Bryan Adams – 51st State Review

Good Lord, Bryan Adams is making a contemporary and poignant political comment. Sound the alarm. There isn’t an alarm, such is the rarity of this situation, but there should be from now on. Adams, the Summer of ‘69 hitmaker and presumably writer of other songs, is back so soon after gigging and guessing his way through a new album, Roll With the Punches. He has since released a new song, separate to the meandering and simple-minded sounds which rolled out of his punch-laden latest. The sort of songs that you’d expect simpletons to be confused by. Roll, indeed, with the punches. Black and white songwriting which serves no purpose other than to reel off another lazily written guitar riff. But 51st State is different, to some degree, anyway. There is an attempt by Adams to kindle a status as political commentator. Taking measurements of Bruce Springsteen’s crown, it seems. A little late to be criticising the Commander-in-Chief when his comments on Canada were made months ago.  

But that is how long it takes for Adams to fashion a thought. His rock sound is an inevitability but this is a welcome hit of holding power to account. Adams relays a shock that is understandable but felt across the world here. 51st State does eventually devolve into obvious observations, but at least he is honest. This is a time for togetherness. The problem is Adams uses this goodwill to try and feed his festering, underwhelming songwriting. His tone champions Canada and a looking after your own mentality, a delicate message to send that latter part given the rhetoric that can be twisted when it comes to what that can mean for other groups. Adams is not trying to turn the narrative negative but his empty promises of defiance in the face of delicate political strife is a bit ridiculous. Turn to Springsteen or Ian Prowse for examples of how the political pinball can be whacked into further fields of interest. All Adams is doing here is relaying a problem that has yet to occur, but may never be solved.  

Canadians are rightly boycotting trips to the United States at the moment. You would not think anyone cares if Adams is what we have to go off. His barely two-minute-long song is a proclamation of Canada as an independent state and while there are question marks scratched onto that from a deranged lunatic and his idiot deputy, Adams swerves the core of the problem. For all the let’s stick together and look after our own rhetoric, Adams is hardly saying anything new. It would be generous to suggest he is saying much of anything here. Try as he might to build a politically persuasive argument against an occurrence yet to happen, he just cannot mount the necessary heartfelt additions needed to carry his message across with a clear solution or even action. His call to arms is lacking the limbs to provide support. At least there is the notion of a catchy riff but that too misses the point of what protest music should be.  

Adams believes it is enough to identify a problem and point it out. That just isn’t the case anymore. Springsteen developed his thoughts and feelings on the disgusting actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on Streets of Minneapolis. Prowse suggested there is more to life than the fight and that this is all cyclical on new album, No Names. Adams says that Canada is great and that the United States should back off. He’s so caught up in what’s barely happening now that he cannot envision what isn’t happening yet, and thus is stuck reacting to what others conceptualised, accepted, and moved on from months ago. Maybe that’s the time it takes Adams to write two minutes of song these days. Hopefully, it takes a little longer the next time around. That way we get an even greater stretch of time between his meandering, obvious commentaries.