- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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UncutNope, this is not easy listening, yet he's never made a more beautiful album. [Jan 2006, p.108]
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Taken all together, 29 is a staggering piece.
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At last Ryan Adams has made a record every bit as good as his heroes.
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Q MagazineThis is Adams at his most concise and focused. [Jan 2006, p.122]
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Adams has stripped most of '29''s tracks down to spare, brittle bones.
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Los Angeles TimesIt's hard to tell through this supremely dark group of songs whether you're listening to a work of art or a cry for help. [20 Dec 2005]
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His music takes some sifting, but the gold always glitters.
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He continues to take chances and not all of them pay off.
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Cohesive in its fragility. [19 Dec 2005]
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Self-serious and wildly inconsistent (in both ingenuity and style), 29 is hard to swallow without acknowledging and appreciating the record's overarching storyline: getting through your twenties is way hard.
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Entertainment WeeklyThe net effect is something close to that produced by Bob Dylan's '75 depresso classic Blood on the Tracks (although even the best stuff here isn't quite in that league). [23 Dec 2005, p.79]
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He fails to come up with an album that keeps up the standard set here by a couple of standout tracks such as "Strawberry Wine" and "Nightbirds."
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This is probably the least fun of all his albums, but also among his most rewarding.
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Committed Adams-heads will love it; others will wonder why he commands such loyalty.
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Adams mines American Beauty and Workingman's Dead respectably, but his attempts at early-'70s Neil Young piano ballads come off as tear-stained love letters to himself, and hardly distinguish him as the guy who dropped out of high school to become Paul Westerberg.
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MojoPatchier than Jacksonville. [Mar 2006, p.92]
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A grab-bag assemblage that simply doesn’t flow together very well.
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Mostly, 29 is inhabited by half-formed or downright failed songs that never get comfortable in the reductive environment.
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Somebody get this man an editor.
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These meanderings are the kind of indulgence that ends label deals.
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It's the first time Adams has sounded completely worn out and spent, bereaved of either the craft or hucksterism at the core of his work.
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Despite the three or four keepers, 29 suggests that Adams is still struggling to nail down his musical identity.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 52 out of 58
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Mixed: 4 out of 58
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Negative: 2 out of 58
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chrisaMay 12, 2007
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jsApr 18, 2007lyrically amazing. brilliant.
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Aug 6, 2011