If the poor man’s Bruce Springsteen is John Mellencamp and the poor man’s John Mellencamp is Bryan Adams, who’s the poor man’s Bryan Adams? Corey Hart? And where does that leave New Jersey’s other native son, Jon Bon Jovi? Riding a steel horse to the nearest offshore bank, I suppose.
But here’s the thing about Big Canadian Hero Bryan Adams—back in the Ugly Eighties he rocked harder and louder than any of them. On albums like 1983’s Cuts Like a Knife and 1984’s Reckless, Adams cranked up the volume on the amplifiers for the arena crowd, then went out and bought more amplifiers, and if he wasn’t hip (and he wasn’t), none of the Everymen (and Everywomen) who loved his music didn’t give a shit about hip because they weren’t hip either.
Adams and producer Bob Clearmountain understood a few things. First, volume + glue-trap catchy pop metal melodies (beat the ones in “Summer of ‘69″ and “Run to You,” I dare ya) and crisp production sold units. Second, you didn’t have to be American (or Irish even) to wax anthemic. And when it came down to it, who cared if Adams showed every sign of having the personality of tapioca, or if the snobs in the Smart Set never tired of saying nasty things about him? (Robert Christgau wrote him off as a “generic American hunk, only whiter because he’s Canadian.”)
Reckless fared well on all fronts. First Canadian album to sell over a million copies in that country. A number one spot on the Billboard Top 200 charts. SIX singles that made it into the Top Twenty on US Billboard Hot 100. And hip or not, many music critics praised the LP.
Why, Chuck Eddy put Reckless at the number 81 spot in his book Stairway to Hell: The 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe, even if (like Christgau) he spent most of his time INSULTING Mr. Adams: “…the antimage Adams peddles is Mr. Average, an original idea by no means, but with him you buy it ‘cause who else but Joe Normal could get away with being so drab?”
The album’s lack of any deep meaning (or perhaps any meaning at all) matters not a whit. It’s all about Clearmountain’s supernaturally clean production, and his ability to make Adams’ vocals, the guitars, and the drums equally prominent (and LOUD in the mix). And then there are the songs, almost every one of which boasts a melody you’ll remember. And pack a shocking wallop, thanks in large part to the drums, which boast a Phil Collins whump & thump that will knock the framed Velvet Underground posters off your walls.
“One Night Love Affair” is illustrative. Promising title? Hardly. But behind the driving tempo powered by mighty guitar riffs, the wall-shaking drums that never let up, and Adams’ raspy, teen idol vocals, there lurks a melody you’ll want to marry. And forget drab—Adams sounds excitable indeed.
“She’s Only Happy When She’s Dancin'” may or may not be as good a song as Don Henley’s “All She Wants to Do Is Dance,” but it packs twice the haymaker right hook and isn’t half as dandified. Henley is slumming. Adams doesn’t know the meaning of the word, and you have to love him for it.
Adams and his songwriting partner, drummer Jim Vallance, originally wrote “Run to You” for Blue Öyster Cult, but everybody’s favorite faux evil band turned it down! Which is inexplicable because the mysterioso guitar riff is unimpeachably unforgettable, the chorus is for the ages, and that guitar riff sounds tailor-made for Blue Öyster Cult. Power ballad “Heaven” isn’t bad for a power ballad—the riff is nice—but eighties’ MOR shlock is eighties’ MOR shlock and anathema to this guy’s ears, although I’m sure it made for thousands (if not millions!) of fond prom memories.
“Somebody” is as unpromising a song title as you’ll ever hear, but it has a Canadian-funky (which is to say not very) tempo and these great gang vocals on the choruses, to say nothing of a lapel-grabbing guitar riff. Great sing-alongs aren’t as easy to write as you’d think, and the song’s soft/loud dynamics only ramp up the excitement factor come the choruses.
“Summer of ‘69″ is a no-brainer brilliant coming-of-age opus that may not stand up against Rod Stewart’s “Every Picture Tells a Story,” but what does? Its totally addictive melody, sonic crunch, and perfect hook make it one of the best pop-metal songs ever written, and Adams draws you in lyrically from the very start:
“I got my first real six-string
Bought it at the five-and-dime
Played it ’til my fingers bled
Was the summer of ’69.”
But while Adams is no more a romantic than the John Mellencamp of “Jack & Diane,” he’s not as much of a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist as the one-time Cougar either. When Adams sings “Those were the best days of my life,” he may as well be the Boss of “Glory Days,” conceding that adulthood is a real bring-down and the joy and hope of being young pass, leaving you with nothing but rueful hindsight.
To quote one of the greatest lines in the history of rock, “Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.”
“Kids Wanna Rock” is this oddball pseudo-blues with a super-crunchy guitar riff, buzzsaw guitars, and a punk tempo over which Adams goes from a scream to an even louder scream. And the lyrics are a hoot. It opens with a cheap shot against disco (“Turned on the radio/Sounded like a disco/Musta turned the dial for a couple of miles/But I couldn’t find no rock ‘n’ roll”) and segues into what sounds like a putdown of punk (“Talkin’ ’bout the New Wave/For a couple of bucks you get a weird haircut/And waste your life away”). But hey, don’t the punkers and New Wavers just wanna rock too? And you don’t want to miss the ten thousand singers on the chorus, who ride the fine line between cool and shlock.
“It’s Only Love” is a monster rocker with dual lead vocals by Adams and force-of-nature Tina Turner, and I’ll be damned if Adams doesn’t hold his own. Add lots of guitar wail, and a mountain of percussion to rival Mt. Everest, and what you have here is prime moose. I’ll take this Turner vehicle over most of the Turner vehicles out there, and the fact that Adams co-wrote it (with Vallance) proves he could hold his own in the songwriting department as well.
“Long Gone” is the only hard rocker on Reckless that doesn’t blow me away, for the simple reason that while it’s a rock & roll readymade, and I love rock & roll readymades (Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel,” anyone?), this one sounds like it was written in two uninspired minutes. Melody: so-so. Sonic crunch: MIA. The story it tells is mildly amusing—Adams’ wife up and leaves him, taking everything right down to the fridge, and guess what? He’s never been so happy! Another problem: the drums don’t threaten to give you tinnitus, which tells me his ex got the drummer too!
Closer “Ain’t Gonna Cry” is a galloping and defiant chaos fest, all guitar freakout and Adams sounding anything but drab. Frankly it’s a shocker—this one’s as far from the popular image of B. Adams as you can get, as the roaring mayhem attests. At the end, the song falls apart, the guitars make awful noises, and it’s absolutely wonderful.
At an infamous 2002 Ryan “Without the B” Adams concert at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, a heckler repeatedly shouted out requests for “Summer of ‘69,” which so pissed poor Ryan off he had the guy tossed out and later “had to go into therapy.” And it mustn’t have been an isolated incident—Adams later called such hecklers “a bunch of fucking cocks.”
I suspect Bryan Adams has sent many a hater (and they are legion) into therapy, but as a former hater you won’t find me heckling his music. Nor has it driven me into therapy. Reckless is a surprisingly strong album, and I say that, realizing that many of my friends will write me off as deranged.
Bryan Adams is a Great American Institution, even if he is a Canadian. He don’t get no respect, but he richly deserves it.
BTW: That heckler was me!
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
