There are some artists whose obscurity is the result of their being too difficult for the mainstream music listener to "get." And then there are artists whose obscurity stems from the fact that their music simply isn't all that good.

Ryan Adams, the former (and possibly future) frontman for the alt-country band Whiskeytown, recently released Heartbreaker, his solo debut on the Bloodshot record label, which treads the line between the two types of obscurity. A wildly uneven album, Heartbreaker, if not one of the most disappointing albums of the year, is certainly one of the most over-hyped.

The album opens with a non-musical track, a mildly amusing 30+ second discussion between Adams and David Rawlings, who both plays and shares a songwriting credit on Heartbreaker, about Morrissey, the enigmatic singer/songwriter/Smiths' frontman whose morose lyrical bent would certainly appear to have had quite an impact on Adams, who seems to have recorded much of his first solo album while on Valium, if not actually comatose.

The second track, however, is not only the album's strongest but also one of the greatest country/rock singles of 2000. "To be Young (Is to be Sad, Is to be High)" stands alongside the best recordings of Steve Earle, Tom Petty, or John Mellencamp. The song flat-out rocks, while Adams builds a unique lyric about the mechanisms people have for dealing with the frequently-explored country topic of "being done wrong." If the subject of the song is rather cliche, Adams and producer Ethan Johns miraculously avoid cliche in any other aspect of one of the year's best singles.

"To be Young..." gives hope that the rest of Heartbreaker will, if not surpass that level of excellence, at least maintain the momentum the song develops. Unfortunately, it sounds as though Adams took some neurodepressants between recording "To be Young..." and "My Winding Wheel," a lifeless attempt at a contemplative song. The lyric is pleasant enough and avoids the hyperglycemic sentiment of similar songs, but Adams simply doesn't have the voice to carry a ballad like this. As Adams sings, "Oh bed of steel, be my winding wheel," it's never really clear to whom or what he's singing, which likely explains the complete lack of conviction in his vocal delivery.

There's really nothing wrong with a laid-back vocal style, but Adams just sounds bored on "My Winding Wheel" and on most every other song on the album. This is far too evident on "AMY," (I can discern no reason why the name should be written in all capital letters... it's a grammar-nazi nit-pick, I know, but there it is.), which is a fairly straightforward love ballad-- one that I could easily imagine Bryan Adams singing.

And then Emmylou Harris shows up!

Simply put, Emmylou Harris could make just about anything sound incredible. And the harmony vocal she provides on "Oh my Sweet Carolina," which just happens to offer Adams' best vocal work on the album, is just gorgeous. The song itself is lovely, as well, with a simple brushed-drum backbeat and soft piano serving as a backdrop for this haunting duet.

Again, there's hope that the collaboration with Emmylou Harris might lift the album from its comatose state, but no such luck, unfortunately. "Bartering Lines" plods on interminably, its monotonous choral refrain occasionally reminding the listener that his/her CD player hasn't turned itself off from a lack of interest. "Call Me on Your Way Back Home" and "Damn, Sam (I Love a Woman That Rains)" then completely lose what trace of a pulse the album's first few tracks had weakly maintained.

Really, there's nothing wrong with being somber-- just ask Neko Case, also signed to the Bloodshot label-- so long as you have something meaningful to say. Unfortunately, Adams seems to have left any unique insights into life with his Whiskeytown bandmates. Lines like, "I'm as calm as a fruit stand in New York/ And maybe as strange" serve no functional purpose other than maintaining a rhyme structure that isn't really all that interesting, anyway.

And then there's "Come Pick me Up," which also gives the false hope that the album might gain momentum into the final stretch. It's a harmonica-and-drum driven track that sounds as though it could've been lifted from Kim Richey's stunning Bitter Sweet album, which is not entirely the result of the harmony vocal she provides here. The lyric of the song is almost indecipherable through the verses, as Adams mumbles his way through, but then the chorus kicks in, and it doesn't really seem to matter. "Come pick me up," he announces to an unnamed Ex, "Steal my records/ S---w all my friends..." It's really a fascinating song-- one that explores a man's resignation to the sense of desperation his break-up has left.

The harmonica from "Come Pick me Up" actually carries over into the introduction of "To be the One," which further encourages the idea that the album conclude with the same momentum with which it began.

"To be the One," however, is just the first song in what can only be described as an outright comatose final song sequence that simply lilts off to nothingness. "Shakedown on 9th Street" rocks as hard as "To be Young..," but the song itself is just inane, a slice of rockabilly about as inspiring as Eric Heatherly's hideous cover of "Flowers on the Wall" or anything by the Brian Setzer Orchestra. The only functional purpose the song serves is to reinforce Adams' fondness for the word "gal" as a term of affection, which was already quite apparent by the last few chords of "To be Young..."

"Don't Ask for the Water," "In my Time of Need," and "Sweet Lil' Gal" are so lightweight that they hardly seem to be ON the album at all. The first two or three times I listened to the disc, I actually didn't even notice the songs at all. Though I certainly think that a stripped-down production can reveal a singer/songwriter's most intimate, poetic moments, these three songs are so head-slappingly inconsequential that it would seem logical to give them a production similar to "To be Young" or "Shakedown on 9th Street" just to get them off the ground.

Ultimately, it appears as though Adams thinks of himself as having more substantial songwriting gifts than he actually does. The almost non-existent production and the lazy, non-committal vocals on no less than 10 of Heartbreaker's 15 tracks simply aren't sufficient to carry the album.

The end result leaves Heartbreaker as a terrible disappointment. His work with Whiskeytown, his engaging live performances, and the few flashes of brilliance on this album indicate that Adams could release something of vastly superior quality to this album.

Is this a truly BAD album? Of course not. Adams has a certain degree of raw talent, meaning that such inexplicably-popular poseurs as Kenny Chesney or Eric Heatherly are "cursed" with the responsibility of releasing genuinely BAD music. The worst that someone of Adams' talent could hope to do is "disappointing." Heartbreaker, despite those flashes of brilliance, certainly qualifies as just that.

BOTTOM LINE: Don't expect anything of the quality of Steve Earle's Transcendental Blues or of any Whiskeytown release, and you won't be disappointed. Expect the album that Ryan Adams' talents merit, and you definitely will not be pleased.

For Fans of: Richard Buckner, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Old 97's, Tom Petty, John Mellencamp.




Recommended: No