Ryan Adams
1989
I don't really care for Taylor Swift's music. She seems like a wonderful person and--as proven time and again--a great performer, just not really my taste musically.
That said, neither is Ryan Adams. Soft rock singer-songwriters are legion and though I do agree that Adams' skill is above and beyond the average bar-playing mope with a dime store guitar, the overall sound coming from that sub-genre is underwhelming at best.
And that is what makes 1989 so fantastic, because I've never heard anything like it before. I mean, apart from the original T-Swift versions.
Yes, this is a track-by-track cover of Swift's album of the same name, but where Adams succeeds is at taking the bubblegum sweetness of the originals and turning them into heartbreaking ballads about loss, loneliness, and breaking up.
The instrumentation is perfect and the changes in speed and key make every song seem like an entirely new creation. The standout here is "Bad Blood"--a song that had the even the most forgiving Swift fence-riders bristling at the overly-pop sensibilities--which Adams turns into an immaculate tale of the growing distance between partners who were not meant to be.
Ryan Adams recalls early (read: good) Springsteen and Bryan Adams (seriously confusing everyone) in his excellent deliveries that, in many cases, even rival Swift's. The emotion captured in something like a slow, acoustic take on "Shake It Off," the strain felt in every note of a classic rock retooled "Style," or the alt-country jolt of a hand-strummed "Wildest Dreams" is beyond compare.
1989 is pop like I never understood it could be. Usually covers don't get any mention by me, but Adams' are so perfect, taking each song and raising it to the status of instant classic, that I wish he would cover literally everything in the Top 40 right now. This is mandatory listening, and for me, on repeat. I have never heard an album so inexplicably good.
(P.S. Unlike someone, Adams puts his stuff on Spotify).
