Album Review: Ryan Adams – Demolition

Following his Gold album, Ryan Adams had been working on 4 albums concurrently, The Suicide Handbook, 48 Hours, The Pinkheart Sessions and the Swedish sessions. Although Lost Highway torpedoed this plan, they are heavily bootlegged. Notwithstanding this, Lost Highway in their wisdom put out a compilation of tracks from these projects in 2002, entitled Demolition.

It might have been better if they hadn’t. This was effectively the follow-up to Gold, and it doesn’t work particularly well as an album. It has to be said that Adams’ prolific songwriting badly needed an editor. Tracks like Nuclear, Starting to Hurt and especially Gimme A Sign sounded like MOR ‘rawk’ and are pretty forgettable.

The country-tinged tracks (Hallelujah, Desire) are an improvement, though none of them are a patch on his work with Whiskeytown. On the other hand Chin Up, Cheer Up is a sprightly, bluegrass romp on banjos which is really enjoyable to listen to.
As for his line in forlorn folk, She Wants To Play Hearts and the cello-driven You Will Always Be The Same don’t boast strong melodies, yet they work in an understated way, though the woah-woahs of Tomorrow lapse into tedium.

And yet: this is one talented guy. Rescuing the album from disaster are plaintive piano ballad Cry On Demand which marries a kind of open, catchy tune to a slightly clichéd lyric, and two other fine tracks. Dear Chicago sounds really moody with its reverbed guitars, casually husky vocal from Adams and wonderfully self-pitying lyrics about how “I’m gonna die alone and sad.” Most unfortunately the track only lasts 2 minutes! Jesus (Don’t Touch My Baby) sounds like nothing else he has done, with a deep vocal over a wash of keyboards, reminiscent of something off Bob Dylan’s Oh Mercy.

A very patchy collection, some great songs and some filler. Much like his career.

Album Review: The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground’s 3rd album is an underrated gem. After the intensity of their first 2, it’s a much lower-key experience. The artwork is predominantly black with a cool-looking black and white photo. It creeps quietly into the room with the opening track Candy Says, which is sung by Doug Yule who replaced John Cale in the band. The playing on this and most of the rest of the album is spare and simple. On the face of it, it’s a quiet poppy album, but there are moments when things are just a little off (a little guitar distortion here and there) which makes the album a little messed-up, in a good way.

The pace picks up a bit with What Goes On which jumps along nicely, Lou Reed taking vocal duties and a great guitar solo. In fact, the guitar all over this album is really good and blends in well with the quietly sung vocals. Some Kinda Love has a bit of swagger to it before 2 very quiet songs – Pale Blue Eyes and Jesus (even quieter). If there is any kind of slow anthem on this album, Pale Blue Eyes is it. It has probably the most conventional structure here, with a proper verse and chorus. Jesus is the quietest song on here, and is a kind of odd song with lyrics like “Jesus, help me find my proper place”.

The album is thrown in a different direction by the more propulsive Beginning to See the Light, which features quick-strummed guitars and some fairly unhinged vocals from Reed. It’s followed by 2 more quietish songs, I’m Set Free and That’s the Story of My Life. These, like most of the rest feature some really clean-sounding jangly guitar, quite influential on the jangly guitar bands of the 1980s.

The second last track, The Murder Mystery is a departure. Featuring more words in it than the previous 8 tracks combined, sonically it’s also quite different. If anything it harks back to Cale-era VU, with a torrent of lyrics cascading through each side of the stereo (try it with headphones, different lyrics left and right!). It sounds more eerie than the rest of the album, with ghostly-sounding guitars and thrilling stops and starts. The ending of this track is a little disappointing, with a seemingly random piano playing accompanied by yet more random lyrics. It’s not like anything else I’ve heard, that’s for sure.

Unfortunately I really don’t enjoy the closing track, After Hours, which features drummer Mo Tucker on cloying vocals. The whole tune is to my ears a little cheesy.

Overall the rest of the album is great, it’s one of those albums I dig out every so often and never get tired of it. Each time I listen to it, a little more of it reveals itself. Although it’s overshadowed by its 2 predecessors, this album endures and does not suffer with age (was released in 1968!). It's very much an album to sit and listen to in a room rather than a party album.