+72 and I’m taking home the fucking SILVER?!?!?

This is why we hate the French

For all you know she texted Ryan and told him to hang himself.

Alleged means alleged. I have a weird tangential connection to him going back to the early 00’s when I used to hang out in NYC. I’ve never liked him. I support women who say they’ve been abused. And I believe he committed these acts. But until there is evidence presented or a guilty verdict in a courtroom, the word “alleged” is completely appropriate.

They’ve both fucking awful and a representation and the epitome of the absolute nadir of mainstream rock. Conversation over. No seriously, convo done, I really don’t want either of them to go through a re-evaluation period.

The first song with over 100 million plays on Spotify to get less than a 7/10 from Tom.

You’re welcome.

All you did was play to your audience.

Meanwhile, dws became a Stereogum legend.

Step yr game up bloc.

Don McLean hates “American Pie” like Ivanka hates her Donald. “American Pie” is bigger than Don McLean, and he is dependent on it. It has robbed him of his romantic notions of himself.

I’ve seen McLean act out against his song twice. In 1982, my summer job had the perk of free tickets to concerts at an arts and culture center. McLean’s was grueling. For two and a half hours we listened to his cranky portentousness, patiently waiting for his two middling hits (“Castles in the Air” and a cover of Roy Orbison’s “Crying”) and the two songs everyone in the amphitheater knew, “Vincent” and “American Pie.” Near the end he dedicated a song “to the butchers in the audience, the ones who will slit your throat and stab you in the back – you know who you are….” Sure enough, he sang about slit throats in the following song (“Sea Man”). He finally got to “American Pie” and sped tunelessly through it like the Spice Girls running through the video for “Wannabe.” He was not going to let anyone enjoy the melody, and he sure wasn’t going to let anyone sing along. He walked off, then came back to do his other three hits after we gave him the obligatory standing O.

Not long after this he was on Austin City Limits, which limited him to a 40 minute set. In the second verse of his signature song his guitar string broke under suspicious circumstances. He spent the rest of the song making a big show out of restringing his guitar as he blurted out some of the words.

McLean sees himself as a troubadour and a poet. He was ready to make his work and life about suffering for his craft and his message. He wanted to rebel against whoever oppresses artists like him, but then all the oppression evaporated when he won the lottery with his second single. When McLean is asked what “American Pie” means, he says, “It means I don’t ever have to work again if I don’t have to.” That’s no joke, that’s his hell. But don’t feel too bad for him. Google “don mclean asshole” and you’ll be given a nice assortment of stories, including a fun item by Andy Breckman. Don McLean is the opposite of Vincent Van Gogh, and that has made him bitter.

The dirty secret of “American Pie” is that the part so many people obsess over, the verses with the cryptic history of rock’n’roll, is shallow and repetitive and is the weakest part of the song. All these details just feed into a general nostalgic malaise, this notion that things were more innocent when he was younger. But this isn’t just the nostalgic wistfulness of a teenager whose idol has suddenly died. It’s loaded down with a cryptic sermon, full of giggle-inducing rage against fire and the devil. It’s so much heavy breathing for a feeling that isn’t really any more profound than Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey.” Near the end of Easy Rider, Peter Fonda, whose character wears a helmet painted like McLean’s thumb on the “Pie” album cover, says, “We blew it.” With three words, he covered all the territory in this song’s verses.

But there is poetry in the song, in the chorus. Internal rhymes lead us from the sock-hop clichés of driving Chevys to the gritty fatalism of the deep south of levees, whiskey and rye. The chorus hints at Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Robbie Robertson, and Randy Newman. There’s mystery in the open-ended lyrics, you can sing along, and there’s even a nifty nod to Buddy Holly. There’s the seed of a great song in the chorus.

The other virtue of the recording is the band, who for a few minutes in the middle give us a full-out rush of acoustic rock’n’roll led by piano great Paul Griffin. It’s a too rare example of how rock doesn’t need much electricity to be propulsive.

Don McLean thought he was writing The Great American Novel, but he wrote “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” instead. The difference is Orlando knows he is lucky that his song has touched our entire society in a meaningful way. Years later, we all can clearly but politely stand for causes by wearing a label pin of the right color. Orlando seems to cherish his song as much as McLean has often betrayed his.

Don McLean’s betrayal of “American Pie” started before it was recorded. When John Lennon was still a mop top, he started writing a song about all the places of his youth. As he worked on it, he realized that the details got in the way. He ditched the laundry list and made a song about thoughts and feelings, creating the masterpiece “In My Life.”

Buddy Holly would have grooved on the band and the chorus delivered from the ether, begging to be made into a great rock song. McLean was blind to the magic around him and put all his care into the laundry list.

If you’re going to play Sherlock Holmes with a song, choose “You’re So Vain” instead. It’s sexier, and Carly Simon has a good sense of humor about it.

1) My day job includes helping many victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence. I actually don’t think there are any clients on my current caseload who haven’t been abused as children.

2) It shouldn’t be shocking that most people who end up committing sex crimes were at some point the victims of trauma themselves.

To elaborate a little bit, this may surprise people on this board given my usual outrage, but one of my pet causes is rights for people on the sex offender registry. I work freelance with an organization of registrants and their loved ones who want to abolish the registry and focus on rehabilitation. I believe rehabilitation is possible because I’ve spoken with so many people who have done heinous things, recognized why they’re wrong, recognized what baggage they carry that compels them to commit acts they know are horrific, and have taken the steps to eliminate those compulsions and make amends.

Ryan Adams should get help. It can be hugely effective. R Kelly and 6ix9ine et al could do with help too. Calling abusers out, corroborating the stories of their victims and encouraging next steps towards harm reduction is, IMO, the best response from an unvictimized party. I only hope that people realize that there is concrete help is actually out there and that it’s not just a flippant insult.

I understand that you disagree, because of your ideology.

Perhaps you will be able to actually pick apart a point I made?

I’m thinking you will be unable to do so.

Here’s the core fact:

Bridgers criticized people that Adams worked with for not coming forward.

Bridgers HERSELF should have come forward 5 years ago. BUT DID NOT.q

If Bridgers didn’t take it upon herself to criticize, basically, herself (WITHOUT TAKING PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY), I wouldn’t have had anything to say.

The TRUTH, in many cases, is that male music people make younger female music people into music stars. And the male music person has sex with the younger female music person in exchange for making them rich and famous. This is a deal that many many younger female music people are very willing to take.

It would be nice, and appreciated, if some honest and truthful music person explained how this works.

Does anyone have any thoughts about why there are so many former Nick and Disney teen or preteen TV stars who are now Top 40 pop stars?

It would be great if there was a tv show called “Step Forward”. And every marginally talented Top 40 female pop star is grilled about who they had sex with to get their fame and money. The reality is that it’s normal, that Top 40 female pop stars are largely semi-prostitutes, trading sex for fame and money.

This is no different from Kesha and Dr Luke. Was she raped for 5 years? Was she a prostitute for 5 years?

If the bad behavior doesn’t cause the “victim” to leave immediately and permanently, it’s more like prostitute, and less like victim.

Phoebe WENT ON TOUR WITH HIM IN 2017 – 3 years after the first bad behavior. She is provably guilty of the very thing she accused other of.

I have a theory that Rivers’ jizz is a toxic black liquid that destroys all it touches and this album is a comedown from having just blown an entire room’s worth of a load on the band after looking at a particularly enticing Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

Anyway, what about a Police lyric? I’m not listening to this shit, I’m just here for The Discourse on all things related to this bad band that has occasionally accidentally released good music.

Also shouldn’t be shocking that victims of such horrific trauma and abuse should maybe have an incentive not to inflict that same pain onto others? But good luck with that then, you’re obviously a much better man than I. I’m sure you can sleep very soundly knowing you’ve spent all day *squints at phone* …helping child molesters.

At the risk of a million downvotes, did you ever consider using your skills or resources or time to help the VICTIMS of childhood sexual abuse rather than the perpetrators? If we’re talking a 19 yr old who knocked up a 17 yr old and whose parents freaked out and called authorities – sure. But I don’t see any redemption or rehabilitation from these monsters. Maybe Adams isn’t as bad as R Kelly… But there’s a reason hardened criminals in prison have a vehement hatred for people who prey on kids. Some bells can’t be unrung.

“Ryan had a network too. Friends, bands, people he worked with. None of them held him accountable.”

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“Phoebe Bridgers stated Ryan Adams reached out to her in 2014, when she was 20 years old, looking to help her with her professional career. The professional relationship turned into a romantic one, and Bridgers said that she and Adams were weeks into a relationship before it soured and allegedly turned emotionally abusive. According to Bridgers, Adams began to retract the professional assistance he was offering her once she broke up with him. She described one instance in 2017, when she was opening up for him on tour, where he exposed himself to her: “The first day, he asked me to bring him something in his hotel room. I came upstairs and he was completely nude.””
That’s from Pitchfork, a few days ago. https://pitchfork.com/news/ryan-adams-accused-of-abuse-by-phoebe-bridgers-mandy-moore-underage-fan-more-adams-denies-it/
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Hey, what’s with this 2014, 2017, 2019 stuff?

Ryan had a network … people he worked with. None of them held him accountable.

People he worked with included Pheobe Bridgers, in 2014. Pheobe Bridgers was in a relationship with Bridgers IN 2014. It “turned emotionally abusive” IN 2014.

Phoebe Bridgers seems to think that “people he worked with” should have “held him accountable.”

That person should have been Phoebe Bridgers IN 2014. 5 YEARS AGO.

When Phoebe Bridgers says in 2019 that People He Worked With Should Have Held Him Accountable, what Phoebe Bridgers really means is that Phoebe Bridgers should have Held Him Accountable. Phoebe Bridgers DID NOT Hold Ryan Adams Accountable in 2014.

What did Phoebe Bridgers actually do? Phoebe Bridgers had an opportunity – 3 years later – in 2017 – to hold him accountable. Or, short of holding him accountable, simply could have avoided him. But guess what? She went on TOUR WITH HIM.

Here’s an interview from 2017 where she talks NICELY about Ryan Adams. Published interview. She could have held him accountable in this interview in 2017. Phoebe Bridgers did NOT.

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Bridgers was at the cinema watching Whiplash, when Ryan Adams, who had heard of her through a mutual friend, texted to invite her to his studio. “We hung out all night and he was like: ‘Come back tomorrow at 4pm.’” She was sceptical that it would happen, but Adams was true to his word. “We get there the next day and Ryan’s there already. We recorded in half an hour, got food, then went to the record store.” The subsequent seven-inch was Killer, which came out on Adams’s label Pax Am in April 2015.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/sep/15/phoebe-bridgers-ryan-adams-bright-eyes

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Bridgers seems like Kesha. Trade sex for fame, and then, when the guy you’re having sex with, or the guy who does things that you don’t like is no longer in a position to get fame and money for you any more, complain, and then blame people exactly like yourself, for not coming forward.

Bridgers is awful.

The counter argument is simply that Bridgers liked the fame and money that Ryan Adams got for her, and complaining before she got all the fame and money that Ryan Adams could get for her would cut down, at least a tiny bit, on the total amount of fame and money attributable to Ryan Adams that Pheobe Bridgers would get.

People who make that counter argument suck.

To each their own opinion! I happen to love both bands, their music delivers a message and that’s why I love them!!❤