Ryan Adams - Re-Demolition on the Moon

In September 2002, Mr Adams record company released an album entitled Demolition comprised of tracks from his "unreleased" studio albums, Commercial Suicide Handbook, The Pinkheart Sessions, 48 Hours and The Swedish Sessions. He was very much the Lana Del Rey of the noughties except his "unreleased" material was not quite so easy to get hold of and his official output was also pretty prolific.

His view of  Demolition according to Wikipedia is:

"I don’t much care for this record. The rock songs are plodding and the quiet songs belonged to better records [...] to make Gold as a compromise then to have to watch those records get broken up for Demolition was heartbreaking."

And I would mostly agree. He had been trying to "do rock" since the last years of Whiskeytown in the late nineties and as can be heard in the full Heartbreaker Demos* you can find on Grooveshark. I would say the much maligned Rock n Roll was actually an improvement and with the Cardinals III/IV he mostly succeeded. On the other end of the scale is his acoustic/piano-led numbers that at times can get a bit overwrought and dull

Anyway the playlist below takes out all the plodding rock and hopefully the overwrought dull stuff though still it is 41 tracks long.....

Along with the albums/sessions that Demolition was made up from there is also tracks from the "Destroyer Sessions" that he recorded with  Gillian Welch and David Rawlings just before Heartbreaker his debut solo record in 2000. These tracks clearly show that Heartbreaker could have been more brilliant than it is.

There is also tracks from the Q Division Demos that are from the Gold era as well as the excellent My Fathers Son which has only been released as a bonus track on a Japanese version of Love is Hell but is a track he was playing live in 2002. Without the plodding rock songs, the remaining Demolition tracks do sound set free and are supported by some excellent tracks that were mysteriously not included like the brilliant Born Yesterday, Walls or Karina. Then much of the Commercial Suicide Handbook and Q Division could sit very easily on and further improve the Heartbreaker album.

Again like Miss Grant his output has been very diverse which has caused the marketing types lots of problems and thus resulted in the compromised Gold album which I was a bit disappointed with at the time, though the excellent bonus disc that came with the first hundred and fifty thousand copies helped a lot. (Much to Mr Adams annoyance as he had wanted it to be a double album, these days the marketing types add extra tracks in iTunes etc. Thus encouraging fans into unnecessary illegal downloading..)  What annoyed me was the attempt to categorise him as some Elton John like crooner for Radio 2 audiences and some OTT production which is ironic as Sir Elton is said to have said that "If I hadn't heard Heartbreaker, I'd probably be lost in overproduction somewhere"   Answering Bell and Touch, Feel & Lose are therefore much improved as acoustic versions in the playlist below (Just say Hi being  Answering Bell). I also found La Cienega Just Smiled rather flat and did not get why many, including Sir Elton, said it was their favourite track. With the Commercial Suicide Handbook version, I can see why.

What is obvious to me after listening to all the sessions is that they could have easily released one brilliant country rock album and one equally brilliant acoustic country folk album in 2002 instead of the compromise of Gold and the mess up that was Demolition and Sir Elton would probably agree. Better was to come at least...

I would be interested to know if anyone thinks I missed any favourite track(s) from this period that is/are on Grooveshark (or not).

*Many of the tracks on this "demo" collection are also Whiskeytown tracks and generally better versions can be found on the "unreleased" Forever Valentine the Fucker Demos and their final album Pneumonia.

All three are a mixed bag but one brilliant playlist can be put together from them.

Moon Advert - More Ryan on the Moon! A Best of Ryan Adams 2014 and Stream Life After Deaf

Another Moon Advert - Yet more Ryan on the Moon! Ryan Adams Live and Acoustic

A NEW Moon Advert - Check out the 107 track A Best of 2016 on The Moon

Update: Sadly Grooveshark has expired so below it is now embedded using the BTNT player

It should work on PC, Tablet or Mobile

It does not expand to show all 41 tracks but you can scroll through them and click on each track to play them and the bottom left hand box will play and pause the playlist. If you double click on the timer bar it will FW or RW.

1. Born Yesterday
2. Hallelujah
3. Walls
4. Desire
5. Chin Up Cheer Up
6. Angelina
7. Karina
8. Dreaming's Free
9. Poison & The Pain
10. Hey Mrs. Lovely
11. Statuettes With Wounds
12. Bartering Lines
13. Memories Of You (False Start)
14. Memories Of You
15. Win
16. You Will Always Be the Same
17. For Beth
18. Not in Love
19. Friendly Fire
20. Fool for You
21. My Father's Son
22. Abigail
23. You Don't Know Me
24. Bow To The Sad Lady
25. Gimme Sunshine
26. Just Like a Whore
27. Just Saying Hi
28. Pretenders
29. Touch, Feel and Lose
30. She Wants to Play Hearts
31. Firecracker
32. For No One
33. Off Broadway
34. Cracks in a Photograph
35. I'm Waiting
36. Dear Chicago
37. La Cienega Just Smiled
38. Tennessee Sucks
39. Tomorrow
40. Song For Keith
41. Jesus Don’t Touch My Baby