One of the minor problems with AMG is that, when it comes to compiling the “Song Highlights” section, it takes awhile for them to include anything off of a band’s most recent album. For instance, Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (from 2002) has already achieved status as a minor masterpiece but all of the songs listed on the site are from their previous three albums.
Ryan Adams/Whiskeytown
Albums:
[ul]
[li]Faithless Street - 4 stars. Haven’t heard it, so I can’t comment.[/li][li]Stranger’s Almanac - 3 stars. Called a “studio creation” and not as “gritty” as Faithless Street. I would have given it four stars; it loses steam towards the end, but the first eight songs are all keepers.[/li][li]Pneumonia - 4 stars. I think this is Whiskeytown’s finest album, and would have given it 4.5 for the sheer perfections that are “Jacksonville Skyline” and “Sit and Listen to the Rain.”[/li][li]Heartbreaker - 4 stars. First Ryan Adams solo album. Again, I think AMG underrates Ryan. I would have given it 4.5 stars - it’s one of the most depressing, painful albums I’ve ever heard.[/li][li]Gold - 3 stars. I think this was a gutsy rating from AMG, seeing as though Gold is Adams’ breakthrough album and the one he’s best known for. I’d concur, actually - there’s way too much filler, and only a handful of tracks (“New York, New York,” “Firecracker,” “Nobody Girl” and “Harder Now That It’s Over”) match the passion that appeared on Heartbreaker.[/li][li]Demolition - 2.5 stars. Again, I concur. The album just doesn’t flow, which is understandable given that most of the tracks were demos. Some quality stuff, like the wispy piano tune “Tennessee Sucks,” but not enough to recommend it.[/li][li]Rock N Roll - 3 stars. I would’ve gone 3.5 - for an album that was conceived and written in a fortnight, it surprisingly takes some time for it to grow on the listener. There were a lot of negative reviews for RNR, here and elsewhere, but I like its rawness and Adams’ unabashed aping of his '80s heroes.[/li][li]Love is Hell, Parts One and Two - 3 stars for both. I’d give 3.5 to the former, 3 to the latter. Part one is the more consistent, but neither are particularly emotionally involving. “Shadowlands” and “This House is Not for Sale” are probably the best tracks.[/li][/ul]
Songs
The Whiskeytown tracks are “Drank Like a River,” (from Faithless Street) “16 Days,” “Yesterday’s News,” “Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight,” "Dancing with the Women at the Bar, “Everything I Do,” (from Stranger’s Almanac) and “Sit and Listen to the Rain,” “Ballad of Carol Lynn,” and “Crazy About You” (from Pneumonia)
I’d say that most of these tracks faithfully represent the Whiskeytown sound, but don’t necessarily capture their finest moments. While “Dancing” and “Sit” are two of their best tracks, “Crazy About You,” “Everything I Do,” and “Ballad of Carol Lynn” are all fairly interchangeable. I’d keep “Carol Lynn” and replace the other two with “Jacksonville Skyline” (Adams’ best songwriting with Whiskeytown comes on this track) and “Paper Moon” (which would acquaint the listener of the pop sensibilities of the band’s final album).
The solo Adams tracks are “Come Pick Me Up,” “Damn, Sam (I Love a Woman that Rains,” “My Winding Wheel,” “Oh My Sweet Carolina,” and “Shakedown on Ninth St.” (from Heartbreaker), “New York, New York,” “Firecracker,” “Gonna Make You Love Me,” and “When the Stars go Blue” (from Gold) and “Monday Night” (from a Bloodshot Records complilation).
The Adams tracks need a little more work. First of all, we need to represent Rock N Roll and the Love is Hell EPs somehow, so I’m cutting the needlessly obscure “Monday Night.” I’d also get rid of “Damn, Sam” (which is a fairly inconsequential Heartbreaker track), “When the Stars go Blue” (there are better ballads on Gold), and “Gonna Make You Love Me” (again, a fine song, but inconsequential). Off of Rock N Roll I’d include “So Alive,” which is both the single and probably the best song on the album. I’m torn between “Hotel Chelsea Nights” and the cover of “Wonderwall” from the EPs, but I’ll choose “Wonderwall” since Adams trying to sound like Oasis (who were trying to sound like the Beatles) nicely captures the theme of those two releases. The nine-minute long “Nobody Girl” is the centerpiece of Gold, so it gets included. I have to also include Gold’s"Harder Now that It’s Over," as it’s probably Adams’ best post-Heartbreaker moment. And on final reflection, I’m switching Heartbreaker’s “My Winding Wheel” for “To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High,” which kicks the album off with a wild and raucous flurry of acoustic guitars and drums.
Nevertheless, AMG’s a great resource, and I’d be lost without it. Even if I don’t agree with the writers, they know their stuff, and they’re way less arrogant and elitist than the guys at Pitchfork.
Ya know, you can ignore all this stuff pretty easily. I know I do.
Any comprehensive music site is either going to be very idiosyncratic or of very limited use. Certain things about AMG drive me nuts–for example one of their more prolific rock critics has a childish, peevish, irrational hatred of one of the top producers of the last 15 years. This producer has worked with many talented acts, hence many important reviews on the site have sentences like, “[producer X’s] annoying production fails to ruin an album of fine songs by [artist Y].” This is especially irritating in a couple of cases where in fact the artist’s songs suck but the producer is made to take the blame nonetheless, or where the artist is working with a different producer for a change but the reviewer feels obliged to mention just how much he hates [producer X] out of the blue. 
(I quite like the producer myself; who he is and who the reviewer is are left as exercises for the reader.)
Likewise a lot of their reviews of jazz reissues are pretty scant: they often run to “This session, recorded in [year X] documents [artist Y’s] sound of that time. While not essential, it is a [good/excellent] addition for fans of the artist.”
Then there are the factual errors, which are legion (though not as quite as legion as they once were.)
But what are you going to do? They only have so many reviewers, and those reviewers only have so much time. I’m not going to agree with every one of their opinions, and they’re not necessarily going to be able to go into depth on the CDs I’m interested in. And certainly my list of an artist’s top 10 songs isn’t going to match their list–or yours, for that matter.