Track Listing

1. Argument With David Rawlings Concerning Morrissey
2. To Be Young (Is to Be Sad Is to Be High)
3. My Winding Wheel
4. Amy
5. Oh My Sweet Carolina
6. Bartering Lines
7. Call Me on Your Way Back Home
8. Damn Sam (I Love a Woman That Rains)
9. Come Pick Me Up
10. To Be the One
11. Why Do They Leave
12. Shakedown on 9th Street
13. Don't Ask For the Water
14. In My Time of Need
15. Sweet Lil Gal (23rd/1st)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7680 in Music
• Released on: 2008-11-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
With a touch of Robyn Hitchcock in his vocal timbre, a smidgen of Steve Earle in his narratives and instrumental writing and a heap of Gram Parsons in the fullness of his overall sound and structure, Ryan Adams steps well above Whiskeytown with Heartbreaker, his solo debut. By turns raucous, wistful, raspy and simply sweet, Adams makes the most of a top-shelf acoustic band, including Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and even a guest spot from Emmylou Harris on the tenderly yearning "Oh My Sweet Caroline". There is little dependence on the usual alt-country twang and a far more rounded sense of textures here (the multiple vocal tracks on "Amy", for example, sound Beatles-esque), with glockenspiel, organ and more signalling a sonic field of extensive depth. His spare guitar and stretched-thin vocal delivery alternate smartly with a bigger-shouldered guitar and throaty voice, never leaving behind a band conception straight out of Parsons's oeuvre. Adams signals occupancy of the post-alt country vanguard--if there is such a thing. --Andy Bartlett

CD Description
Whiskeytown were one the mid-'90s wave of bands who approached American roots music--country, folk, singer/songwriter, and combinations thereof--from an alternative rock standpoint. They were apt to be as influenced by Nick Drake and Superchunk as by Johnny Cash and Neil Young. Ryan Adams performs vocal duties for Whiskeytown, and HEARTBREAKER is his first solo album.
It's primarily a singer/songwriter affair, with lots of acoustic guitars, gentle drums, subtle keyboards,and back-porch harmony vocals, but there's also a lot of variety and kick. "To Be Young" tears out of the gate like a rollicking out-take from Dylan's HIGHWAY 61 sessions, and thegentle, shimmering, baroque-tinged "Amy" recalls both the Left Banke, and the Beatles in their "Eleanor Rigby" mode. Many tunes--like "To Be the One"--have a bare-bones, dusty, story-telling quality that recalls Dylan, John Prine, Woody Guthrie, and Steve Earle (who Adams slightly resembles vocally) without ever sounding like Adams is aping them. As a bonus, Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch supply heavenly harmonies.

Customer Reviews

Does what it says on the tin...
When Whiskeytown split, I wasnt sure whether Caitlin Cary or Ryan Adams would produce the better solo album, if either of them chose to go solo, that is, but this album deserves to go down as a classic.
Heartbreaker is a gorgeous collection of emotive, downbeat alt. country, bar two tracks (Shakedown on 9th Street and To Be Young...) which are perfect for those, 'alone in the car and no-one can see me' moments.
The music is very simple, and the production rough, but the lyrics and Adams' voice are perfect. The emotions here are familiar with anyone who has loved and lost, songs such as Come Pick Me Up and Why Do They Leave? are quite simply, perfect.
My favourite tracks personally are Come Pick Me Up and AMY, both of which are downbeat, slow folky-country, and excellent.
If you are buying this album after Gold, however, it's worth taking note that this is much more downbeat, and a little more country...with less istrumentation. A lot of the songs are just vocal, guitar and piano, and can sometimes sound a little sparse.

Talks to the heart, with some kicking harmonica too.
I had read so many reviews of this album that told me to buy it before I actually did, now I feel its indispensible to my collection. Never has an album title been so apt, songs that speak some of the innermost thoughts that everybody has had. However, if I had bought this album just after breaking up with someone I fear it may have pushed me over the edge. Instead it reminds me of how I have felt, but never in a bad way. 'Come pick me up' is basically the best send off. Saying do what you like but I'm fine. Do it as many times as you want to, I'll be fine, but whats it doing to you? Complete with kick ass harmonica. For me an album high point. 'Sweet Carolina' speaks to the heart and brings a tear to my eye. Another favorite, but as a whole they're all great. Ryan Adams has had his heart broken and thank god, or we would never have got this album.

Damn Sam, Modern Classic Alert
I've often wondered what it would be like to have been around at the time when some of the accepted great albums of all time had come out - say 'Revolver', 'Blood On The Tracks', 'Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders of Mars'. I've wondered what those albums would have meant to me at the time of their release, if the potency they have now has diminished over time or whether it is just the same.

With 'Heartbreaker' I think I may have found out what it feels like to be there at the birth of one of the 'classics'. Because, hand on heart, this is just that. A genuinely superb record that is more emotionally expressive now I have returned to it as I remember it being first time around.

So, you may ask, what are the qualities that make it so good. And that is certainly a pertinent question. Dozens and dozens of records have been made with similar intent, detailing the dead-end feelings of a breaking/broken relationship, but very few reach the stellar heights of this. But why; it is quite a simple record, not much more complex than guitar, bass, drums and the odd bit of piano and harmonica. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Adams's voice is expressive but nothing extraordinary in itself.

What does that leave us with? Well, it leaves us with the one thing that makes or breaks an album beyond quirks and novelties and that is simply incredibly good songs. Aside from the breezy opener 'To Be Young (is to be sad, is to be high)', the tone is one of spiritual and emotional depletion beginning in earnest with the breathtakingingly beautiful 'My Winding Wheel'.

From there the emotional odyssey travels through pining for home ('Oh My Sweet Carolina'), pining for a hurtful girlfriend ('Come Pick Me Up), pining for a girl that's left you ('Why Do They Leave') and general pining ('Damn Sam, I Love A Woman That Rains). Each of these tracks is as perfect an example of songwriting as can be envisaged, the theme it is attempting to evoke is there before you, clear as day, and it is, well, plain heartbreaking.

Subsequent releases, 'Gold' and 'Demolition' have been quality records but when I am honest with myself I have to doubt that Adams will ever create anything as beautiful, transcendental and lasting as this in his career. Having felt the shivers run down me on re-listening to this it seems obvious to me that real classics have an undiminishable impact as time wears on, I can't help but feel in twenty years time the feeling will be the same.

Timeless and peerless.