Review Summary: It’s a Ryan Adams album, for better or worse
Ryan Adams certainly ranks as one of the more ubiquitous singer-songwriters of our times. From his roots as the frontman of the iconic 90s alt-country band Whiskeytown, Adams went on to a fairly acclaimed solo career. He’s been notorious for his incessant release schedule, frequently putting out multiple albums in a year, with widely varying styles and quality levels. His prodigious career took a nosedive in 2019, when a MeToo controversy engulfed him with numerous women (including his ex-wife Mandy Moore along with rising star Phoebe Bridgers) accusing him of various abusive and manipulative sexual practices. The fallout of this scandal saw Adams retreat from the public eye, and additionally delay the release of (both) of his albums which were scheduled for public consumption in 2019.
Big Colors is the second of those records to see the light of day, following the release of
Wednesdays in late 2020.
While
Wednesdays saw Adams’ country/folk tendencies predominate,
Big Colors is described by the songwriter as “a 1980s soundtrack to a movie that never existed”. Whether the final results live up to this billing is debatable, but the release certainly follows in the vein of several of Adams’ more recent albums, notably
Ryan Adams and
Prisoner , with their heavy influences of the 80s heartland rock vibes of Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. That said,
Big Colors has a bit more sonic variation than either of those LPs, although this experimentation is not always successful.
The bulk of
Big Colors is mid-tempo mellow rock tunes, with the tone set by the opening title track. These tunes are pleasant without fail, given that Adams’ is a great singer and has always had a good ear for melody, but only a few of them stand out as anything more than good. “Manchester”, with its power-pop cycled through Americana sound, and the emotive closer “Summer Rain” are clear highlights. “Do Not Disturb”, with its almost dancy beat, is also pretty strong, and feels like a curio which stands out as distinctive within Adams’ extensive catalog.
There’s the good, now for the bad and the ugly: wherever you sit on the “separating art from the artist” debate, something has to be said about a few of the songwriting decisions on this album, which are likely to elicit cringes from most listeners. Given the nature of the allegations against Adams, entitling a song “Power” seems ill-advised, but this is compounded by the sexualized nature of the lyrics. Beyond that, the tune’s hard rock tendencies are wildly out of place in the middle of the tracklist, with no other songs coming near to its direction. Elsewhere, “In It For The Pleasure”, with its mopey lyrical vibe, doesn’t sit right given the album’s context. While its “tortured rock star” themes are far from unique in Adams’ discography, this reviewer’s tolerance for this sort of “poor, poor me” lyricism has declined greatly given Adams’ noted mistreatment of others, and getting through this song without a wince is certainly a chore.
All told,
Big Colors is a substantially flawed release which won’t stand as a highlight of Adams’ body of work. That said, this is still a good album which illustrates the singer-songwriter’s enduring strengths as a musician. While most of these songs aren’t particular highlights, Ryan Adams just has a knack for writing solid tunes which hit even harder under the right listening circumstances. Minus a few duds, this is a thoroughly listenable album with solid replay value.
