damn, sam

so jon from my small group was nice enough to let me raid the 30+ gigs of music on his most impressive iriver mp3 player. I chose to indulge in some music that I don't know very well in hopes of continuing to expand my musical horizons. One such artist was Ryan Adams, I downloaded 2 of his solo albums.

wow.

I really haven't been able to get away from listening to him since I started. He's even moved Mae out of my car CD player (that has been there pretty much non-stop since I got it in October) I love his music. He's pretty eclectic, some songs are slow and at times romantic or heart-rending, some are upbeat and fun, or bluesy, or just nice and twangy. I believe he's known to have helped start the "alt-country" genre of music through some previous bands that he had been in, and it flavors his solo work as well. That tends to immediately turn off some music listeners thatI know, but that's ok. I happen to really enjoy it.

I think part of the draw is that his music is intensely emotional. He sings a lot of standard topics, love and loss, blah blah blah, but the way he uses his voice and the melodies of the songs are really amazing. Amy is one such love song, the words are simple but the melody is almost haunting; it stays with me, and I've found myself humming it several times over the last few days. His songs are relatable even if I've never had some of the experiences he tells about. He sings with such conviction that I end up feeling what he feels, I don't think I've come across that to such an extent with any other artist.

Another big point in his favor is that he lives in and writes songs aboutNew York, and they just seem to fit perfectly. There are some songs that evoke memories from our trip there last fall, even tho I knew only the tiniest bit of him or his music while we were actually there. I've only been able to just start looking up actual information on him and his music. I know he likes to party, he's got somewhat of a "bad boy" image from what I can tell; and I can't decide from his pictures if he's good looking or goofy looking, quite possibly a little of both, kinda like John Mayer.

So that's that. I've made a request for some more of his music from the library (gotta love free music!), I'd be interested to see some videos of his songs, I wonder if they're as creative as his music is...