29 by Ryan Adams

[John M]

Its melancholic without being maudlin and much better than any of the other albums he's released since "Heartbreaker". He's on tour in February and I fancying going to see him but £25 seems a bit expensive.

I bought "Heartbreaker" when I was heartbroken and now I'm 29 and have bought "29". I await his next album, "Stupidly Rich", with great interest.

[Dave w.]

i saw a really good review of that and was going to get it, but i forgot. as i haven't got anything else he's done, is it really good (or just less bad than his other albums!)?

or maybe i'm too old for it at 30.

[John Mc]

I really like it, he releases so many albums that I'd kind of given up on him ever releasing a consistently good one again, "Jacksonville Nights" which came out a couple of months ago was rubbish.

I used to think it was ridiculous the way he seemed to release everything that he writes but now I prefer that approach to waiting 4 years between albums.

I read an interview with Ray Davis out of the Kinks the other day and he was saying that bands generally spend too long over analysing and producing albums rather than just releasing them, the example he gave was U2 who said they could have released their album a year earlier but it wouldn't have been great so they delayed it. But even when it came out a year later it wasn't great so they shouldn't have bothered. But I suppose it varies from band to band.

Thats quite enough wafflly posts from me, i'm off out to get drunk and celebrate xmas, hope you all have a great festive period. Ho ho ho etc...

[John Mc]

Forget plagues, violence and famine - the worst thing in the world is Ryan Adams in concert. I've been to a fair few shit gigs in my time but the 'concert' tonight was by far the worst I've ever been to. Mumbling incoherantly for 25 minutes between each song does not constitute being charismatic in my book. Thats £25 and 3 hours of my life that I'll never get back.