Ryan Adams
Rock N Roll
Lost Highway
Ryan Adams is still sad, but now he’s really pissed off too. Finishing the follow-up to 2001’s Gold, record execs at his label told him it sounded too much like The Smiths. Adams replied, “That’s a huge fucking compliment. Of course you don’t like it. You live in Nashville!” Rejected, Adams went back and banged out his loudest, angriest record to date, Rock N Roll. The ringing, soaring guitar on first single “So Alive” recall The Edge on U2’s earlier albums. Adams also explores new range vocally, sounding like a resurrected Jeff Buckley on “So Alive” and “Anybody Wanna Take Me Home?” Lyrically, the album still isn’t ‘happy’ but Adams displays the same satirical swagger as his hero, Morrissey. Lines like, “If I had a car I’d drive straight into the window of a bank I owed money to” from “Burning Photographs” and tracks like “Note To Self: Don’t Die”, “Do Miss America” and “Boys” show Ryan’s manic-depressive humour. Ironically, the one break from the rock is the title track. This beautiful two minutes of piano, Adams’ defeated vocals and an inaudible sample of a woman’s voice will make you break down.-Chris Clark
Clay Aiken
Measure of a Man
RCA/BMG
Clay Aiken, the geek-boy runner-up of American Idol 2, won fans across North America with his nerdy charm, snarky humour and, most importantly, a huge voice that impressed the judges and viewers alike. However, though it pains me to say it, his debut album bites the big one. How does a singer with a better-than-average voice, working with some of the biggest names in the business (including the legendary Clive Davis and hit-maker Desmond Child) still manage to come up with an album that is irredeemably crappy? Lead single “Invisible” is a creepy stalker song that has Clay singing “If I were invisible/If I could just watch you in your room” while convincing himself he’s not singing a creepy stalker song. “The Way”, a sappy love song that sounds like it should be sung at a junior high dance by a teenager aspiring to be the next Nick Lachey, is just painfully bad. It’s a testament to the sheer wretchedness of this album that “This is the Night”, the over-sung power ballad that took Aiken to top of the Billboard charts post-Idol, and “Measure of a Man”, a contemporary Christian song in disguise that would send a diabetic into shock that no insulin dosage could revive, are its only listenable tracks. Worse yet, the production sounds like a rushed hack-job, burying Aiken’s vocals and making every song sound exactly the same. Though the album has already gone platinum, there’s only so long teenaged girls and middle-aged women will continue to swoon over Clay before moving onto, say, Ryan Malcolm. Good luck with that second album, Idol Boy, and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.-Yasmin Siddiqui
Barenaked Ladies
Everything To Everyone
Reprise Records
It might seem cocky or even foolhardy to title an album Everything To Everyone, but if anyone’s worthy of the label, it’s our own Barenaked Ladies. In their first release since 2000’s Maroon, the boys opened up not only their songwriting process, making it a full-band collaboration rather than relying solely on Robertson/Page material, but also their sound, adding vibraphones, accordions, mandolins, organs and a full frickin’ string section to their usual mix of guitars, drums and piano. The result is a layered swirl of sound that is always interesting and often surprising, in a good way. They’ve also expanded stylistically, jumping from their typical straight-up pop-rock to haunting ballads (“War on Drugs”), hip-hop tinged humour (“Another Postcard”), country-influenced folk (“For You”), ironic twists on Europop (“Shopping”), and quieter, more acoustic material (“Have You Seen My Love?”). There is some risky material on the album, and because of it, this disc is definitely not going to sell like hotcakes south of the border like Stunt did back in the day. But you get the feeling that BNL would be okay with that-this is the sound of a band doing what they do best, on their own terms.-Y.S.
