Ryan Adams showed us his alternative rock and country roots
September 5, 2000 Ryan Adams released his first solo album, “Heartbreaker”. The title of the album, according to what Adams himself declared, can be traced back to Mariah Carey: “My manager called me and said, ‘You have 15 seconds to name this record.’ My eyes saw this poster of Mariah wearing a T-shirt that said ‘Heartbreaker.’ I screamed, ‘Heartbreaker!'” We remember the anniversary of its release by offering you a review of the deluxe edition of the album published in 2016.
In September 2000, a 26-year-old boy from North Carolina – after a few years with his first band, Whiskeytown – made his solo debut on the market with an album, “Heartbreaker”, which fully reflected his alternative rock and country roots. That boy was called Ryan Adams and today, sixteen years after the release of that album, he is one of the most prolific and valid American singer-songwriters in his genre. “Heartbreaker” is an album that American rock lovers have particularly close to their hearts and surely knowing that it would be back on the market in a deluxe edition (remastered) sixteen years after its release will have made them very happy. It is now considered a classic in its genre: the songwriting, the interpretation of Ryan Adams, have shown the world of rock an enormous talent. So great that in the following years he became unstoppable, releasing albums in bursts, with different genres and styles.
Like any self-respecting deluxe edition, the one for “Heartbreaker” also contains, in addition to the tracks from the original edition, unreleased demos and outtakes. And to enrich the album – which reaches the market in double CD plus DVD format or in quadruple LP and DVD, there is also an unreleased live acoustic at the Mercury Lounge in New York in October 2000 – where the singer-songwriter from Jacksonville sang his minimal version of Oasis’ “Wonderwall” for the first time – and a booklet of rare and unreleased photos (the notes for which were written by friend and collaborator Ethan Johns, who worked alongside Ryan as producer during the making of the album).
The tracklist of the first of the two discs included in the double CD+DVD edition faithfully reproduces that of the 2000 edition: it opens with the recording of the speech with David Rawlings about Morrissey, continues with “To be young (Is to be sad, is to be high)” and closes with “Sweet lil gal (23rd/1st)”. Passing through “Oh my sweet Carolina”, “Call me on you way back home” and “Come pick me up”: nothing new in short.
The new (and beautiful) things are all on the second disc, containing a total of 20 tracks divided between the “Heartbreaker sessions” and the “pre-album demos”: these are outtakes of songs like “Hairdresser on fire jam”, “Petal in a rainstorm”, “War horse”, the alternative version of “When the rope gets tight” and the demos of – among others – “Locked away”, “In my time of need” and “To be the one”.
In short, we could say that for the reissue of “Heartbreaker” Ryan Adams has practically dusted off all the tapes and recordings of the album to reveal to his fans all the secrets of what, after almost twenty years, remains one of the best debut albums ever.
