How does it compare to the artist's other releases
Outstanding
Value for Money
Advantages:
Fragile like you
Disadvantages:
I'm on my 19th nervous breakdown listening to it .
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
If you don't like Ryan Adams, you probably smell. Then again, Emma likes him and she's quite pungent in aroma...
Anyway. Heartbreaker kicks off a soul aching so many minutes (would check but cd's upstairs) with Ryan placing a bet concerning Morrissey. Much quoted- "Eth's gotta mouth fulla cookies.."( He won, BTW, see Gold), then stumbles like a sexy drunken monkeyboy into "to be young ( is to be sad is to be high)".It'll make you swing boozy eyed around your bedroom barefoot, likewise the equally intoxicating "Shakedown on 9th Street"( sing along- pretend you're Lucy).
Hug yourself stupid with sorrow thru such classics as "Come pick me up", "Why do they leave?" "AMY", and"To be the one". Wallow in sweet yearning all laced thru with melancholy to the beautiful, crystal fragile "Call me on your way back home"- the harmonica outro is like a cowboy booted kick in the guts, Bob Dylan style.
"In my time of need" sings nostalgia for some lost era, it feels like a Steinbeck novel, Ryan's angelic vocals whispering soulful and blue over a tale of hardworking calloused hand love in a dreamy America long lost.
But still "Sweet Little Gal (23rd/1st) is, for me, the most memorable. It's raw and powerful in it's honest simplicity, just piano and voice. It's bare bone beauty is stripped naked in the rain and crying, beaten and alone. I've never heard a voice more vulnerable, more poignant. Truly great music moves you- "Sweet Little Gal" simply destroys me with sadness and empathy.
You don't need to be a dumpee to blub like a baby to Heartbreaker. But you'd have to be pretty cold and callous not to.
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How does it rate alongside the competition
Not applicable
Cover / Inlay Design and Content
Good
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Heartbreaker -
With a touch of Robyn Hitchcock in his vocal timbre, a smidgen of Steve Earle in his
... more
narratives and instrumental writing and a heap of Gram Parsons in the fullness of his overall sound and structure, Ryan Adams steps well above Whiskeytown withHeartbre...
Heartbreaker - Ryan Adams
With a touch of Robyn Hitchcock in his vocal timbre, a smidgen of Steve Earle in his
... more
narratives and instrumental writing and a heap of Gram Parsons in the fullness of his overall sound and structure, Ryan Adams steps well above Whiskeytown with Heartbr...
