Editorial Reviews
Heartbreaker
Music Review:
Music Review
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Amazon.com's Best of 2000
Heartbreaker opens with an argument about a Morrissey song before the band kicks into the sloppy and rollicking "To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)," and certainly the gloomster's self-referential sadness hangs over Ryan Adams's songs. But Adams, the notoriously raucous frontman for the defunct Whiskeytown, is a country boy at heart if not in attitude, so there is a lingering pastoral beauty that imbues the album with a happy sweetness as well. That, along with Ryan's expressive, gravelly voice (equal parts Paul Westerberg and Merle Haggard), gives Heartbreaker enduring power. --Tod Nelson
Amazon.com
With a touch of Robyn Hitchcock in his vocal timbre, a smidgen of Steve Earle in his narratives and instrumental writing, and a heap of Gram Parsons in the fullness of his overall sound and structure, Ryan Adams steps well above Whiskeytown with Heartbreaker, his solo debut. By turns raucous, wistful, raspy, and simply sweet, Adams makes the most of a top-shelf acoustic band, including Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and even a guest spot from Emmylou Harris on the tenderly yearning "Oh My... read more