On Ryan Adams and Wilco

Two of my favorite music artists, Wilco and Ryan Adams (with his band the Cardinals) have released new albums in the past few weeks and are now touring. Both played in Boston in the last few days and both received nice reviews in the Boston Globe. Go buy both albums.

Here is the review of Wilco, touring behind Sky Blue Sky, and here is the Ryan Adams performance review. Adams released Easy Tiger on Tuesday and after three listens I think I am very fond indeed of the newly sober Adams, onetime bete noir of the y'alterantive scene. Adams was the front man for one of my very favorite bands of all time, Whiskeytown, and today I was thinking that his career might well trace the path of the leader, Paul Westerberg, of my favorite band of all time, The Replacements: Brilliant, volatile (Adams far more so than Westerberg) and chemically fueled singer and lead songwriter of seminal (and criminally underappreciated) band goes solo after band's breakup, eventually tempers a dissolute lifestyle, and goes on to long and successful (if criminally underappreciated) career as rock balladeer-sage. There are worse fates. Adams has entered Westerberg territory for me in another way -- if he releases it, I'm buying it right away.

Incidentally, Jeff Tweedy's career trajectory shares some similarities with that of Adams and Westerberg as well, but rather than go solo after the breakup of his epochal band, Uncle Tupelo, he helped form Wilco; his longtime partner in crime with Uncle Tupelo, Jay Farrar, formed Son Volt, also adamned good band, though not as acclaimed as Wilco. I cannot currently envision a scenario in which I would not buy a new Wilco or Son Volt album almost instantly as well.