Music Monday: Ryan Adams Edition

Last Tuesday was an awesome week for me. Not only did the latest Terrance Malick movie “The Tree of Life” come out on DVD… not only did one of my favorite authors, Jeffrey Eugenides, publish his long-awaited book The Marriage Plot… but the always-awesome Ryan Adams released his album “Ashes & Fire“. So in his honor, I celebrate Music Monday. I’ll span his days with Whiskeytown to now with some highlights of some of my favorites. This could get to be a lot of links, but they’re all worth it.

Whiskeytown’s “Avenues” seems like a good place to start. This was the band Ryan was a part of before going solo. Sorry it’s a crappy montage video with the studio recording in the background, but it was the only Youtube version that didn’t include a badly lit living room and no one named Ryan Adams.

“Oh My Sweet Carolina” off his debut solo album “Heartbreaker” will be next. Such a good song with Emmylou Harris singing some harmonies on the album version — This one is just Ryan. I never get sick of hearing this song. Check it out.

“Firecracker” is the first of his solo stuff I ever heard (shout out to Dave Tack, my sophomore English teacher for the intro). This version is great — stripped down and the way it was meant to be.

“So Alive” is an awesome song. It’s equal parts charged and mellow. It’s part Smiths in the verses and then explodes to a great chorus. Enjoy this one.

For many Ryan Adams fans, I may be doing an incredible disservice by leaving out the Love Is Hell sessions. Both are great, but there’s just so many good ones. The next one is off his disc “29”. It’s a track called “Blue Sky Blues”.

“Dirty Rain” is the final track I’ll post. It leads off his new disc and continues his streak of awesome.

As I said earlier, there are plenty of tracks I have left off of here. But it gives a good intro to the world of Ryan Adams. Hope you’ve enjoyed your tour.

Cheers,
Eric