Why is he singing about headlice? (Room Service - Bryan Adams)

Member Name: MaryanneH

Product:	Room Service - Bryan Adams
Date:	22/03/05 (327 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: its ok

Disadvantages: nothing new

Now before I begin, let me set the record straight. I like Bryan Adams, I do, I’ve seen him several times in concert and he’s guaranteed to give a good show and I’d happily go again….. But! This latest album offering begs the question, honestly, is he losing it, or is there something I’m just not getting?

Now the real Adams classics like ‘summer of ’69’, ‘waking up the neighbours’ and even the dreaded, you either love it or hate it, ‘everything I do’ are in a completely different league to everything on this album, that may be an unfair sweeping generalisation and maybe if I heard pieces like this in isolation I would feel differently but the main gripe I have with this album, is how this hangs together as an album.

If I am going to play any album regularly in my household it needs to satisfy certain criteria, I have to like most of the tracks on it (obvious point really) but most importantly it must have variation, and that is the one thing this album lacks! I haven’t analysed it in great detail but there is very little key or tempo variation between the tracks which means if you cut the breaks you could almost play from start to finish without noticing anything odd. So from that point of view it would make great telephone music (the music you get when you’re put on hold) No single track on this album has any great hook, so consequently they all fade into the background so I find I never really listen to it properly. This has certainly not been a problem for Mr Adams in the past as lyrics such as ‘I got my first real 6 string’ are almost legendary.

So what tracks does this album have on offer?

East Side Story – a nice enough song, typical romantic lyrics about boy fancying a girl he saw on the bus but not exactly a wow style opening for an album.

This side of Paradise – This has remnants of classic Adams but really needs something new to make it different again, a nice song but could do better.

Not Romeo, not Juliet – More of the same romantic drivvle.

Flying – now I do quite like this one, very typical of an Adams romantic ballad, however one of his earlier songs has a lyric, ‘and I never touched a body, like the way I touched your body I’m never going to let your body go’ The way he sings this can make you go weak at the knees. However he tries to achieve a similar effect with this one and it just doesn’t work as well.

She’s a little too good for me – my only comment on this is if Mr Adams needs to look elsewhere for inspiration, he really shouldn’t look at a second rate ex-group like Busted. This song would not look out of place on their album.

Open road – this is actually an ok song, but the lyrics ‘I’ve got headlights to guide me through the night’ honestly sound like ‘I’ve got Head Lice’ – so scratch away!
Room Service – again another ok song but nothing special

I was only dreaming – I really like this one, but it still doesn’t really stand out.

I’m going to lump the last few tracks together as they really don’t stand out either and you’ll get bored of reading ‘nothing special’

Right Back where I started from
Nowhere fast
Why do you have to be so hard to love
Blessing in disguise.

So all in all a bit of a disappointment as an album. Its nice enough to listen to but has nothing on it to really excite me. If you like Bryan Adams you will probably enjoy it but you are far better off getting Reckless, Waking up the neighbours or the Best of Me.

Of course, if you are a huge fan of headlice – go for it!

Current price on Amazon £10.99 and frankly its not worth it, wait until it’s a couple of quid in a bargain bucket.

Thank you for reading.

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