On paper, Ryan Adams covering Taylor Swift doesn't sound like a terrible idea. He did, after all, transform "Wonderwall" by Oasis into something to shed a genuine tear to rather than belt out on a night bus after a toga party while someone vomits into a family bag of crisps. Sure, releasing an entire cover version of 1989 might have seemed a bit excessive, but even Taylor Swift was excited about it initially.As the album started to exist in real life not just social media, got more attention, and scaled the charts - all the whlie surrounded by confusion over whether it was ironic or not - the general consesus turned from one of "this seems kinda fun I guess" to "man, this feels a lot like someone's dad found their daughter's diary and read it aloud to all his friends". The New Yorker ran a piece saying "there's something unnerving about how easily Ryan Adams has recast Taylor Swift's songs in his own image," even if it did come from a place of appreciation. Adams may have made 1989 seem "listenable" for people who wouldn't even dream of listening to a pop record by a respectable young woman purely because there are no guitars in it, but in doing so it kind of suggests that Taylor's version is somehow less authentic. Even though she wrote all the songs, 1989 is the first Taylor Swift album not to be heavily guitar based, and the whole point of it was to move on from the country roots she had already established to do something more challenging. And it turns out, Adams'1989: With Real Instruments and Everything is even more uncomfortable in action than it is on paper.Last night Ryan Adams performed "Style" and "Bad Blood" on The Daily Show after a short interview about the record. After congratulating him on its success, presentor Trevor Noah says "a lot of people thought you recoreded this album ironically and yet you did not", to which Adams pulled a face not unlike Ed Sheeran at a Victoria's Secret show and replied "yes". He was then asked how long it took to make ("like, three weeks") and that's when he ventured off on a ramble about his all analogue studio in LA where everything has to be played in real time with no computers, because "if you can't do it in real life you can't do it at all".What are you doing, Ryan? You're supposed to be on our side!Watch the interview and "Style" below:
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