Now that he’s eight albums into a solo career that’s only five years old, I’ve finally run out of funny things to say about Ryan Adams and his loving embrace of the pseudo rock-star lifestyle. I’ve also run out of the energy it takes to pretend I don’t find his whole shtick heartwarming and kind of brilliant. The truth is, I think Adams is one of the best songwriters alive, and my favorite thing about him is the very same thing everyone else hates: He flat-out fucking refuses to stop writing songs — presumably for no reason other than that he just really likes to write songs.
Jacksonville City Nights is his second of three releases scheduled for 2005, and it’s a back-to-basics country record — the kind we haven’t seen from Adams since his days fronting Whiskeytown. For the second time this year, he’s backed by the Cardinals, who have his songs shimmering with a new kind of technical proficiency that’s surprisingly enjoyable. Anchored by the outstanding opener, ‘Kiss Before I Go’, and the every-man lament, ‘Peaceful Valley’, in which Adams confesses, “I’ve grown so tired/ And my heart’s too heavy to walk,” Jacksonville may also be his saddest collection of songs to date. Even ‘Dear John’, a duet with Norah Jones, is so good you might start wondering if those 35-year-old white dudes who loved her so much were onto something a few years back.
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