Having emerged from the dissolution of seminal alt-country outfit Whiskeytown expressly for the purpose of going solo, Adams opened with 2000’s still-stunning debut Heartbreaker, and followed it closely with 2001’s Gold, which served as his entrée into the mainstream, not least because his vivid clip for “New York, New York” was filmed in front of the World Trade Center towers just four days prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The strength of that opening salvo should, in theory, have allowed Adams to effectively chart his own course moving forward, but in what would become a recurring theme — at least while he was recording and releasing material for a major label (in this case, Lost Highway) — Adams was blocked from releasing his desired follow-up to Gold, The Suicide Handbook, on the grounds that the songs were too morose.
Adams subsequently cut three other LPs, all of which were also rejected. Lost Highway instead cut-and-pasted material from all four albums into the 2002 record titled Demolition, which Adams has long disavowed. (In another persistent theme of his career, much of Demolition — grab bag though it may be — is more arresting than many artists ever muster once.)
So, as Adams began work in 2002 on what would become his fourth album, Love Is Hell, he was doubtless wrestling with the adulation his work had engendered from critics, and the frustration of continuing to clash with record label executives focused more on salability than expression.
He channeled all of that personal and professional turmoil into a clutch of exquisitely damaged and deeply beautiful songs spread across two EPs, the first of which marked its 20th anniversary on Nov. 4. Love Is Hell, Pt. 2 marked its 20th anniversary on Dec. 9.
The reason Adams dropped a pair of EPs was, again, in reaction to his record label’s balking at the material as un-commercial. (A Rolling Stone report said his label called Love Is Hell “too alternative rock,” “incredibly depressing” and “not [Adams’] best stuff.”)
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s all the more baffling why Lost Highway’s leadership ever felt anything here was marketplace poison. Is it persistently melancholy, streaked with pedal steel, echo and a weary sense of burn-out? Absolutely, but it’s also a master class in songwriting, showcasing Adams’ facility with taking the mundane details of life and finding universal truths within them.
So many of the songs spread across the EPs — eight songs on part one, seven songs on part two, all produced by Adams and John Porter — have become staples of his catalog, such as “Political Scientist,” “This House Is Not for Sale,” “Please Do Not Let Me Go” and “I See Monsters.” What drew the most attention at the time of its release — mostly because of the novelty of it — was Adams’ delicate, devastating cover of the Oasis smash hit “Wonderwall.”
That the Oasis cover is, with time’s passage, now the least interesting thing about the Love Is Hell project speaks to the durability of Adams’s songwriting. The first EP grips you from the moment Adams begins singing on “Political Scientist,” sounding so weary he can hardly finish a phrase.
The remaining seven tracks don’t become much zippier. “This House Is Not for Sale” manages something approaching a genial shuffle, but the bulk of the first “Hell” EP is decidedly monochromatic. That said, there is considerable beauty in the bleakness: Adams finds a trembling register that’s haunting on “World War 24” and “The Shadowlands,” with the latter unfurling a deeply gorgeous guitar solo across the last two minutes or so.
The second “Hell” EP plunges further still into the twilight, as Adams sings bitterly of his own complicity in a relationship’s destruction (“I fucked you over a million times,” he intones on “City Rain, City Streets”) and laments his living situation (“And I’m tired of living here in this hotel/Snow and rain falling through the sheets,” goes a vivid line from “Hotel Chelsea Nights”).
Such pungent, relentlessly grim work was at odds with much of the musical mainstream in the early 2000s — think upbeat pop and the seeds of rap’s eventual dominance taking root — but Adams was also never going to turn around and make Gold II, however badly Lost Highway may have wanted it. His output was too frenetic, too scattered, too inspired by too many different sources.
Even in the midst of wrangling over Hell’s release, Adams went and made an entirely separate record (2003’s Rock n Roll) with producer James Barber, which was punched out in two weeks’ time and could not be more temperamentally different from Hell, full of raucous, jagged, and captivating rock songs. It was this project that got more of the spotlight, as the first Hell EP was released the same day but much less publicized.
Eventually, the label relented and released Love Is Hell as an entire LP the following year. In whichever container, critics generally embraced the material: “Hell was intended to be the rabble-rousing singer’s latest album, but his label rejected it "What were they thinking?” wrote Entertainment Weekly’s Rob Brunner, reviewing the initial EP.
“Far more importantly, though, is that considered together, Love Is Hell is simply the kind of thing that people shy away from making any more: a totally excellent double album,” wrote John Robinson in NME.
Adams’ life in the wake of Love Is Hell and the Lost Highway contretemps would be no less eventful, and ultimately, found him undone by his own actions.
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Adams’ life in the wake of Love Is Hell and the Lost Highway contretemps would be no less eventful, and ultimately, found him undone by his own actions. Adams’ catalog has swollen to more than 20 official and unofficial releases, with the latest being 2021’s Big Colors, which Adams released himself through his label PAX AM.
Colors was delayed from its original 2019 release because of a damning New York Times article cataloging multiple women and their detailed accusation of sexual harassment, emotional abuse and more. Record deals, release dates, scheduled tours and much of the music business infrastructure evaporated for Adams, who eventually issued an apology in the summer of 2020.
Still, the damage was done. Over the last few years, emerging from the pandemic, Adams has quietly begun touring and releasing a steady stream of music, although, as he said in a controversial Los Angeles Magazine piece from 2021, “I’m an emotional human being. Why can’t I communicate to people who are my fans and listen to my music?”
No one would begrudge Adams the opportunity to communicate, but it’s fascinating to look back and see how, 20 years ago, Lost Highway more or less told him the same thing: You can say what you want, but we reserve the right to dislike it. So, too, it is now a deeply conflicting thing to reflect back on music made by someone whose actions since have made it difficult to champion him unreservedly.
Do the Love Is Hell EPs still exert as much of a hold as they did two decades earlier? They do. Is that skill at all tarnished or diminished by what has transpired off-stage in the years since? Regrettably, yes, to an extent — at the very least, Ryan Adams has made love hell for those who adore his work.
