22. Ryan Adams - When the Stars Go Blue
We like to take the piss out of British people who like cowboys. People who don the boots and check shirts, who unselfconsciously own a Stetson and attend line-dancing classes alongside other couples who you suspect would be swingers, doggers or naturists if they were any more uninhibited. ('They're sex people, Lynn!') Country and Western is almost as unfashionable and frowned upon as folk or prog rock, so you might be thinking that someone sad and crap enough to produce a blog like this would be a fan. Not quite. C&W is a bit too cheesy and whiney for me, with too many mentions of whisky, good old boys and the singer's daddy. But some music genres work better when they are diluted or mixed with something else. I feel a food analogy screaming to be applied. Garlic maybe. In its purest form, country music, like folk music, is just a bit much. But so much stuff I like has country and folk influences, usually alongside blues. Without knowing it, I loved Americana for a long, long time before Ryan Adams.
What woke me up to that fact was being lent his album Gold by (a friend and work colleague) Lizzy in about 2004. I'm sure she needed to stress it was Ryan not Bryan Adams at the time. God knows, I tend to do that every time I mention him to any one. The album cover featured Ryan-not-Bryan striking a pose in front of a stars and stripes flag, not unlike Springsteen. He didn't have a Stetson or cowboy boots on (not that you can see his feet, but he is more of a trainers person), but he was symbolically stressing the roots of his music. Those roots, I realised, were already in my cultural consciousness and on my CD rack in the form of the Stones' 1968-72 albums, Dylan's Blood on the Tracks and Basement Tapes and (in perhaps a more contrived way) U2's Joshua Tree. Secretly, I was an invisible Stetson wearer, even if I had hung up my cowboy - aka my (non-) pulling - boots back in 1991. Ryan-not-Bryan Adams reminded me that I liked this sort of music and opened the way for me to immerse myself from then on in perhaps my favourite genre - what had become known as 'alt-country'.
Unlike some people, I don't claim to have an eclectic taste in music. I hate improvisational jazz, which is the most self-satisfying, smug and supercilious shit I've ever heard. But a bit of jazz influence on other genres works really well. I hate rap, particularly when it's self-aggrandising or aggressive, but even when its not, I find it no more musical than a flushing lavatory. (A flushing lavatory with heavy content.) But I can't deny I have liked the tiny smatterings of rap that infiltrated songs by Blondie and REM or even some stuff by Rusty Cage and Beck. And I used to think I hated soul, mainly because there was so much insipid soul-based bollocks in the charts in the 80s and 90s. But through films like The Blues Brothers and The Commitments, I recognised that some soul, specifically when it was more bluesy or providing a powerful garnish to rhythm and blues (proper R and B, not that shit RnB), is actually good.
Obviously, enjoying a small slug of jazz, rap or soul poured into a big cauldron of rock, blues or folk doesn't mean I like those genres. I think you like genres only if you enjoy the average and the mediocre work within it. I wouldn't even say I was a rock fan, because people assume you like any rock. No one likes 'any' rock no more than they like 'any' TV programmes. Well, maybe some undiscriminating, easily pleased, frivolous entertainment sponges. But I find I enjoy even average alt-country songs, just because the sound therein is the musical equivalent of sipping a cold beer in a comfy seat with a beautiful view. Your average rap song is the musical equivalent of listening to a couple of annoyingly brash teenagers talking loudly on the tube; your average soul song is the musical equivalent of having a dog lick your face; and the average jazz tune is the musical equivalent of being tapped repeatedly on the forehead with a spoon by a psychopath.
Lizzy's inspired recommendation of Ryan Adams led to countless alt-country album purchases since, not necessarily anything that comes close to the high standards set on Gold (and even further from Bob's Blood on the Tracks), but consistently listenable, slightly twangy, often beautiful and occasionally even experimental folk-country influenced music. This includes Sheryl Crow, Wilko, Townes Van Zandt, Jason Isbell, Conor Oberst, Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams.
Ironically, Ryan Adams has moved away from alt-country recently and has aimed for a studio sound reminiscent of mid-80s rock, like John Cougar Mellancamp or dare I say it, Bryan Adams. He even does a cover of Summer of '69. Maybe he had to keep telling people, 'I'm Ryan not Bryan Adams. Ryan. Ry-an. I'm... oh fuck it, I'm Bryan Adams.'
What woke me up to that fact was being lent his album Gold by (a friend and work colleague) Lizzy in about 2004. I'm sure she needed to stress it was Ryan not Bryan Adams at the time. God knows, I tend to do that every time I mention him to any one. The album cover featured Ryan-not-Bryan striking a pose in front of a stars and stripes flag, not unlike Springsteen. He didn't have a Stetson or cowboy boots on (not that you can see his feet, but he is more of a trainers person), but he was symbolically stressing the roots of his music. Those roots, I realised, were already in my cultural consciousness and on my CD rack in the form of the Stones' 1968-72 albums, Dylan's Blood on the Tracks and Basement Tapes and (in perhaps a more contrived way) U2's Joshua Tree. Secretly, I was an invisible Stetson wearer, even if I had hung up my cowboy - aka my (non-) pulling - boots back in 1991. Ryan-not-Bryan Adams reminded me that I liked this sort of music and opened the way for me to immerse myself from then on in perhaps my favourite genre - what had become known as 'alt-country'.
Unlike some people, I don't claim to have an eclectic taste in music. I hate improvisational jazz, which is the most self-satisfying, smug and supercilious shit I've ever heard. But a bit of jazz influence on other genres works really well. I hate rap, particularly when it's self-aggrandising or aggressive, but even when its not, I find it no more musical than a flushing lavatory. (A flushing lavatory with heavy content.) But I can't deny I have liked the tiny smatterings of rap that infiltrated songs by Blondie and REM or even some stuff by Rusty Cage and Beck. And I used to think I hated soul, mainly because there was so much insipid soul-based bollocks in the charts in the 80s and 90s. But through films like The Blues Brothers and The Commitments, I recognised that some soul, specifically when it was more bluesy or providing a powerful garnish to rhythm and blues (proper R and B, not that shit RnB), is actually good.
Obviously, enjoying a small slug of jazz, rap or soul poured into a big cauldron of rock, blues or folk doesn't mean I like those genres. I think you like genres only if you enjoy the average and the mediocre work within it. I wouldn't even say I was a rock fan, because people assume you like any rock. No one likes 'any' rock no more than they like 'any' TV programmes. Well, maybe some undiscriminating, easily pleased, frivolous entertainment sponges. But I find I enjoy even average alt-country songs, just because the sound therein is the musical equivalent of sipping a cold beer in a comfy seat with a beautiful view. Your average rap song is the musical equivalent of listening to a couple of annoyingly brash teenagers talking loudly on the tube; your average soul song is the musical equivalent of having a dog lick your face; and the average jazz tune is the musical equivalent of being tapped repeatedly on the forehead with a spoon by a psychopath.
Lizzy's inspired recommendation of Ryan Adams led to countless alt-country album purchases since, not necessarily anything that comes close to the high standards set on Gold (and even further from Bob's Blood on the Tracks), but consistently listenable, slightly twangy, often beautiful and occasionally even experimental folk-country influenced music. This includes Sheryl Crow, Wilko, Townes Van Zandt, Jason Isbell, Conor Oberst, Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams.
Ironically, Ryan Adams has moved away from alt-country recently and has aimed for a studio sound reminiscent of mid-80s rock, like John Cougar Mellancamp or dare I say it, Bryan Adams. He even does a cover of Summer of '69. Maybe he had to keep telling people, 'I'm Ryan not Bryan Adams. Ryan. Ry-an. I'm... oh fuck it, I'm Bryan Adams.'
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