So Happy It Hurts

Bryan Adams spent the lockdown doing what a lot of us did, which was find a project to stay sane. In his case that meant playing most of the instruments himself and writing an album about being glad to be alive. The title track is the whole record in three minutes: hand claps, a stomp, a hook you’ll be carrying around whether you asked for it or not.

The song titles tell you he wasn’t overthinking it. Kick Ass. Let’s Do This. I Ain’t Worth Shit Without You, which is either the most honest thing he’s written or a bar bet he lost. Never Gonna Rain is the one I keep going back to.

This is Bryan Adams at sixty-two making a Bryan Adams record. No reinvention, no apology. Some of it runs together by Side B. But So Happy It Hurts and Never Gonna Rain would have been singles in any decade, and at this point that’s the job.