This is about as straight-down-the-middle alternative country as you're gonna get, and Ryan Adams the man himself is a self-impressed dickweed just mere notches below John Mayer, but damned if I don't enjoy this! "Gimme Something Good" feels like a lead single (and is) but not an album opener, giving the album the feel of a really really long single, but I love the sound of that guitar against that organ, and the sparse lyrics give everything room to breathe. "Trouble" is solid, too, but there's hard to find anything to say about it. It's just enjoyable.

"My Wrecking Ball" and "Stay With Me" are an interesting pair of songs to me because they co-opt the title of two pop songs I can't stand and use them for much better songs! The former is a nice acoustic-and-keyboards ballad, the latter is a crunchy rocker that could be a Neil Young song. Maybe it is and I'm just not doing my homework.

It craps out a little between the middle and the end before picking back up, which I guess serves as a microcosm of Ryan Adams's career. Guy was just pumping albums out without anyone to tell him not to, like a really boring Frank Zappa.

Not my album of the year, but I listen to so few new albums a year that it'll probably be top ten.

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