Adam Payne

I feel bad because this guy probably got in my music library because he is a friend of a friend, or something. Someone thought enough of him to think that I might like it, so it hurts to have to spurn that effort. He might be from the Massachusetts area, or he might be from Georgia. There might be multiple guys named Adam Payne around, so I'll try to be specific about what I listened to. It's unclear if he's still active. He's got a definite early-2000s feel about him. I have to be honest - I'm not a fan.

To be even more honest, the first album I listened to was awful fucken music. Just Me, as the title suggests, is just him and guitar. In his defense, I am always far more interested in a full band sound than this sort of thing, but singer-songwriters on their own need to really impress with both their singing and their songwriting. And that just doesn't happen here. I just don't find the voice salient. I was already cursing his name before the end of the first song, which--at six minutes--felt like it was a week long. By the end of listening to the second song I was  yelling, and before the album ended I was screaming at him: "Oh! Come on! Shut up!" The emotive over-singing was unendurable. Every forced rhyming couplet was irritating, predictable, and trite. For example, he rhymed "calculating" with "waiting" and "hating" and "manipulating" in consecutive lines. When he rhymed "girl" with, "just like the Duke of Earl" I literally screamed. The lyrical themes were hackneyed and brought no original insights to tired topics. The song writing, like the vocal style, was aimless and redundant. I literally thought the track was skipping multiple times, but no- that's just a thing he does. Musically, there is nothing impressive either. He doesn't do much to that acoustic guitar. For me, the album was a completely disappointing failure.

Then there was a single song "Chiclets in My Pocket," which was at least better in that it had some interesting electronica elements, but it was still irritating, especially the rapping, and commits all the same sins of the earlier work.

Then I listened to an EP of sorts called Organ, that was actually fine. It's not great, but the instrumentation is a million times better than the raw solo stuff. The band jams well and even gets a little spacey. It showed a lot of potential and made me realize there's probably other material out there that wouldn't disappoint me in the same ways that the solo record did. Just those three things were streaming though. It's not really enough.

A Facebook profile says his influences are "Alcohol, Women, and Bacon," and I just wanted to puke about that. However, that might actually be the other Adam Payne because this one, at least, seems to be actively associated with multiple worthy causes. That confusion has got to hurt both of their chances at success though.

I'm sure he has talent that others might appreciate more. Nonetheless, I never want to hear any of this ever again.