18 Til I Die

Dull pop-rock with cringey lyrics

Hoo boy, the only reason I checked this record out was morbid curiosity. I have this weird Kellogg's 90's disc that the song Let's Make a Night to Remember was off of, and that's what led me to this.

I might as well tell you what is good about the record. The clean production and the ballads are all pretty okay. The closing track elicited an "oh that song!" Moment out of me, and the classical guitar playing on top of it was quite nice actually. The aforementioned Let's Make a Night is a decent rock ballad with some empassioned vocals. Black Pearl was also quite good.

Now... this album's major hindrance is the lyrics. In an album where it's mostly typical pop rock, the lyrics are one thing you want to get right. Adams certainly did not do that. The song about wanting to be underwear and the song complaining about aging are the most egregious offenders here, other tracks are just plain uninteresting.

It's almost a shame cause Adams does sound good at this point. His voice is still tastefully raspy and the instrumentals; while a tad cookie cutter, were serviceable and his guitar playing is fine. This album just falls apart in the sense that it barely tried and falls for some of the worst mid-life crisis rocker tropes ever.