Nectar of the Gods/A Record Review

Here I am in Mexico City, doing some research for my dissertation (there are a ton of tribute bands in Mexico City) before the big SEM shindig that happens in about a week and a half. I'm staying at a perfectly nice hostel run by the Quakers in Mexico. It's dirt cheap and well-located close to the Revolucion stop on the metro and the Insurgentes metrobus. The only problem is that my room has no natural light, which is really throwing off my circadian rhythms. Well, that, and the fact that tribute band shows in Mexico (as in Pittsburgh, for some reason, but no where else I've been to) run quite late. Also, since my lovely girlfriend of 5 and half years had to stay in the U.S. (what's this thing called grad school everyone's talking about, eh?), I haven't been able to count on her to force me to go to sleep and wake up at regular human times.

So, like in most areas where I have I problems, I turned to music. Listening to music to go to sleep is one of the activities most reviled by music snobs--dissing Norah Jones's music as only suitable for a nap has become a common trope in CD reviews--but I love falling asleep to music. And it doesn't just have to be something "soothing" like Jones. I think I surprised one of my college roommates by being able to fall asleep to Nine Inch Nails's The Fragile, and just today I fell asleep to Terry Riley's In C. The other day I was ready to fall asleep and I cued up Gold by Ryan Adams on my iPod. I couldn't fall asleep for whatever reason, but I at least got the chance to think about this album again, which I remember quite liking and listening to quite a bit when it was released in 2001 and in the years following. I'm significantly less impressed by it now.

It's not that it's a bad album, per se. There are no obvious misfires. The production, arrangements, and playing are of a consistently high standard. Adams is a fine singer and writes nice songs, even if you can basically hear every chord change coming a mile away. I'm just left feeling that album doesn't have any real personality, that everything on it is so middle-of-the-road, and that his lyrics leave a lot to be desired. He tends to leave A LOT of space in his songs and to cycle through 4-bar phrase chord progressions for long periods of time. That would be fine if he gave you interesting lyrics to ponder while the guitar, bass, and drums chug away. But he doesn't.

The best songs on the album--"Firecracker," "When the Stars Go Blue," and "Wild Flowers,"--find pretty melodies and solid chord progressions to depend on. The worst songs--"Harder Now That It's Over," "Nobody Girl," and "The Rescue Blues"--don't make any sense or go on too long AND don't make any sense. Case in point: "Nobody Girl" plods along for nearly 10 minutes, taking 3:30 just to get to the chorus. And what is our payoff for waiting around that long? A chorus consisting of the words:

You're nobody girl
You're nobody girl
You're a nobody girl
You're nobody girl
You're nobody girl
You're a nobody girl

Genius.

I don't mean to hate on Ryan Adams. This album did accomplish a couple of things. For one, I think "New York, New York," though not one of the strongest songs on the album, is a tune that's going to endure. And it clearly did some unexpected cultural work in the fall of 2001, with its video famously shot the Friday before 9/11 on the Brooklyn waterfront with a prominent view of World Trade Center. And "When the Stars Go Blue" has become, and I think rightly so, something of a pop standard, having been covered by a lot of people over the last 8 years. (In fact, it's been something of a victim of its own success. When Blake Lewis performed it on American Idol, the song was credited to Tim McGraw--who released a cover of it that became a country hit, but had nothing to do with writing it.)

I'm not going to try to sum up Ryan Adams's career here, especially since he has released 8 bazillion albums over the past 7 years. (This is only a slight exaggeration.) I think he's got some talent, and I think a handful of his tunes have some real merit--like the very strange but beautiful "Strawberry Wine" and the well-constructed "Starlite Diner," both from 29, one of a trio (!) of albums he released in 2005. What I mean to say is that maybe it's time to listen to Gold one more time. And then not listen to it again for a while.

And if this long post put you to sleep, well, just consider it a favor.