This is an old thing kind of about Ryan Adams.
It's mostly about our responsibility as a collective to each other, though.
(I mention driving around the Ozarks here, so it seemed right to include a picture of the hazy mountains).
As this is about Ryan Adams, there are cursory mentions of sexual and power abuse in this piece.
What it meant to be a Ryan Adams fan.
When I was in high school, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to hear some good music and handed me Ryan Adams’ “Gold” album on CD. It was the beginning of a deep relationship with the singer-songwriter’s music. Ryan Adams has never had a broad following, but has instead cultivated a passionate fanbase who connect with his music in an obsessive manner. He has also had the ability to generate press from the critical music community. Adams has publicly clashed with a great number of music journalists, band members, and fans, squabbles that were typically shared by fans as apocryphal examples of his passion. Ryan Adams was a churlish boor, but he was our churlish boor. The brash demeanor gave grit to his sharecropper’s stories, and we loved him for it. When I was down, I listened to “Cold Roses”. When I was in my aimless 20s, I listened to “Jacksonville City Nights” while driving around the Ozarks. When I was heartsick, I listened to “Gold”. These experiences - as well as the relationships formed around this man’s music - mattered. These were the real, tangible, emotional experiences that make music matter.
What that fandom means as part of a larger collective and how Ryan Adams was able to do what he did
While Ryan Adams’ albums eventually began charting (his 2017 album peaked at #3 on Billboard), much of his career has been spent playing to a passionate fanbase. As his popularity grew, so did his footprint. He started his own studio and record label. He employed band members, touring members, marketing and merchandising people, and was a productive member of the entertainment industry. His standing in the industry grew, and because of that many people came to depend on him for their economic livelihood, or saw him as someone whose endorsement and mentorship could be a catalyst in their musical career. While the scope of his power was not far-reaching, he did hold tremendous power within this intense ecosystem. We see this same type of scenario play out again and again in our society. It’s the same system that allows pastors to molest children and suppress their stories. It’s a system that suppresses the stories of those preyed upon and elevates those who are willing to accumulate power at any cost.
While the things Ryan Adams has been accused of vary in scope, severity, and impact on his victims one thing is clear: he was able to begin and then continue behaving in this manner because of his emotional, relational, and economic sway. People near him - whose livelihood depended on him - were incentivized to ignore his behavior, believe his stories, and keep quiet about what they may have seen or knew. People preyed on by him reportedly found themselves facing a -relative to themselves - powerful figure, and were often isolated and emotionally broken down. When they eventually extricated themselves from the situation, Ryan Adams moved on to someone new.
What do we do when we (as a collective) are used by an artist or person in power?
This question is difficult to answer, mostly because there is no set path forward. In this case, I think that is reasonable to feel like I am part of a group - in part - collectively responsible for this situation. Did I know the specifics of his behavior? Of course not. I found out from an NYT push notification, just like most people did (showed to me by a Ryan Adams compatriot). But was I part of a group of people whose collective fandom and economic support placed Adams in a position of power? Absolutely. Without this support, Adams would have been a tradesman in North Carolina, to hear him tell it, and far from a position to cultivate and prey on a number of women and girls. Not to say that he (or anyone) wouldn’t have been a predator as an electrician, but whatever he was, he wouldn’t have been propped on the backs of his intensely emotionally invested fans. This, in a sense, is what makes the reaction to the alleged horrors of a musician like Ryan Adams so different from the alleged horrors of someone like Harvey Weinstein or Bryan Singer. Our emotional and relational interactions with these people are much more intense. It is support built over years of concerts and conversations and relationships and evenings listening to records. It’s much more difficult to relate and interact with a movie, or tv show, or politician than it is a musical artist. So what do you do with yourself once you know the things that you know about Ryan Adams and others like him?
I do not think that it makes sense to try to take ownership of the things that Ryan Adams has done. I do, however, think that it makes complete sense to take ownership of your agency as an emotional and economic supporter of Ryan Adams. When viewed through this lens, it becomes very clear that any continued support is in direct support of the power structures that have allowed him to behave so destructively. To continue to support him emotionally and economically would indict me in his pattern of dehumanizing and preying on women. To me, the choice is easy. Different people may land different places on this, and I would hope that they do so after examining both their own sense of morality and what their support communicates to the other people in their life.
I cannot alter what Ryan Adams has meant to me in the past. I cannot alter the things that he has done while propped up on the shoulders of fans like myself. I can, however, remove my shoulder from underneath him.
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Thank you for writing this. Ryan was my favorite for 15 years until that article. I'm still grieving and grappling.
Damn. Very good analysis. It’s so important to think about how our emotional investment might perpetuate harm.