For 30 years we have listened to the ceaseless lament of rock 'n' roll fans bemoaning the wheels of time that bear them ever further from the golden age-the days when the Hell's Angels ran security for the Rolling Stones at their free Altamont Speedway concert, when they saw Bruce Springsteen open at an East-Coast stop on Chicago's headline 1973 tour and of course, that day in 1968 when they rode along with Led Zeppelin on the tour bus from San Francisco to Denver for the band's live U.S. debut. Indeed, their voices have not gone unheralded. Whenever we begin to forget, to move on, to grow up, some lustrous candle emerges from the shadows to lead us back. Many of us read Nick Hornby's superb novel, "High Fidelity," more of us saw the movie, and none of us escaped the wistful beauty of Cameron Crowe's recent film "Almost Famous." Why then, I must ask, does rock 'n' roll-30 years after it was irreparably marred, strangled and assassinated by the glitz and glam of the disco era-still hold an undeniable place in our hearts?
The answer, Ryan Adams seems to assert, is that it lives powerfully on. Indeed, his new album, aptly-titled "Rock N Roll," is not a mere reflection, a brief nostalgia, or a pining timepiece, but a vigorous reassertion of the omnipresence of rock 'n' roll. Adams claims not to look back upon the rock 'n' roll of the past but to look forward, as he sings in the album's opening lines: "Let me sing a song for you / That's never been sung before / All the words were meant for you / And never been said before."
Yet it is not the lyrics but the instrumentation of the album that is ultimately praiseworthy. Adams samples a wildly eclectic mix of sounds that span the entire era of pop music, even, thank God, the oft and tragically ignored 1980s. The Edge's innovative, pulsing mid-80s guitar riffs echo throughout, especially in the majestic "So Alive," which also features a towering falsetto sung by Adams. Likewise, the central riff to the album's second track, "Shallow," could have been culled from any number of early blues-rock recordings, from Led Zeppelin to Stevie Ray Vaughan. And the song "1974" sounds as if it had been recently discovered amongst the outtake tapes of the Clash's 1979 masterpiece, "London Calling."
Adams is not only influenced by the distant past. Indeed, it would take some effort not to think of Nirvana's 1994 album "Nevermind" when listening to the melodramatic "Note to Self: Don't Die." Nor could we ignore similarities to modern rockers like the Goo Goo Dolls when listening to "Do Miss America," which is assisted by Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day) and Parker Posey (literally every indie film from the past 10 years).
Yet some of the album's most affecting tracks feature Adams carving his own name into that perpetual tree, the blossom of which, in "Rock N Roll," he himself endeavors to maintain. Indeed, his own sound resonates on the sullen and deliberate solo piano title track, as well as on the album's strongest tune, the brooding yet upbeat "Burning Photographs." On these, as well as others, he substantiates his hype, proving once again that he is indeed the brat-genius of rock 'n' roll.
Still, while Adams has proven to be rock 'n' roll's great new synthesist and perpetuator, his unfortunate inability to craft poignant lyrics prevents "Rock N Roll" from consideration as a "great" album. There are far too many cliches, pop hooks and sterile, generic phrases. For example, in the song "Shallow," Adams sings: "Girl, don't tell me how you want me / Tell me how to get through." The theme of emotional restoration at the hands of a woman is one so commonly explored in music that to successfully employ it now, an artist must express it with breathtaking poetry. Even in the album's best tune, "Burning Photographs," Adams slips into the most common social-criticism cliche. "Pretty pictures in a magazine," he sings, "everybody is so make believe."
The lyrical banality on the album actually reminds me of rock 'n' roll's sad and reprehensible underbelly-bands like Kiss, REO Speedwagon and Bad Company, which are canonically referred to as "classic rock," but which really represent its dissolution into the main stream drivel that characterized late-70s radio. Their inattention to lyrics and meaning, replaced by costumes and gaudiness, leave them on much the same playing field as the incomparably odious disco bands like Abba and the Bee Gees. In my opinion, lyrics should be considered at least equally important as instrumentation. They ought to be a form of literature-poetry that possesses the unique ability to awaken emotions that previously lay listless in the vast recesses of the soul.
Adams' lyrics fail by this standard, but I concede that they are not entirely barren. They unquestionably deserve a chance, but will not stand up to repeated listening. Adams should provide an edifying alternative for the respectable music appreciator trying to avoid the nefarious trappings of all those craven, sordid souls, spiking their hair, wearing mesh shirts and waving glow sticks to the newest techno beat in the "hottest" New York City nightclub.
In every age, there are those of us who must look down the road-it doesn't take clairvoyance, I assure you, to see that techno will fade like all the ephemera that bedecks it. Artifice never remains. But rock 'n' roll has, and so will Ryan Adams, even if only as the shadow of his own ingenuity.