![]() Summer of ’69, Everything I Do (I do it for you) and Cuts Like a Knife immediately come to mind.ĭon’t get me wrong, I enjoy those songs as much as the next guy-or apparently not quite as much, because for me nothing Adams recorded was better than Heaven. “If you had to put a Bryan Adams song in your countdown and especially in the Top 10, why the hell did you pick Heaven?” I readily admit there’s a handful of Adams tunes more universally appreciated that better stood the test of time. ![]() All the greats could craft a song that would get into your head and stay there – Adams has more than a few of those.īryan Adams hardly needs me to tell you how to find him on the internet but here is his official website and Facebook page.I can already sense the skeptics chirping. Since then a host of other singles deserve mention: “The Best of Me,” “One World, One Flame,” “She Knows Me,” and “You’ve Been a Friend to Me.” Looking back over Adams’ canon, Ok, he’s definitely the ballad guy who likes to ‘rawk’ out, but his great talent, his authentic voice (for me), is his way with a tune. 1998’s On a Day Like Today is particularly strong, with “How Do You Feel Tonight,” “On a Day Like Today,” and “Cloud Number 9.” But the monster single is undeniably the hooky “When You’re Gone.”Ģ004’s Room Service is another strong effort, with “Another East Side Story” clearly saying ‘I’m the single here’. Going back now, I am impressed with how much good poprock his post-1997 catalogue includes. I lost track of what Adams was doing around the early 1990s. The atmospheric keyboard backdrop and ringing guitar lines alone are worth the price of the album. Its key single, “Run to You,” is as good as poprock gets, a remarkable bit of songwriting, production, and arrangement. Reckless would be Adams’ masterpiece with nary a false move. Cuts Like a Knife also had so many great tunes, though I would single out “This Time” as a pretty perfect poprock single. It remains my favourite Adam’s album (and my 16-year-old self did find Adam’s cover shot pretty cute). ![]() Side One of the album still blows me away: “Lonely Nights,” “One Good Reason,” “Don’t Look Now,” “Coming Home,” and “Fits Ya Good” – I could (and did) play it over and over. I immediately went downtown and picked up You Want It, You Got It. I loved the shimmery lead guitar, what would become Adam’s signature crunchy rhythm guitar, and the tune. I was listening to CFOX on some strange FM-only portable radio when “Lonely Nights” came on: I was floored. ![]() I had discovered Adams on a bus going downtown in Vancouver sometime in 1981. These albums were enormously popular but they didn’t really connect with me. What, did they think that Bowie really was an astronaut? Did they think Springsteen was the serial killer, state trooper and the guy avoiding the state trooper in those songs from Nebraska? In frustration, Adams crafted and refined his ‘rocker’ image on albums like Waking up the Neighbours and 18 till I Die. The final straw was when critics skewered him over his “Summer of ‘69” single because Adams was only 10 years old that year and could hardly have been the protagonist. By 1987 Adams had put out three killer albums in row but routinely would get trashed by the rock press who complained his work was clichéd and lacked authenticity. His follow up albums to Reckless moved away from the poprock hooks, either focusing on balladeering or working out some ‘rawk’ issues (see ‘swagger’). Truth be told, Bryan and I had a falling out in the late 1980s. Listening to Get Up offered me a chance to revisit the Adams canon. Adams also gets back to his 1980s poprock roots on tracks “You Belong to Me,” “Go Down Rockin’” and “Yesterday Was Just a Dream.” But the standout track is “Brand New Day” with its driving, propulsive rhythm guitar that recaptures some of the excitement of his early to mid-1980s poprock glory days. There’s more than a little ELO flavour to tracks like “That’s Rock and Roll,” “Do What You Gotta Do,” and “Don’t Even Try,” the latter featuring a great Beatlesque guitar sound circa Beatles for Sale. Producer Jeff Lynne does an amazing job of tweaking and sweetening the pop tinge with his signature suite of production techniques. His most recent album, 2015’s Get Up, is more proof he’s still got the knack for pumping out catchy songs. The list of infectious hook-laden tunes is so long we couldn’t possibly recount them all here. But Adams is also a master of the polished poprock gem. When people think “Bryan Adams” it’s easy to visualize the rock swagger or call to mind the many, many power ballads that have dominated wedding receptions from the mid-1980s on.
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