With such potential for making spot on and out of the blue recommendations, I hardly ever get to any music before either of my brothers. Not to say this is a bad thing; all the work of discovering music is usually done for me. So whenever I do get to something before one of my brothers points me there, it gives me pause. How did this album manage to slip past the older brother filter?
Listening to Ryan Adam’s Heartbreaker, I couldn’t help but wonder, “How in the world, with not one but two older brothers both adept at telling me what music I will and will not like, has neither one of them ever spoken a word directing me to listen to Ryan Adams?” How could Aaron, who knows exactly what track of an album will let me know if I like it or not (See Josh Joplin Group’s “Camera One”), fail to direct me to the greatness that is Adams’ “Come Pick Me Up”? How could Dan, who nearly force-fed me the Little Ones not do the same for Heartbreaker? I feel let down.
Folk-rock, alt-country, call it what you will, but what makes the songs on Heartbreaker so, well, heartbreaking, is just how delicate they are. Adams isn’t afraid of silence; he’s willing to occasionally let his vocals drop to almost nothing, filling his music with spaces that give it plenty of room to breathe. The songs here never try to overpower listeners nor do they feel incomplete; instead Heartbreaker finds Adams crafting an album that leave listeners aching to soak up every last faint guitar strum.
The first two songs here – “To Be Young” and “My Winding Wheel” – start the album off with a pair of folk-rockers in the vein of Dylan while “Amy” finds Adams sliding into Nick Drake territory. Despite the influences, this isn’t one of those “Let me take forty minutes to show you what’s in my record collection” albums. Instead, Adams has stories to tell and tells them with a lyrical acumen to match his songwriting ability. At times he is endearingly straightforward and filled with heartache, offering lines like “I don't know which is worse/to wake up and see the sun/or to be the one/be the one that's gone.” Other times he’s a bit less straightforward, singing things like “I wish you would/come pick me up/take me out/fuck me up/steal my records,” leaving the listener to determine what reason Adams would have for wanting his records stolen (Maybe he owns 400 copies of All About Chemistry?). What remains constant in his lyrics is an earnestness that matches the bare feeling of the music. The songs aren’t dressed up in gloss and overproduction and neither are the lyrics. Ryan Adams is heartbroken and vulnerable and he doesn’t care who knows it.
Following “Amy” is the Nick Hornby approved “Oh My Sweet Carolina” where Adams is aided in his longing for home by vocals from Emmylou Harris, anointed by Hornby “the best harmony vocalist in the history of pop music.” “Oh My Sweet Carolina” would no doubt be the album’s centerpiece were it not for the immaculate “Come Pick Me Up.”
“Come Pick Me Up” is one of those songs that demand all of your energy to listen to without even trying. You’ll want to sing along with Adams to let him know he’s not alone in his yearning, but at the same time you won’t want to make a sound so as not to spoil a single ounce of Adam’s emotion. When he asks “And the mannequin's eyes/do they all look like mine,” you’ll listen even more intently to hear vocals that sound as if they narrowly escaped getting trapped in Adams’ throat. This is Adams at his finest. Throw in a great harmonica solo to boot, and a classic song is realized.
Sure, I’m a bit late to the party on this one, as Heartbreaker was released in 2000. And though I don’t know how I missed out on Ryan Adams the first time around, I do know that Heartbreaker is definitely not a record I want stolen anytime soon.
