflections and timing of the best bits, you realize it's because he's not doing this ironically but because he really internalized the songs and spit them out as legitimate Ryan Adams songs. (Reading the backstory about him playing it endlessly while he was going through his divorce and how he thinks this'll be a legit-fan favorite like Love Is Hell makes it even better.)

[Jeremy Blackman]

There was a very lively discussion/debate of this on Slate's Culture Gabfest. Highly recommend listening to it. Starts at 16:48.

http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/culturegabfest/2015/09/slate_s_culture_gabfest_on_how_to_get_away_with_murder_ryan_adams_1989_and.html

This touches on 2 issues that are gradually becoming pet peeves of mine:

Their guest (Jody Rosen) has a thing about musical authenticity being a myth. I think he tries to bring it up in every conversation. Annoying. Can we really not say that some artists are less authentic and more performative than others? He likes to throw the whole issue out because "the concept of musical authenticity is ahistorical." Such a weirdly black and white position for a journalist to take.

Three out of four of the people in the conversation are smart about this, thankfully, but it's still a deeply bothersome issue: There is a surprising amount of skepticism about Taylor Swift's authorship and her control over her own destiny, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It strikes me that people don't believe she can actually write her own songs or be a savvy businessperson because she's a pretty girl.

[Garam]

A calculator from the mid 80s could write her songs. She is appalling, and the continued lauding of her talent is baffling. I mean I wouldn't willingly listen to Lady Gaga, but I recognise that she has talent and intelligence and that it's kind of cool that something that mildly weird got such mainstream acceptance. Swift's stuff is just 90s cheese repackaged for kids that were too young to get into Spice Girls. Don't get it.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Listen, I don't think either of us fall in her demographic, and I'm not exactly a big fan. But I think her talent (songwriting included) is in fact undeniable, and I'm happy that she's successful. Lady Gaga on the other hand is insufferable and ("Born This Way" aside) has been a corrosive force in culture; it doesn't please me that she was ever famous.

[polkablues]

It's been pretty clear for a while that Ryan Adams is an asshole on a lot of levels, but his music meant enough to me that I tried really hard for a long time to look past it, and to assume the worst rumors about his treatment of women were exaggerated. I'm done with that now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/arts/music/ryan-adams-women-sex.html

[Reelist]

Mandy Moore is on WTF today, where she talks about her marriage to Ryan Adams