Ryan Adams - Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Ryan AdamsBrand: Baker & Taylor
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-06-26
Music Label: Lost Highway
Soundtracks:
- goodnight rose
- two
- everybody knows
- halloween head
- two hearts
- tears of gold
- the sun also sets
- off broadway
- rip off
- oh my god, whatever, etc.
- pearls on a string
- these girls
- i taught myself how to grow old
Free Music Notes for Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
Free Music Review: Prime example of well-made country pop
Hit: 5 Stars
The son of an English teacher, songwriter Ryan Adams had absorbed the work of writers such as Henry Miller, Hubert Selby, Jr. and Sylvia Plath long before dropping out of school following his freshman year. After quitting a punk band - admitting that the vocals were "too hard to sing" - Adams formed Whiskeytown, the vehicle that put him on the worldwide music map at the tender age of 21. Somewhere between dropping out and becoming a critical darling, Adams started drinking. A lot. Then he started getting high. Really, really high, and on a daily basis.
In an interview following his debut solo album, Heartbreaker, Adams claimed that he spent three hours per day working on his writing, singing and guitar skills, doing his best to focus on each facet of his trade equally; not exactly the work ethic of your typical lowlife. A decade and ten official studio albums later (nine solo and one posthumous Whiskeytown record), Adams decided to sober up completely, along the way recording his latest album, Easy Tiger, which is said to be the first entirely sober recording of his career.
At first blush, Easy Tiger brings to mind Adams' third solo album, Demolition, and album held back only by its doomed pseudo-compilation format. For what it was (a sampling of tracks from unreleased Adams albums), Demolition was good, but, parallel to the first impression Easy Tiger leaves, it didn't play through as seamlessly as Adams' other releases. A student of album-oriented rock, Adams has always championed the skill of pure albumcraft, and while Easy Tiger might throw listeners at first, it eventually reveals itself as an even collection of short, concise songs that amount to the Americana crooner's most accessible, repeat-worthy record to date.
Two songs, "Off Broadway" and "These Girls" (previously known as "Hey There Mrs. Lovely"), are longtime live favorites pulled from Adams' extensive catalog of unreleased material, reworked here from their primitive foundations to fit Adams' current brand of clean, affable songwriter rock. Adams' best song since Cold Roses, "Everybody Knows," as well as "Two" and "The Sun Also Sets" are surefire selections for his impending six-disc greatest hits collection while "Two Hearts," a song Adams has been playing live now for sometime, stands as the albums only slight misstep with its awkward phrasings.
Initially meant to be recorded as a sparse, Heartbreaker-esque record, Adams began calling in his band, The Cardinals, to help him flesh out the majority of Easy Tiger. While a few songs do recall the meager allure of that great debut solo record, most of Adams' latest sees his current incarnation of The Cardinals at the top of their game. Need proof? Start with the excellent, upbeat opener, "Goodnight Rose;" or maybe one of the more roots-friendly tracks, such as "Tears of Gold" or "Pearls On a String." Or cut the crap and skip to the inexplicable track everyone talking about on release day, "Halloweenhead," a song that Ryan Adams (and only Ryan Adams) could come up with. Or how about the eerily mature closer, "I Taught Myself How To Grow Old." It's all there, so good that it's almost overwhelming.
Rock history tells us that sobriety almost always changes an artist, usually for the worse. Not the case with Adams, who with Easy Tiger has released his most economical, unswerving collection of material yet. The songs, many of which sound as though they could've been recorded during Adams' 2004 haze (which resulted in three studio albums in 2005), all refrain for being indulgent, usually wrapping up where past albums Adams would've opted to ramble on with jams and unneeded verses. Lean in structure and instrumentation, the album's 13 tracks still embrace the spontaneous magic of Adams' recent albums, though they arrive much more lucid, and thus, more professional and less indulgent than any of his past work.
For Adams, with sobriety comes a new aptitude for editing his overflowing instincts and a newfound focus on his amazing vocal prowess, the result being an album made to be worn thin, bought for friends and packed in your island-bound suitcase. An album that crams Adams' overabundant natural talent down the throats of his naysaying songwriting peers once and for all. An album that, more than anything else, secures Adams' legacy, made to someday stand beside Heartbreaker, Cold Roses and Stranger's Almanac as one of the works that made him the most prolific and brilliant songwriter of his time. Hopeful, sober, lean and beautiful, Easy Tiger is not just an album as rewarding as any other in 2007, but the start of a new era for Adams. (Greg Locke)
Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger Poster
I think there are really only two kinds of pop music CDs these days. There are the ones you listen to only once or twice, maybe downloading the single good song to your iPod or computer; then there are others that grow stronger, sweeter, and more necessary each time you play them. Gold was that way; Cold Roses was that way; so was Jacksonville City Nights. I won't say Adams is the best North American singer-songwriter since Neil Young...but I won't say he isn't, either. What I know is there has never been a Ryan Adams record quite as strong and together as Easy Tiger; it's got enough blue-eyed, blue-steel soul (with the faintest country tinge) to make me think of both Marvin Gaye and the Righteous Brothers. Probably ridiculous, but true. And the songs themselves are beautiful--the lyrics tightly focused and brief, the feeling one of melancholy calm that will probably be a revelation to fans that remember the old, sometimes angry Ryan Adams.Now there's this, maybe the best Ryan Adams CD ever. And I know you want to listen to it right away. But slow down. Take your time. This album asks for that, and it will reward your full attention.
In other words--easy, Tiger.
--Stephen King
Easy Tiger, Ryan Adams's ninth solo studio album, is a return to form in every way. He's already shown that he can bash out three albums in one year--not to mention the hilarious fake hip-hop records posted for free on his Web site--and that he can sound as much like the Grateful Dead as he wants to in his constant subsequent touring. Backed once again by the Cardinals, Adams synthesizes and refines his approach to smooth, gorgeous country-pop. "Tears of Gold" is one of the best songs he's written in ages, while "Two" is a slowly percolating, sweet little number that recalls Sean Hayes in its soulful folksiness (someone named Sheryl Crow accompanies Adams on vocals). One of the greatest treats of this languorous, twangy album is the subtle ways that genre gets played with. "I Taught Myself How to Grow Old" is the best Harvest outtake Neil Young never wrote, while the treated, synth-sounding guitar solo on the druggy, chooglin' "Halloweenhead" sounds like it comes straight out of Journey. And "The Sun Also Sets" sounds more than a little like Rufus Wainwright covering Fred McDowell's "Write Me a Few of Your Lines." It bursts with enough melodrama as to border on musical theater. But, as is clear on these songs of love and loss, Adams has always been at his best when giving into his most mellow, dramatic side. --Mike McGonigal Ryan Adams Photos
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