This Week: The divisive Ryan Adams releases two discs and Basement Jaxx strays again
Ryan Adams
Rock N Roll (Lost Highway)
Love Is Hell Pt. 1 (Lost Highway)
Ryan Adams covers a lot of ground in the half-a-zillion songs he's written. He did the twang thing in Whiskeytown. He played the folky sad sack on his first solo CD Heartbreaker. He wrote the soaring "New York, New York," which became an upbeat radio anthem at a time when the Big Apple was our country's emotional center.
So on Rock N Roll, Adams is trying really hard to prove something. Is he trying to make his reputation as a rock god? Dispel our previous opinion that he's a one-off fuck-up? I just don't know.
As a member of the unofficial I Love/Hate Ryan Adams Club/Support Group, I grow weary of trying to figure out this 29-year-old punk. He cops Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan, Paul Westerberg and Bono. His take on these artists can be so pure, such unadulterated pastiche, that he might as well play cover songs and save himself the trouble of writing. Don't get me wrong, I'm with Adams: I love these artists too. But who is Ryan Adams? A lot of people think he's an unrepentant asshole who could fall off the earth forever for all they care. But for some of us (club founders especially), there's enough going on in the crazy/genius mind of this North Carolina kid that we keep tuning in. I'm not sure if Rock N Roll is more guitar-slinging, look-at-how-I-can rock posturing, but it's exactly what it bills itself as: Adams' rock record, the one he's been dying to make since he toured with the Pinkhearts.
The disc's first single, "So Alive," borrows its guitar from early U2; Adams' voice furthers the allusion, hitting the high notes with Bono-like heights of emotion. But mostly Adams uses his rawk voice—growly and screamy, with little of the nuance that it contains when he's crooning. But, OK, this is a rock record. I'm not supposed to be swooning; I'm rocking. And I thought that meant his lyrics would be more rock nonsense, but after several listens, the lyrics creep out and prove themselves fairly worthy of Adams' past works.
After 14 songs of aggressive rock guitars, booming bass drums, shimmering tambourines and Adams' half-screaming, the guy's proven he can rock, with ass-kicking solos and catchy hooks and transitions to spare. But his shtick isn't necessarily better or more unique than anyone else's. And it gets kind of tiring after eight songs, to which I propose Adams be given eight songs per disc to do his thing. It works on Love is Hell Pt. 1, the eight-song EP released along with Rock N Roll (Pt. 2 will come out in December).
When he's crafting delicate songs with beautiful melodies, Adams stands apart from the rock crowd and sounds less like other people (or maybe I'm too busy swooning to look for proof of rip-offs).
Love is Hell alludes to Coldplay in its quiet, piano-based moments that can lead to a dynamic, orchestrated din. Other songs sound like late Whiskeytown, some of the best songs from Pneumonia. Lyrically, Adams is on his game, and his voice lulls and stretches to its melodious extremes.
In conclusion, Adams is like a restaurant that serves a bit of everything. It's nice to belly up to the rock buffet, but if you prefer the dessert bar, that's your prerogative.
—Paige M. Travis
Basement Jaxx
Kish Kash (Astralwerks)
On their third long player, British club gurus Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton (and could there possibly be more British names for club gurus?) don't stray from the reservation, except as in straying from the reservation has become their stock in trade. So the eccentric selection of guests (Meshell N'degeocello, Siouxsie Sioux, J.C. Chavez from N'Sync) doesn't signal any significant deviation from the Basement Jaxx formula: busy neo-disco, heavy on the hooks, light on What It All Means. Hence the excellent Siouxsie-powered title track, spelled "Cish Cash"—the glib bastards, it's not a title track at all!
It's not as trunk-full-of-funk as their 1999 debut Remedy, nor as pop-deeliteful as 2001's Rooty, leaving it in a kind of blissful limbo—like Europe itself, inching toward the future with no consensus except on the dancefloor.
It's a good show, for the most part. The aural fireworks can be a little wearing, but Ratcliffe and Buxton's mastery of both beat and bass is undeniable. N'degeocello makes like the latter-day Grace Jones she was always supposed to be, and Chavez shows Justin Timberlake isn't the only N'Syncer who can cop from Michael Jackson. The album also marks the proper U.S. debut of boy-genius U.K. rapper Dizzee Rascal, whose ear-bending Boy In Da Corner hasn't yet managed a stateside release; his turn on "Lucky Star" demonstrates again why he will be 2004's guest-star of choice for American hip hop.
Like Junior Senior's equally rollicking d-d-don't don't stop the beat, Kish Kash is inventive, ingratiating and more sincere than its glammy, hammy surface suggests. It imagines a world where everybody—New York, London, Paris, Munich—really is talking 'bout pop music. There are worse places to be.
—Jesse Fox Mayshark
November 6, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 45
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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