Sexta-feira 4 Dez 2009, 21h:42
There's a last.fm ruling which I hope only applies to the forums and not yr own journals… I may have had a bit to drink. Dammit, that's allowed now.
Listening to Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker which was released in fucking 2000 - nigh 10 years ago… where did that time go?
It's an old story that we still tell… but I remember where I was when I bought this album; a poor boy half way home from work, between buses, in Enfield Town, loitering in HMV and looking for inspiration. I had heard Oh My Sweet Carolina and I had heard of Whiskeytown if not heard Whiskeytown.
The CD was played many times on my old knackered CD player, bought 2nd hand from a school friend for my Christmas present in 1997 - my first CD player after years of vinyl and tapes… the CD player would always skip half way through To Be The One which made me curse the stereo and threaten it with various acts of extreme violence.
This CD never got played in company. It's an introspective affair. Bedroom listening, for your ears only. It's my Whinchmore Hill soundtrack back when I discovered country music - or Americana or whatever - and started buying Uncut magazine and playing my acoustic more than my electric.
It's a hell of an album. A 9/10 job. An old friend. The little harmonies that join and leave the vocals throughout the album anchor the sentiment and act as the earth wire to Ryan's sometimes surging lines - acts of restraint that are absent in many of his later albums.
I've learned many a song on guitar but my favourite to plat is Damn, Sam (I Love a Woman That Rains) - which is guitar heavey but the piano is the important instrument here - guitar solo works fine - except of course that anyone ever addressing a 'Sam' must be a drunk barfly piano playing and sighing…
The whole arrangement of the LP seems sparse, possibly a hangover from Whiskeytown, and the cleanliness and space frame the songs very clearly. Compare this to Strangers Almanac which is a driven album, propelled by guitar and volume, Heartbreaker is mopping up after you hit the breaks. I bought both albums around the same time and they always form a pair in my mind.
Anyway, this was 10 years ago and seeing as we face the end of a decade I thought I would reminisce - this album stuck out from a lot of others I loved - this will be in my top ten albums of the 00s I am sure.
OK, drunken stream of near conciousness over.