Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker (Deluxe Reissue)

Pitchfork 90

Remember when Ryan Adams released Heartbreaker and confused diehards wondered what happened to the real Ryan Adams? You know, the lovable fuck-up who made alt-country sound dangerous, lived the words of "Waiting to Derail" and needed no assistance breaking his own heart? If this scenario sounds too remote, just sub out Heartbreaker for “basically anything Ryan Adams has done in the 21st century.” Of course, none of those things have achieved the sterling reputation of Heartbreaker, which makes the album seem like the least interesting choice for a reissue: aren’t Rock N Roll and 29 better conversation-starters? But maybe Adams isn't expecting another round of exaltations with this deluxe repackage: In fact, bundling it with a bunch of wearable merch (i.e., "exclusive 3-inch Heartbreaker patch") might be more a sly commentary on its supposed “authenticity”—even it still towers over Adams’ solo work, it’s no more real than 1989.

The myth of Heartbreaker as the realest breakup album ever starts to fall apart the minute you press play: it is certainly the saddest record to contain the line, “a mouth full of cookies,” however. “(Argument with David Rawlings Concerning Morrissey)” presents Ryan Adams as what he’s repeatedly proven to be in the years since—a hilarious trivia nerd and musical advocate. It’s an important part of what makes Ryan Adams Ryan Adams, and the source from which we were given 1984, the Extra Cheese EP, his long-rumored banjo and mandolin cover of Is This It?, and his prog-metal odyssey Orion. However, it’s the first and maybe last time he could be that guy without feeling like he was trying to make a point. Back then, there was no construct of Ryan Adams, and this presumably in media res debate snippet was an effective way for him to establish an identity on his solo debut.

More importantly, it’s an argument concerning Morrissey—not Gram Parsons, not Bob Dylan, not Paul Westerberg. The influence of the Smiths would fully manifest on Adams’ Love Is Hell, and the inclusion of a “Hairdresser on Fire Jam” demo in the bonus material here suggests that maybe his maligned bedsit opus has more in common with Heartbreaker than we think. Either way, it’s an important artistic allegiance, linking Adams and Morrissey as the rare artists who can recognize the inherent absurdity in exchanging performative sadness for adoration.

After all, a truly inconsolable song couldn’t possibly be given a title like “To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High).” On it, Adams appears more wise and empathetic than young and sad; note that it’s sung in the past tense. Like so much of Heartbreaker, its focus isn’t misery, but nostalgia—its inclusion during the opening credits of Old School, a comedy suffused with longing for a simple forms of self-destructive behavior, made its flexibility all the more apparent. It’s a song that Adams plays at nearly every one of his shows, not to commiserate with the crowd, but to celebrate a past time when its linear logic made all the sense in the world. Think of it as Adams’ “Rubber Ring,” an open invitation to fondly remember that time when you relied on a fucked-up guy like him to save your life.

The introduction is an outlier, though—would Heartbreaker be held in the same regard if it was just wistful folk-rock like “My Winding Wheel?” Even though “AMY” outright names the supposed inspiration behind Heartbreaker and is the most striking stylistic divergence from Whiskeytown (prior to the experimental Pneumonia), an album of weeping, floral psychedelia might have been too much, too soon. Though Adams claims that the titling of Heartbreaker was a last-second decision made while staring at a Mariah Carey poster, Heartbreaker is Heartbreaker for the times it allows the listener sees themselves in its own album cover—prostrate, staring at the ceiling, half-hoping that cigarette drops onto their bed so they can feel something different.

Despair alone never accounted for Heartbreaker’s unusual resonance. It isn’t the most dire or confessional account of bad romance; its language is not the most clever. There are all kinds of odd tangents, character is frequently broken, and it’s probably a few songs longer than it really needs to be. Heartbreaker isn’t a tidy narrative or song cycle about relationships anyways; otherwise, how to explain the inclusion of the barroom brawl “Shakedown on 9th Street” or the Dylan goof “Damn Sam (I Love a Woman That Rains)?” Even “In My Time of Need” isn’t actually about Ryan Adams’ time of need and certainly inapplicable to a broken relationship between an up-and-coming rock star and a music publicist; it’s pretty much a Whiskeytown-style character study about rural financial distress (“I work these hands to bleed, cause I got mouths to feed/and I got $15 hid above the stove”).

No, the power of this album, and the reason it reminds its devotees too much of him, or her, or a past version of themselves, can be found in “Come Pick Me Up.” “Come Pick Me Up” is the that ends most of Adams' concerts these days and probably will for the rest of his career. On a basic level, it could slot alongside petulant, scorned-dude screeds like “Song for the Dumped” or Kanye West’s “Heartless;” it is about a woman who seemingly fucked him over. But the most important lyric isn’t the one about this is the kind of person who would steal your records and screw your friends without the slightest remorse. It’s “I wish you would”—the point of “Come Pick Me Up” is not to marvel at this person’s monstrosity and project it outwards. It’s to see yourself in Ryan Adams and remember every single time you’ve allowed yourself to get fucked over and even worse, sought it out.

In every repetition of “I wish you would,” Adams underlines not just the appeal of Heartbreaker, but most breakup albums in general. On some level, they make no evolutionary sense: life is hard enough, why would anyone be drawn to music that lets you relive your most miserable moments? Yeah, there’s jokes and asides and times where Heartbreaker rocks, but those defense mechanisms malfunction on “Call Me on Your Way Back Home” when Adams sings, “oh, I just wanna die without you” and it sure as hell sounds like the truth.

Maybe you wanna die. But you didn’t. And that’s OK. Like Morrissey, or really any singer-songwriter worth hearing on the topic, Adams doesn’t see the occasional heartbreak as a terminal fate, but an essential part of the human condition. In closing one of his performances captured on 2015’s Live at Carnegie Hall, Adams yells, "THAT’S IT! YOU’RE SAD NOW!!! NOW YOU’RE SAD!!! EVERYBODY’S SAD NOW! YEAAAAHHH!!!!" Everyone gets the joke. “Come Pick Me Up” isn’t miserable; like Heartbreaker, it’s actually enjoyable knowing you can hit bottom for 50 minutes and still appreciate the view.