933. Ryan Adams - Gold (2001)

Track Listing

1. New York, New York
2. Firecracker
3. Answering Bell
4. La Cienega Just Smiled
5. The Rescue Blues
6. Somehow, Someday
7. When The Stars Go Blue
8. Nobody Girl
9. Sylvia Plath
10. Enemy Fire
11. Gonna Make You Love Me
12. Wild Flowers
13. Harder Now That It's Over
14. Touch, Feel & Lose
15. Tina Toledo's Street Walkin' Blues
16. Goodnight, Hollywood Blvd.

Review

Another great album by the unfortunately named Ryan Adams. The early 00s are proving to be not bad at all, in fact we've been having a pretty good streak of album and in spite of some breaks it should continue to be mostly good stuff for a while.

So Ryan is in the alt-country/folk-rock tradition and his songs are great examples of those styles drawing from influences like Gram Parsons and The Band, an influence which is particularly obvious in Answering Bell, and doing an all 'round great job.

I am really a sucker for this kind of stuff and Ryan ticks a number of boxes. I probably liked Heartbreaker better as it didn't sound as polished as this, but the evolution here is natural and the album is still pretty great. Definitely recommended.

Track Highlights

1. Answering Bell
2. La Cienega Just Smiled
3. Nobody Girl
4. Tina Toledo's Street Walking Blues

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Adams intended for the album to be a double album, but his record label, Lost Highway, condensed the album into a single disc to avoid paying Adams more money. According to Adams, the label "took the last five songs, made it a bonus disc and put it on the first hundred and fifty thousand copies. Fucking my fans over and making them pay extra for a record I wanted to be a double album. They counted that as one record." This bonus disc is known as Side Four; the disc's title reflects the fact that the bonus material makes up the fourth side of the double LP edition of the album.

Answering Bell: