Ryan Adams' Dilemma

Once he left Whiskeytown, Ryan Adams stormed the gates with two excellent albums, Heartbreaker and Gold. But an album a year wasn't enough. Adams became a recordaholic. Wanting to drop more than one a year, and in 2005 he did just that. Dropping three. The problem was, after Gold, his albums were as scattered as his attention span. His latest, Easy Tiger, is better than recent ones because it has the feel of a whole album, rather than a scattershot of songs. But it's still nothing classic. I like Adams best as a Neil Young alt/Country singer, and find his Rock songs forced. Easy Tiger, thankfully, has more of the former. And for a guy with a lot rolling in his brain, the songs are rather short. With planned box sets of unreleased stuff, there may be a holy grail of genius in Adams recent work. But will anyone be around to find out?