Well, it’s happening again… Ryan Adams is unleashing a flurry of albums this year. His “first fully-realized sci-fi metal concept album” ORION has already made the rounds, and now he’s announced another double-album, III/IV, with The Cardinals. To top things off, there’s a solo record called Blackhole that he’s also planning to drop… I’m assuming all of this will happen before the closing of the year.
That’s quite a bit of music, but it’s par for the course when it comes to Adams. It would be a shock for him to release just ONE album a year. I remember a time when he DID release one album at a time… the quality was amazing… from Heartbreaker to Gold, all the way to Love Is Hell… just wonderful stuff. Then he started to get into the whole “let’s see how many albums I can release in a year” contest with Bright Eyes and to be honest, it got a bit too much for me to consume. I didn’t know what to focus on… which Ryan Adams I was gonna get… for some artists that’s a good thing, but for Adams I felt that he needed to slow down and put out less music and more quality. I actually found myself listening more to his bootlegs than actual albums because the setlists on those bootlegs were much better. The “filler” material was left out and that’s never a bad thing.
So with the announcement of two more albums from him (three, if you count III/IV as two), I’m kind of at a crossroads. I must admit that cannot stand anything I’ve heard from ORION… and I do believe that has left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t realize how bad a taste it has left until now, and that’s sad because I’m a HUGE Adams fan.
Rawkblog.net has a good overview of the new albums… ConsequenceOfSound.net also does a bang-up job as well. I highly recommend visiting those sites for the latest regarding these upcoming albums.
As for me? I’m really going to try to get excited about this news. I think what I’ll do is immerse myself into his more recent material and take it from there.
Man, I can still taste ORION on my tongue… and no amount of brushing or Listerine-ing can get rid of it. That really sucks.
But DAMMIT, I wish I could write like him.
Your Dig-It Download:
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No matter what he is an amazing artist and songwriter so I think that is what carries me through anything negative, plus seeing him live made me love him even more so that is kind of what I go back to. Orion was awful for me, just awful but I am still excited to see what he has coming up next becaue he is such a fantastic artist.
I completely agree with what you are saying and if it were an artist I didn't like as much I might have just stopped following them for the most part because it does take time to get immersed in an album and love it but if you have several coming at you from the same artist you lose some of that quality time you would spend with it.
I hope whatever he puts out this year will reel you back in :)
I hope so too. I'm all for new music from my favorite artists… Adams has proven that he can write well consistently, I just long for a more focused collection and not so much filler. Some people love every song their favorite artist writes… unfortunately, I'm not one of those people. Music takes time to create, takes time to record… so why not take the time to release it and make sure it's the best it can possibly be? There's no rush when it comes to art. Absolutely no rush.