c/d - ryan adams: gold

"Self indulgent, arrogant, cheesy" - classic!

"Rock and roll all the way through" - dud!

not self indulgent enough, frankly. I liked the versions of a few of the songs on this LP that you can grab off the web (from audio galaxy for example) better than these versions. The live versions (often just solo with piano or guitar) sounded more interesting than the sometimes rather average full band arrangements. But, hey, I've only listened to the LP once. And I'll go see him live next week, anyway.

Ok we all know I love him but its classic really. I mean it starts superbly, and just keeps going, "Sylvia Plath", "Nobody Girl", absolutely amazing. And then he leaves "The Bar-room is a Beautiful Place" for the bonus cd of out-takes......and thats amazing too.

It'sgreat; I like it better than "Heartbreaker".

Overall: Fantastic. Over sixteen songs only a few stinkers, and they are better than tolerable. Maybe the constantly shifting styles is too self conscious, but I love it nonetheless. Almost a compendium of American rock. Best song: Sylvia Plath.

isn't he winona ryder's latest conquest? his music is wretched. one of those things where everyone else is wrong.

I haven't heard it yet but it has to be better than Heartbreaker which I thought was very disappointing. I just picked up Whiskeytown's swan song, Pneumonia, last week and I think it's fantastic.

I had this theory once - OK, more than once - taht if you got a bunch of people who liked a record to talk about what they were like rather than what the record was like, you'd get a better idea of what the record was like than if they only talked about what the record was like. (Not that a combination of the two strategies might not be better, and if you talk about what a record is like you probably do in some way reveal what you are like.) So anyway, here's your chance: talk about what you are like. OK? Please?

Um, I've only listened to the record once and I forgot whether I liked it or not - or I hadn't noticed feelings of like or dislike. Or whatever. So I don't have to say what I'm like, yet. But here are some notes I took while listening: "Don't know in particular what to say about this song." "Mentions Avenue B, so the 'New York' referred to is not generic New York as c&w envisions it, but a town where someone's actually lived." "John Stewart is sadly neglected in the discourse of rock." "Jon Bon Jovi might sing this song with more oomph." "Those are nice 16th-note strums: gives push, even with strings in the background." "Not the Peter Laughner song, but sounds good anyway." "Here he uses a high-pitched non-quaver." "Acoustic guitar backed by rolling organ. (Organs always seemed to roll. That's why Dylan wanted Al Kooper to turn up his volume on 'Like A Rolling Stone.'") "Why doesn't this type of gentle singer-songwriter song infuriate me as it would have in 1974? Have I lost my critical sense?" "I don't trust a song with 'Hollywood Boulevard' in its title."

I think I've just proved my point that descriptions of what records are like are useless for conveying what records are like.

Gold is a-okay, but not GRATE. It's good, solid, and gets better on repeated listenings...but what you also notice on repeated listenings is that he's cribbing and cribbing heavily from CLASSIK RAWK. You can hear a Who riff here, a Beatles riff there, a Skynyrd riff there. The tendency to lean towards Skynyrd is the most distressing aspect, really. To my ears, anyhow.