The Unfortunate Truth..

The face said it all...

On February 13th 2019, The New York Times reported that several women had accused Ryan Adams, the famous alt-country star of sexual misconduct including his ex-wife Mandy Moore and singer/songwriter Phoebe Bridges. Since then more details followed along with the expected apologies from the star. My initial reaction was one of disbelief at the time. Because I was a massive fan, because I didn't want to think about it, because I loved his music. So I decided to do what most people do when they don't believe something: bury their head in the sand. This blog hadn't started back then and hey there's lots of music to listen to, so what's all the fuss?

Alas I guess my reaction was one of bewilderment and confusion. I was a huge fan and as a British indie turned dance kid, Country and Americana was a genre I rarely dipped into but Ryan Adams was, for me at least the one, as he was undoubtedly a major talent, ever since his Whiskeytown days and then his prolific (if uneven) solo career; he was my 'go to' artist for Americana. But after so many years of enjoying, loving even, his music, now it was all linked to this?

So this last week I thought it time to listen to his music for the first time in over a year and take a step back to see how this came to be. In so doing this and then reading between the lines, I started to understand that not only was the above reporting by The New York Times extensive - one source had over 3,000 text messages - and in great detail with multiple sources that bore out consistent themes but that the findings are somewhat consistent with the younger Adams who everyone kind of knew - particularly in the industry - was sometimes a hot head and a bit hot tempered.

There's also the subject of his songs and indeed the long Ryan Adams USP of 'unlucky in love loser guy who's really sweet' and who sings sorry laments of failed relationships with women. Well could these actually have had a vein of truth in them? All of these can now be seen as actually insidiously close to the truth and perhaps not a character or fiction. Just a cursory glance at a quickly assembled list of songs will attest to this:

Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight, Dancing with the Women at the Bar, To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High), Sweet Lil Gal, Nobody Girl, Gonna Make You Love Me, She Wants to Play Hearts, My Heart Is Broken, These Girls, Save Me, Do You Still Love Me?

The most obvious of these now is Gold's Nobody Girl, a 7 minute plus song where he berates a woman (or is it a girl?) and which at first musically sounded great but nothing more. How could I miss it then? Listening to it years later several years ago - Gold was released in 2001 - I do recall listening to it and paying attention to the lyrics properly for the first time and thinking 'is he actually having a go at this person for any particular reason?' because in effect he sounds like he's almost enjoying it as he sing "she's a Nobody girl" again and again. Even the above photo - apology to Neil Young, I couldn't find a decent landscape photo of just Adams and Moore - suggests a strain between the couple and whilst one might say 'so what?', with everything else mentioned, you join the dots and start to paint a picture.

This is a difficult post to write because I loved his music but it's obviously not as difficult as for those who suffered. At the end of the day it's not cool what happened and I would expect a bit of contrition from a professional, whether you're a doctor, lawyer, actor or musician. I'll take it as an opportunity to explore artists I'm not familiar with such as Wilco and Uncle Tupelo, to perhaps take the place that Adams once had.

The history of popular music is awash with abuse, too many to list here. Thankfully it is getting harder for it to occur without repercussions but let's be frank it should never happen at all. Having labels spearheaded by women and/or those particularly successful female artists in charge of their respective genres (e.g. a Beyonce type role model in Americana, Pop, Dance etc), until something like this happens we may not sort this out. And this is one of the saddest things, that until it is resolved that female artists' voices are silenced and that their music may never be released and heard.