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=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: Game Show Host on November 10, 2003, 03:16:00 pm
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Never seen him live before. Wondered whether he's worth checking out.
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Hell no i'm not going!!!!!!!! But i did get stuck buying three tickets for three females at work.....The things a guy will do!!!!!!!! :roll:
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I have a friend RAVING about his new album. So I may end up checking that show out.
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pitchfork shit all over his new album
http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/a/adams_ryan/rock-n-roll.shtml (http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/a/adams_ryan/rock-n-roll.shtml)
But then again pitchfork usually shits all over anything remotely connected to alt-country...that act like Ryan was never even in another band before he started his solo career.
I've heard a couple of new songs...pretty mediocre, but not too horrible. But I will agree with pitchfork that he is wasted talent who hasn't done anything worthwhile since his solo debut. He has slept with both Leona Naess and Parker Posey, which I guess some would consider an accomlishment.
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Did anyone catch him in D.C. last year? I think he sold out two shows, about a year ago.
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Ryan Adams is my guilty pleasure, so I will be going to the show. That said, I listen to the new Rock N Roll album, and I find it pretty disappointing. Lyrics bordering on the silly and all too familiar guitar parts. I think Ryan has a lot more potential for creativity than what is on the record.
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Damn, that's all really odd. This guy who is LOVING this album so much is into metal and britpop. He's into some pretty good stuff, so I'm surprised. But I didn't run right out and buy the album, so.....
I'll probably go to the show for fun.
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It is definitely a lot more rockin than his other stuff. I don't hate it. I just think it could be so much more. But that is all after only one listen, so maybe it will improve...
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Well, I wasn't into "The Meadowlands" for the first two listens, now I think it's a classic. So give it another try....and let me know!
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Will do. I also want to see what the Love is Hell albums are like. I do like him in concert.
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i'll most likely be there, i have seen him twice and he was great both times. not crazy about the new album but still gonna go.
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I went to the first night and watched from the balcony. It was a seated show for those on the floor.
Ryan was drunk and/or high (as usual) and played solo for about 90 minutes...played stuff from Gold (including the bonus CD), Heartbreaker and songs he wrote 20 minutes before hitting the stage.
The stage was set to look like a living room (chair, rug, end table w/bottle of wine) complete with a record player. He played a couple of records and then would toss them to the audience, including the balcony.
All that said, it was a good show.
I saw Leona Naess when she opened for Ryan in Philly at the Electric Factory. Meh. She fucked up two songs, started them over and then fucked up again. Guess I'm less tolerant of opening acts who fuck up.
Originally posted by Game Show Host:
Did anyone catch him in D.C. last year? I think he sold out two shows, about a year ago.
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oh yes, i'll be there. i see him every time he's here. or at least try to. olssons has the love is hell ep for $5.99 on sale. i just picked it up on my way home.
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Notice it's usually girls that like Ryan Adams? And then it's often girls that really aren't even into alt-country. I guess Ryan's just got that cheesy bad boy image fine tuned just right. :)
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Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
Notice it's usually girls that like Ryan Adams? And then it's often girls that really aren't even into alt-country. I guess Ryan's just got that cheesy bad boy image fine tuned just right. :)
Rhett, are you - gasp - jealous ? ;)
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I'm going to the 9:30 show. Interesting comment by Rhett, since it is my significant other (female) that really wants to see him.
I haven't seen him since back during Whiskeytown days so I am a bit interested to see what he has become - he was quite shy back then. @ one show he had to run offstage and puke he was so nervous. And he signed a poster for my friend with "I look like such a geek". Pretty funny
Maybe I'll try that "Summer of 69" heckle. :D
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I much prefer the Love is Hell EP to the Rock N Roll record. It's much more what you'd expect. He's got a cover Wonderwall on it.
For what it's worth though, Rock N Roll is getting pretty stellar reviews in many other sources.
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What do women see in him
<img src="http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38308000/jpg/_38308731_queen_adams150.jpg" alt=" - " />
now please caption me that.
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hmmm, that show sold out pretty fast i think, for Ryan Adams. His new song "so alive" is ok, but....why is HFS sponsoring that? do they play Ryan Adams on HFS?
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Originally posted by markie:
What do women see in him
<img src="http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38308000/jpg/_38308731_queen_adams150.jpg" alt=" - " />
now please caption me that.
is that Bryan Adams? or do they look exactly the same?
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Originally posted by sonickteam2:
is that Bryan Adams? or do they look exactly the same?
there is a difference?
<img src="http://www.ubuilder.com/larrybence/login/images/upload/addamsfamilypostersmall.jpg" alt=" - " />
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Well, I typically agree with the Washington Post's music reviews 95% of the time. I'm guessing they probably hit the nail on the head with this one.
Ryan Adams: So Much Music, So Little to Say
By Allison Stewart
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, November 12, 2003; Page C05
Even in a profession where behaving badly is part of the point, Ryan Adams impresses. In the years since he served as frontman for the alt-country Whiskeytown, Adams has devolved into a great, querulous cartoon of a rock star: a swinging, tormented baby Dylan or a determinedly loutish faux Gram Parsons or both, depending on how you look at it.
Adams is an alarmingly prolific issuer of double albums that should have been single ones, of side projects and demos and B-sides, all tossed into the marketplace with a heedlessness that suggests he doesn't know the difference between his greatest moments and his castoffs -- or worse, thinks there isn't one. His latest offerings, the simultaneously released EP "Love Is Hell, Pt. 1" and full-length "Rock N Roll," confirm his reputation as someone in need of a quick-witted producer or an off switch.
Many of the tracks on the spare, brooding "Love" were rejected by Adams's record company; "Rock N Roll" is the album he was subsequently instructed to make, and it's not necessarily the better of the two. To hear it is to be able to trace a map of Adams's interests: Echo and the Bunnymen, Paul Westerberg, the Smiths. Throaty, guitar-intensive and loud, sung in a wavery British accent, "Rock N Roll" is a rough-hewn new wave album with a garage-rock heart. With its jangly world-weariness, its debt to the Strokes (of whom Adams is so fond, he reportedly recorded a complete "Is This It" tribute album) is incalculable. Though "Rock N Roll" isn't without its charms (the only-partly-kidding "Note to Self: Don't Die" and the fine "This Is It" among them), it's ultimately little more than the sum of its influences.
Co-produced by famed Smiths compatriot John Porter, "Love Is Hell, Pt. 1" is equally derivative, though its sodden air of mournfulness lends it an authenticity "Rock N Roll" lacks. Top-loaded with strummy and meditative ballads (like the marvelous "This House Is Not for Sale"), "Love" is both moving and slight. It is a tribute to Adams's considerable gifts as a singer and interpreter that he can convert Oasis's turgid "Wonderwall" into a stripped-down thing of beauty, one of the few moments on either album that doesn't positively radiate self-consciousness.
Neither disc plays to Adams's strengths as a purveyor of brawny, country-rock-inspired ballads, and, more to the point, neither offers up any hint that Adams, who has careened from cowpunk to country-folk to garage rock to Brit pop, is willing to move beyond strenuous imitation of his influences -- alt-rock as Kabuki.
Since his remarkable solo debut, "Heartbreaker," each of Adams's albums has yielded up enough good moments to suggest his masterwork is right around the corner. By the time he sings (on the title track of "Love"), "I could be serious / But I am just kidding around / I could be anything / Nothing / Whatever, oh well" many listeners may already have given up. For the eternally hopeful, "Love Is Hell, Pt. 2" is due in early December.