I like Ryan Adams. He is a musical madman, prolific to such a near-psychotic degree that I can’t help but admire. His music was the soundtrack to several failed college romances, never failing to make me smile when they pop up on my iPod’s shuffle even now. “Come Pick Me Up” still kills me.
Today, NME reports Ryan Adams has written eleven songs inspired by Dio’s funeral. I love Adams’ music, and I love Dio — and the only thing I could think while reading this article was SOMEONE STOP HIM.
It’s not entirely surprising, considering his past forays into metal: Werewolph and Orion. Whether either record is tr00 or false is an argument for another day, though even the most cursory metal fan might file these under hard rock, or experiments with distortion pedals. The point is, he likes metal, at least enough to want to continue trying to be known for making it himself. However, he’s also known for a bizarre streak of insincerity, perhaps best analyzed by Charge Shot:
“Insincere Ryan Adams is ugly. He’s too blunt to manage the kind of sneering cleverness that demands respect. And Rock N Roll is painfully ugly. Insincerity arcs through it like a bad joke, the punch line repeated track after track in ripped-off riffs and purposefully stupid lyrics.”
The slew of press releases/Blabbermouth items from bands “remembering Dio” following his passing seemed more often than not like trying to boost the bands’ SEO (that’d be Search Engine Optimization for you non tech dudes – the more you know! -ed) than paying tribute to one of the greatest. Adams’ announcement of an album’s worth of Dio-inspired songs sounds like the same. If he were truly this moved by Dio’s funeral, I’d think one might let the songs stand on their own and tell people later where they came from.
