Top ten 2000 countdown continued
#5 Ryan Adams: Heartbreaker
Ryan Adams, the singer of the now dissolved alt.country band Whiskeytown has released the most astounding songwriter debut of last year. Extremely eclectic but also very personal. The bluesy mood is accentuated by the mouth harp play. It starts with an argument on which album(s) Morrissey's Suedehead can be found. The first song To Be Young (is to be sad, is to be high) (the title names alone are worth the purchase of this record) sounds like an outtake of an early electrified Bob Dylan album like Blonde on Blonde. Adams voice is slightly nasal but lower than Dylan's and he elongates the syllables. The song subtitle I Love a Woman that Rains is like a paraphrase on Rainy Day Women #12 & 35. The atmosphere and intonation of Call Me on Your Way Back Home make me think very much of Tim Hardin's Hang on to a Dream. And there is Shakedown on 9th Street a song Jeffrey Lee Pierce from the Gun Club would have been proud of. The lyrics are phantastic as well, mostly quite romantic and sad but funny at the same time, e.g. in Come Pick Me Up: "Come pick me up / Take me out / Fuck me up / Steal my records / Screw all my friends behind my back / With a smile on your face".