Ryan Adams – 1989 Pax Am PAX-AM 057 (2015)
Ryan Adams covers Taylor Swift‘s entire album 1989. The basic sound here is the increasingly slick 1970s rock flavored alt country that Adams has favored on recent studio albums. That is fine, unto itself. But if there was anything to like about Swift’s original album it certainly wasn’t the douchebag narcissism and malevolent mythologizing that sustained its songwriting. So Adams keeps that part and jettisons the rest. It kind of would have been more interesting if Adams had written new lyrics and sung them over the same music as Swift’s album. But Adams tends not to have good ideas like that.