Ryan Adams: One of Rock n Rolls last true artists

Ryan Adams has for the better part of twenty years maintained an impressive, critically acclaimed solo career. He has had ups and downs and has taken many knocks from personal troubles, ill health, critical lashings and commercial failures. Yet despite his vast and eclectic musical output over the last seventeen years, Adams has remained an uncompromising unique voice, true to his own authentic vision and resolutely himself.

This year sees the release of the singer songwriter’s sixteenth studio album Prisoner. It is among his most accomplished and cohesive efforts to date. Adams is known for his prolific output of material and for a while there in the mid noughties, in the middle of his career, things got a bit rocky, there were great albums amongst the misfires, some undeservedly overlooked. Personal matters seemed to get in the way and for a couple of years it was evident that the undeniably brilliant songwriter was struggling to find his identity amongst the sheer volume of records that he kept producing. Like an inverse writer’s block, Adams wrote too much, perhaps released more material than he should have so early on in his career, but he is a songwriter and that’s what songwriters (should) do, write songs. During this period, Adams played with his band the Cardinals and together they released a string of records, among them the revered Cold Roses and Easy Tiger, but also overlooked gems like Jacksonville City Nights and III/IV. Despite the enigmatic songwriters burgeoning arsenal of material, his back catalogue remained scatter brain and incongruent, his work lacked the cohesion that his first two records had. After a three-year hiatus of self-inflicted exile, Adams finally returned re-energised and uncompromising.

Since 2011 Adams has released three critically acclaimed full length records and a plethora of seven inches. Ashes and Fire, Ryan Adams and this year’s Prisoner signify a new chapter in the songwriter’s career. Adams has finally found a way to make every aspect of his chaotic personality yield great cohesion and vision. He re-emerged as a self-actualised renaissance man, writing songs as deftly fragile and hauntingly beautiful as ever but with a new adrenalized strut and swagger of a hardcore punk turned nineties alt rock star. Adams carries himself like he’s the guitarist in Sonic Youth or Husker Du but sings from a much more tender place. His music overflows with the lovelorn melodies and cadences of The Smiths, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and all the great iconoclasts of rocks decorated history but remains true to his punk rock roots and DIY ethic. Somehow in the last few years, since he retained full authorship of his work, releasing all his music via his own label Pax Americana, Adams has been free to curate and augment a career and world entirely of his own design. No longer does he have to repress any aspect of his personality, musical predilections or penchants for science fiction, eighties films, analogue recording equipment, pinball machines or fantasy inspired t-shirt designs. Adams is now free to be himself and represent his art exactly in line with his own tastes and artistic affinities. And a far more confident and interesting artist he is because of it.

Since his re-emergence in 2011, Ryan Adams has also refined the art of making a great album along the way. In the past, he tended to throw everything onto a record, his early albums were bursting at the seams, often running over sixty minutes and eighteen tracks. These days there is a less is more approach. His records now commonly run twelve songs and each new release seems poised with purpose, intent and cohesion. No song out stays its welcome and the albums benefit greatly from it. He has become a greater sculptor of his own art. It all starts with the songs, but the sequencing, editing, artwork, which is all produced in house, has become clearer more evocative, precise, concise and ultimately more powerful. However, Adams has not grown any less prolific. Since the release of 2014’s self-titled album, Adams has consistently released seven-inch EP’s, each one containing three tracks that explore a variety of different genres or styles. There is a spontaneity and urgency that can be heard in these releases. These records exist purely for the love of playing, recording and making records. These fringe releases add to the mystery of Adams eccentric personality and indefinable musical discography.

Adams latest, Prisoner is as focused as he has ever been. It is an intimate journey into the man during the collapse of his marriage. These songs are bleak yet beautiful, transparent in their lyrical delivery but lush and comforting. The intimacy of the record, the brightness of the recording and the soft eighties warmth of the production plays like a John Hughes film soundtracked by Bruce Springsteen over the musical canvas of Johnny Marr. Always one to wear his heart (and influences) on his sleeve, Ryan Adams defies any accusations of imitation, plagiarism and mere hero worship by the way he manages to use the influences he clearly loves so much to articulate a voice that is undeniably his own. A truly unique artist with an extraordinary mind and God given talent to write songs in the most pure and compelling way. Simple melodies, simple chords, undeniable. Ryan Adams is a master.