{"id":2440855,"date":"2019-02-21T08:48:36","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T15:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=796686"},"modified":"2019-02-21T08:48:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T15:48:36","slug":"ryan-adams-behavior-was-hiding-in-plain-sight-in-his-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/ryan-adams-behavior-was-hiding-in-plain-sight-in-his-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Adams\u2019 Behavior Was Hiding in Plain Sight in His Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

After the New York Times<\/em> published a report alleging Ryan Adams<\/a>\u2019 long history of emotional abuse, manipulation and the harassment of at least seven women \u2014\u00a0including sexually explicit communication with a minor, (charges that Adams has denied) \u2014 a co-worker pointed out a lyric that Adams had changed when he covered Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cStyle\u201d for his reimagining of her album 1989<\/em> in 2015:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got that good girl faith thing, ass so tight,\u201d he sang, sexualizing Swift\u2019s provocation and subbing \u201cass\u201d for \u201cskirt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should have known,\u201d my coworker remarked.<\/p>\n

When I read my co-worker\u2019s message, I paused. I reviewed Adams\u2019 1989<\/em> \u2014\u00a0why didn\u2019t I remember that lyric?<\/p>\n

In 2015, less than a year, it turns out, after Adams allegedly texted a 16-year-old girl with whom he had been engaging in sexual communications \u2014 \u201cif people knew they would say I was like R Kelley [sic] lol\u201d \u2014 I gave Adams\u2019 version of 1989<\/em> a 3.5 star review for Rolling Stone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Not only did I review the album, but I zeroed in on the lyrical changes Adams had made to that very song, \u201cStyle.\u201d Only I hadn\u2019t heard Adams\u2019 overt sexualizing; rather, I had<\/em> heard it, but it hadn\u2019t registered with me enough to remember a few short years later.<\/p>\n

Instead, I focused on his change to Swift\u2019s description of a \u201cJames Dean daydream look\u201d to a reference to the Sonic Youth album Daydream Nation<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Namedropping a Sonic Youth album in a cover of a Taylor Swift song was catnip for white male music critics. In my review, I described Adams\u2019 \u201cStyle\u201d as a \u201cflirtfest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being a fan of Adams always involved a certain degree of cognitive dissonance: his reckless bad boy persona had long become part of his mythology, and rumors of his questionable character had circulated.<\/p>\n

In the days since the New York Times<\/em> published their report on Adams, the question remains: How can we dismantle the structures that have enabled Adams to pass off his real-world transgressions as fictionalized art for so long?<\/p>\n

If I could have ignored that line in \u201cStyle,\u201d what else might I have ignored?<\/p>\n

Much like with Louis CK<\/strong>, R. Kelly and Woody Allen, it\u2019s now easy to see how Adams used his art as a sort of staging ground for the power-wielding abuses and transgressions in his personal life. The singer\u2019s finely-tuned performance of emotional neediness was part and parcel with the pattern of manipulation and alleged emotional abuse he had been engaging in for the better part of his adulthood. \u201cA more insidious strain of destructive, misogynistic masculinity, not burying their emotions but wielding them as weapons of domination and control,\u201d as Anna Leszkiewicz put it last week in her incisive essay<\/a>. \u201cThis masculinity is narcissism disguised as vulnerability and emotional honesty.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, fans and critics bought the trap wholesale, praising Adams\u2019 songwriting for its emotional intensity and dark vulnerability. \u201cHedonism as a display of authenticity,\u201d writes Amanda Petrusich<\/a> of the type of music journalism mythology that elevated a figure like Adams for so long. \u201cIts language still hinges around vaguely mystical ideas about art-making as a kind of bloodletting.\u201d\u00a0In a review of his 2017 album\u00a0Prisoner<\/em>, I did just that, describing Adams as a<\/span>\u00a0\u201cmaster chronicler of the endless shapes and colors of romantic pain.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In his music, Adams often weaponized that openness and even vulnerability as an instrument of control. \u201cNobody Girl,\u201d off 2001\u2019s Gold<\/em>, is an almost boastful portrayal of gaslighting, with the narrator spending much of the song trying to convince a woman to second-guess her tough decision to leave.<\/p>\n

\u201cSay you follow your heart\/Well, honey you\u2019re just being lost,\u201d Adams sings, \u201cYou could follow your gut\/But how much would it cost?\u201d In the chorus, Adams renders her powerless while offering his version of an abuser\u2019s catchphrase: \u201cthey don\u2019t know you anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re nobody girl. You\u2019re nobody girl,\u201d he tells her, before stripping the woman of her very personhood, : \u201cYou\u2019re a<\/em> nobody girl.\u201d<\/p>\n