| | Ryan Adams Heartbreaker CD Ryan Adams Discography of CDs
 (6 Customer Reviews)
Whiskeytown were one the mid-'90s wave of bands who approached American roots music--country, folk, singer/songwriter, and combinations thereof--from an alternative rock standpoint. They were apt to be as influenced by Nick Drake and Superchunk as by Johnny Cash and Neil Young. Ryan Adams performs vocal duties for Whiskeytown, and HEARTBREAKER is his first solo album.
It's primarily a singer/songwriter affair, with lots of acoustic guitars, gentle drums, subtle keyboards, and back-porch harmony vocals, but there's also a lot of variety and kick. "To Be Young" tears out of the gate like a rollicking out-take from Dylan's HIGHWAY 61 sessions, and the gentle, shimmering, baroque-tinged "Amy" recalls both the Left Banke, and the Beatles in their "Eleanor Rigby" mode. Many tunes--like "To Be the One"--have a bare-bones, dusty, story-telling quality that recalls Dylan, John Prine, Woody Guthrie, and Steve Earle (who Adams slightly resembles vocally) without ever sounding like Adams is aping them. As a bonus, Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch supply heavenly harmonies.
Personnel: Ryan Adams (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, harmonica, piano); David Rawlings (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, tambourine); Gillian Welch (vocals, acoustic guitar, banjo, bass guitar); Emmylou Harris, Allison Pearce, Kim Richey (vocals); Pat Sansone (piano, organ, background vocals).
Recording information: Woodland Studios, Nashville, Tennessee.
Rolling Stone (9/14/00, p.177) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...[His] sources run deep...he has the raspy, quavering voice and innate tunefulness to be worthy of [his sources]...which run from Paul Westerberg to Hank Williams....[He has] considerable talent and charm..."
Entertainment Weekly (9/8/00, p.89) - "...A brash, alt-country balladeer with a rock instinct....cementing [his] rep as a latter-day Gram Parsons." - Rating: B+
Q (1/01, p.104) - 4 out of 5 stars - "...An album of aching ballads topped and tailed by some irresistible barroom remorse....Gram Parsons would have been proud."
Uncut (p.92) - "[A] brilliant mix of romantic burn-out, reckless bravado, charred emotions, tender swagger and fractured beauty..."
Alternative Press (5/01, p.104) - Included in AP's "10 Essential Breakup Albums" - "...The torment is all Adams' - we can be certain of that..."
CMJ (1/08/01, p.9) - Included in CMJ's "Best of the Year" for 2000.
CMJ (9/4/00, p.3) - "...A brand-new set of foot-stomping anthems and rum-soaked ballads....[He] is the newest icon of heartfelt country rock."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.61) - Ranked #52 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "Adams conjures a kitbag of Dylanesque blues, tear-in-your-beer country and aching Greenwich Village-style folk."
Mojo (Publisher) (11/00, p.98) - "...Haunted and hurting, this is an album about love....though quiet and spare...it's impassioned, lyrically and melodically..."
NME (Magazine) (12/30/00, p.79) - Ranked #45 in NME's "Top 50 Albums Of The Year".
NME (Magazine) (11/25/00, p.34) - 8 stars out of 10 - "...Adams takes sighing acoustic guitars and melancholic country melodies and strips them bare until all that remains are the stinging truths of the heart, and his own ruminations....a fine successor to Jeff Buckley's throne as visionary rock troubador." Heartbreaker Music | List Price | $15.98 (You save $2.73) | | Category | Rock Albums, Rock/Pop CDs, Alt Country | | Label | Bloodshot | | Orig Year | 2000 | | All Time Sales Rank |  3450  | | CD Universe Part number | 1059251 | | Catalog number | 20071 | | Discs | 1 | | Release Date | Sep 05, 2000 | | Studio/Live | Studio | | Mono/Stereo | Stereo | | Producer | Ethan Jones | | Engineer | Ethan Jones | | Personnel | David Rawlings - vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, tambourine
Pat Sansone - piano, organ, background vocals
Ryan Adams - vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, harmonica, piano
Allison Pierce
Also: Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Kim Richey |
Ryan Adams Heartbreaker Songs Heartbreaker Music Review Average Rating: (4.5 out of 5 stars)   List All Reviews A touching masterpiece
This is Ryan Adams' first solo album since departing from the alternative country band, whiskeytown. Adams heartbreaker is a collection of touching songs on heartbreak and sorrow. Adams' has a beutiful voice and the lyric will make you cry. you don't have to be heartbroken to enjoy heartbreaker.
Submitted by suewing511 (Atlanta, GA) 
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 Solo Hit From Whiskeytown Frontman
I highly recommend Ryan Adam's solo debut HEARTBREAKER to anyone getting into alt. Country. From the rockabilly swagger of "To Be Young (is to be sad, is to be high)" to the heart ache of "Come Pick Me Up" the album is everything that country music should be about, but isn't anymore. Adams is a true talent, even holding his own against the likes of Emmylou Harris on "Oh My Sweet Carolina". His second solo release GOLD is a little more radio friendly, but this one has all the raw attitude you could ask for. A must for any true fan.
Submitted by a reviewer (Montgomery, Al., USA)
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Ryan Adams' Masterpiece
Though Ryan has had many incredible songs, and a couple more "very good" albums since the release of Heartbreaker, nothing quite measures up. It is his "Highway 61 Revisited" or "Exile On Main Street". An Incredible work of art.
Submitted by Kent (S.L.C. Ut)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No Heartbreaker tears you apart..
The albulm is very deep that touches your soul. 5 stars all the way!
Submitted by marleezf (Buffalo, NY)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No Stripped Down to the Bare Soul
Ryan Adams, songwriter and primary member of the Alt. Country group Whiskeytown, has ventured off on a solo project. The theme seems to be exposing the raw emotions that at times threaten to overwhelm him, and you as the listener may feel like an intruder. The music is passionate, and his ability to paint word pictures to express that passion put him among the top songwriters/poets of the genre. At times Dylanesque, Adams' songs are more thoughtful and introspective than much of his previous work with Whiskeytown. Highlights include "To Be Young," perhaps the most upbeat of the songs, "Oh My Sweet Carolina, and the somber "Bartering Lines." A must-buy for Whiskeytown and Alt. Country fans.
Submitted by a reviewer (Pompano Beach, FL)
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Purchase Heartbreaker CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Lucinda Williams Car Wheels On A Gravel Road CD (1998)
Heartbreaker
 $11.95  
All tracks have been digitally mastered using HDCD technology.
CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD won the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. "Can't Let Go" was nominated for the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
Williams's fans waited a long six years for this album, as Lucinda went through music business hassles and a revolving door of producers. The reward for their patience is an album full of rootsy, heartfelt observations that alternately rock and mourn. CAR WHEELS is full of songs about loss and longing, like "Metal Firecracker," "Drunken Angel" and "I Lost It," but even when she's bemoaning her own lack of happiness on the bluesy "Joy," she lets loose with so much passion that it seems inevitable she'll find her emotional center again.
Produced largely by Steve Earle, ...
| | Ryan Adams Gold CD (2001)
Heartbreaker
$11.99 
Initial pressings of GOLD will include a limited edition bonus disc featuring five songs.
GOLD was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. "New York, New York" was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.
This is a (multi-channel) Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players.
The "it" boy of early-'00s roots-rock, former Whiskeytown leader Ryan Adams has responded to the mountain of hype surrounding him with an arrogance worthy of his idol, mid-'60s Bob Dylan. Accordingly he follows his stripped-down solo debut with a two-disc, fully produced set that finds him grasping for the mantle of alt-country messiah. GOLD picks up where Whiskeytown's swan song FAITHLESS STREET left off; a step removed from the country-rock hard line but still full of rootsy, organic, Band-like warmth.
The up-tempo opening tune "New York, New York" recalls vintage Steve Forbert, while "Answering Bell" sounds like David Gray fronting the aforementioned Band on a rewritten "The Weight." The ...
| | Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot CD (2002) Enhanced CD
Heartbreaker
$10.55
Far too much attention has been focused on this album's tortured history; band makes weird album, label rejects it, band buys it back and puts it out a year later through another arm of the same corporation. For the record, wildly overexcited Radiohead comparisons aside, the album's not that weird--it merely ventures a bit further down the sonic-shambles roads explored on the band's previous two releases. As has been noted elsewhere, the most valid reference point for the occasional pop deconstructions of YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT is Big Star's THIRD/SISTER LOVERS, not Thom Yorke and company.
The most significant factor in this nominal weird-out is the presence of producer Jim O'Rourke, whose avant-rock tendencies loom large here. Nevertheless, beneath the layers of warped keyboards and slow-death guitars, Wilco mastermind Jeff ...
| | Ryan Adams Demolition CD (2002)
Heartbreaker
$12.59
As part of the prolific flow of material that found him releasing three albums in two years, ex-Whiskeytown frontman Ryan Adams continued to surf his wave of popularity with 2002's DEMOLITION, a baker's dozen worth of demos. Culled from five separate demo recording sessions, these songs find Adams all over the stylistic map indulging in some twangy, pedal-steel-soaked tendencies ("Hallelujah"), making like Paul Westerberg with a Byrds Jones ("Gimme A Sign"), and tucking into echoey ballads ("Dear Chicago").
Adams also delicately duets with fellow y'alternative stalwart Gillian Welch ("Tomorrow"), mixes it up with Dylan's pedal steel player Bucky Baxter ("Chin Up, Cheer Up"), and still manages ...
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Heartbreaker
$12.59 
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Heartbreaker
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