A song in the news indeed — a music magazine to be exact. Take a listen to a snippet of the new Ryan Adams song that he contributed to the Esopus Magazine Spring 2008 sampler CD. My first thought was “wow he is trying to stick a lot of words in here,” followed by an immediate, “meh.” After that came some vague frustration directed towards a possible lack of trying. But I could just be having a bad day. Your thoughts?
Name: Heather Browne
Location: Colorado, originally by way of California
Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel."
—Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.
I AM FUEL, YOU ARE FRIENDS is brought to you by Fuel/Friends LLC. Ownership of all audio and visual material displayed here remains with their creators and/or owners and is cited accordingly.. Illustrations by Luke Flowers. Design & Layout by Dayjob.
Possibly the worst Ryan song I have ever heard…I’d like to buy him a beer at Niagra, I’m gettin’ tired of sober Ryan.
chris — May 13, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
Esopus generally picks a theme and has artists create songs based around that – in some cases songs are based on material submitted by readers of the magazine. For example, the last issue’s CD was comprised of songs interpreting/relating reader’s dreams.
Having said that, the song is poo.
Payo — May 13, 2008 @ 6:03 pm
Yeah, that’s pretty awful. He’s never been very good at quality control though
The Stranger — May 13, 2008 @ 6:25 pm
sounds like one of his throw away songs he would have posted on his defunct blog…but i have to say, it’s not the worst song of his i’ve ever heard. and i also think that him being sober is not such a bad thing. instead of being drunk or stoned he throws himself fully into his art, for better or worse. like he said in an interview once, when your mom makes too much meatloaf, you don’t complain, you just eat meatloaf sandwiches with the leftovers.
matt cleveland — May 13, 2008 @ 7:36 pm
I agree, total crap. I do like the Langhorne Slim track that precedes it though. If you don’t know his stuff, check him out. His new cd just came out and one of the tracks, “Diamonds and Gold” is pretty much my new life anthem.
Love your blog, thanks for all the good phonic suggestions.
ccf — May 13, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
Well, it’s only 30 seconds or so at a low bitrate – but I think it could be pretty great. I really like the guitar tone and the way he intones bullllshit. And the fact he uses the word ‘misdeliver’. Great word.
Keebs — May 13, 2008 @ 9:51 pm
His recent Warewolph fare is better and I’m no fan of metal. That said, even Michaelangelo painted silly pictures from time to time.
Ben — May 14, 2008 @ 4:44 am
I don’t think a high bitrate can make up for bad songwriting. I love Ryan’s songs, even the mediocre ones and this one is crap.
jcroach — May 14, 2008 @ 6:48 am
Sounds like a really shitty Lou Reed imitation to me. I’m not sure what’s going on with the other songs either. The song after Ryan’s is unlistenable, and the one after that is a failed attempt at sounding like Joanna Newsom.
Maloney — May 14, 2008 @ 8:35 am
more website rap!!! less garbage!!!
Maran — May 14, 2008 @ 9:39 am
It’s like he’s forgotten how to fucking write. This is like 14 year old Ryan finding his way. He’s gone full circle.
Anonymous — May 14, 2008 @ 10:12 am
Not sure if this the worst Ryan Adams song as it is not easy to get to the front of that list. Good chance it would finish in the top 3 though.
I agree with ccf – the Langhorne Slim sample is much better. His self-titled album just received an excellent review on Firenote.
Tawriffic — May 14, 2008 @ 10:54 pm
not a great song, but as somebody mentioned – it’s just a 30 second snippet at low bitrate. It has that raw demo feel. What worries me a bit is that he is completely out of tune and has no real melody in the vocal melodyline. But I don’t think this is something we need to worry about. Easy Tiger and Follow the Ligths showed us that he has some qualitycontrol nowadays.
Stian — May 15, 2008 @ 3:19 am
dude pretty much made it up as he went along. sounds like he wrote out the lyrics in a them and tried to fit all of his lines in to the music. obvious the lyrics were written first. i doubt this was meant to be taken seriously. and with that said…it’s shit.
Nick — May 15, 2008 @ 11:01 am
If you’re going to do something you should at least make a good job of it. This is a feeble effort.
Anonymous — May 16, 2008 @ 10:36 am
people! The guy is a human being, not an answer to your problems or a fix for your own lack of effort. If he’s no good, then what does that make the rest of us? It’s a whole lot o’ bad karma to flog a person for disappointing YOUR expectations.
Anonymous — October 23, 2008 @ 10:47 am