My workplace has been crazier than usual the past several weeks. Major projects are launching, the news has been particularly active and I recently received a promotion.
But as my professional life improves, my blog writing suffers. I bet if this blog didn’t have a built-in daily deadline, I would have let it slide long ago. It would look like so many blogs out there, suspended in time on some random date like a town abandoned after a zombie apocalypse.
I have a select group of artists whom I feel guilty for not listening to more. People who make consistently good music that’s right up my alley yet somehow rarely make it into my regular rotation.
Ryan Adams is a perfect example.
He has released at least two albums (Gold and Heartbreaker) that I love start to finish — albums filled with powerful, beautiful songs. His collection of unreleased singles, Demolition, is similarly strong.
It was way back at Song of the Day #2 that I last featured Ryan Adams on this blog. I’ve written about 276 songs since then, and I believe Adams has recorded that many during the same span.
And now we meet again, and I’m featuring another song from the same album I highlighted back then. Adams is perhaps the most prolific songwriter working today but I can’t get past those first two albums, Heartbreaker and Gold, which contain more than enough genius to go around.
Adams recently married Mandy Moore — bright, sunny Mandy Moore — which is kind of funny considering how messed up he comes across in his songs. He once dated Winona Ryder (as have most rock stars) and that seems a better fit.
Ryan Adams is an artist who could be one of the all-time greats if he’d just stop making so much damn music. This guy writes a new song every hour of every day… which is fine, except he puts them all out on CDs. If you go to the store and pick up a new Ryan Adams release, the odds are pretty good that another Ryan Adams album will be released before you get back home.
So I have mostly given up on following his career closely — it would involve way too much time and money. But he has released two albums that I consider true classics. The first is Gold, which features the hits ‘New York, New York’ and ‘When the Stars Go Blue’ and brought him to national attention. The other, and better of the two, is Heartbreaker, his solo debut.
Meet Me In Montauk 