RA Looks at RA

When I posted on my favorites from the three releases Ryan Adams put out this year, Steve asked for some "starters" to get into Adams. I responded with a brief review of his albums, but it got me thinking: What would an Adams Greatest Hits look like? Or more accurately, what 15 songs would I put on one if it were up to me? So since I couldn't trim it to 15, here are the 16 I'd say are his best. (There are a number of songs I feel bad about leaving off, but since the only artist more prolific than a living Ryan Adams is a dead Tupac, I had to make my cuts. And I also did not count any songs from his old band, Whiskeytown.)

So here we go (and I couldn't come up with decent blurbs about all of them):

1. "Let It Ride"--As I said in my previous post, this is the best song of the 40 something he released this year.
2. "To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)"--Another rocker that you might remember from the opening credits in Old School.
3. "Hard Way to Fall"--How's this for a verse: "So if it's got to be you, treat her nice, hold her hand, tell her tell her twice, that she doesn't have to worry and it will be all right."
4. "My Winding Wheel"--This one could have been a radio hit, if there was a such thing as "radio" these days.
5. "When the Stars Go Blue"--Another accessible, radio-friendly song, except when it was actually played on the radio it was The Coors/Bono version. The cover is good, but this is the original.
6. "Avalanche"--A piano-driven ballad that is one of my favorites.
7. "Oh My Sweet Carolina"--Emmylou Harris provides the backup vocals on this one. Since Whiskeytown, whenever Adams adds a female vocalist to harmonize with him the songs always take on an additional layer of heartbreak.
8. "When Will You Come Back Home"--Off of Cold Roses (Disc 1) and one that's really been growing on me lately. If someone wanted to offer an example of what "Alt-Country" is, this tune would be a representative choice.
9. "Cry On Demand"--In my response to Steve, I said that Demolition was probably my favorite album end to end, yet this is the only song from it that made this list. According to my iTunes, this is the song from Demolition with the 2nd highest playcount, "Tennessee Sucks" beats it by a 3 plays but I think "Cry..." is a better song overall, though I happen to really like "Tennessee..." I'm trying to be somewhat objective here.
10. "Dear John"--Atmospheric duet with Norah Jones.
11. "Dance All Night"--He actually sounds like he's having fun on this one.
12. "Come Pick Me Up"--I've always felt that this was his masterpiece. As Adam Durtiz says on a live cover version of this song that I have, "This is one of those songs that for a second it seems funny, but then you listen to his more carefully and you realize, oh my God, it's fucking horrifying. And it really is fucking horrifying 'cause what I want you to do during the rest of the song is to picture clearly just what it's like for your girlfriend to fuck your friends, and your friends to fuck your girlfriend, and worst of all what it's like for them to steal your records."
13. "La Cienga Just Smiled"--"Raise my glass, 'cause either way I'm dead."
14. "New York, New York"--I'm still surprised that this wasn't one of the songs that became huge after 9/11. The video was shot on 9/7/01 from the Brooklyn side with the World Trade Center in the background. Even though he's using "New York" to stand in for the name of the girl the song's about, I still feel it should have been an anthem for the recovering city, "I'll always love you though, New York."
15. "Cold Roses"--The title track from this year's double-album.
16. "So Alive"--The only song I picked from Adams's "rock" album, Rock N Roll. The video can be found on his VH1 page which in addition to hearing the song, you'll also be struck at how bad most music videos really are.

As an added bonus, I'll point you towards this freely available acoustic show of his from 2001 which has a bunch of songs from Heartbreaker and Gold. (#s 2, 4, 7, 12 on this list.)

Comments

[k. pablo]

Man, didn't see any of MY favorite RA tunes on here. What about Burning Photographs, This House is Not For Sale (?title), English Girls Approximately, This is It?

[Rob A.]

It was tough, I was going to include a list of Honorable Mentions which would have included "This House..." and possibly "Burning Photographs." It would have been a pretty big shock if I nailed the 16 you liked the best.