Ranking All The Bryan Adams Studio Albums

Bryan Adams is a Canadian singer who started up in the mid 1970s and has continued into the present time. As a result, it should come as no surprise to learn that he has been very successful, seeing as how he has been able to continue making music for more than four-and-a-half decades. Still, the sheer extent of Bryan Adams’s success can be surprising because he has managed to sell more than 75 million records, which are enough to make him one of the best-selling artists ever. Background-wise, Adams was already well-traveled when he was a child because his father was a British soldier turned Canadian diplomat as well as U.N. peacekeeping observer. He didn’t finish high school. Instead, he left so that he could focus on his music, with the result that he had to work various side-jobs to support himself in the meantime. Still, Adams was one of the ones who made it in the long run, having managed to get signed, form a partnership with the songwriter Jim Vallance, and come to an agreement with the manager Bruce Allen by the end of the 1970s. Since then, Adams has become a huge success. He remains a household name in his native Canada to a considerable extent. Moreover, he has long since become well-known in a wide range of other countries as well. As such, it is no exaggeration to call Adams an international superstar.

15. So Happy It Hurts

 

So Happy It Hurts is the most recent of Adams’s studio albums, as shown by how it is expected to come out on March 11 of 2022. Considering its release date, it should come as no surprise to learn that it was inspired by the COVID-19 crisis, which had a very strong impact on Adams. A number of singles have been released, which have been imbued with clear emotion. Even so, it is hard to rate So Happy It Hurts any higher than this when it hasn’t been released at this point in time. There is a good chance that it will rise much higher in time, but well, suffice to say that the songs chosen to be singles aren’t necessarily reflective of studio albums as a whole.

14. 11

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, 11 is named thus because it is Adams’s 11th studio album. Moreover, it is interesting to note that it managed to make it to the top 10 in 11 territories, which is very amusing because it is very coincidental. Regardless, while 11 was a commercial success, it is far from being Adams’s best release. Primarily, this is because it takes either no or next-to-no risks. Instead, 11 is safe to the point of being cliched, which is particularly noticeable because Adams has had such a long career with which to make this clear. As such, even though it has some enjoyable songs, chances are good that interested individuals will have a better time checking out Adams’s other releases.

13. Tracks of My Years

 

Speaking of which, 11 was followed by Tracks of My Years, which is a rather unusual release. This is because it consists of an eclectic mix of pop, rock, R&B, and country covers, which to be fair, reflects the era in which those songs were penned. Not every single one of these covers make for enjoyable listening. Still, enough of them do to make the studio album as a whole worthwhile. Still, it loses something by consisting of almost all covers. The one original song was “She Knows Me,” which served as the one single as well. It is decent enough, but it is nowhere near enough to satisfy the desire for more of Adams’s own music.

12. Bryan Adams

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Adams’s self-titled studio album was also his debut studio album. It never managed to stir up much interest in the United States. However, Bryan Adams did manage to get a fair amount of play in the singer’s home country, with the result that he went on his first tour playing clubs as well as colleges. Thanks to that, it is no exaggeration to say that the release paved the way for what was to come, particularly since it was on the tour that Adams came up with the songs that would enable him to break through in the United States as well. Looking back, Bryan Adams isn’t capable of matching Adams’s best releases over the course of his career. It showed a lot of promise that would go on to be fulfilled, but it is very much the product of a much younger, much less tested artist.

11. You Want It You Got It

 

It wasn’t too long after his self-titled debut studio album that Adams managed to break through in the United States. After all, the aforementioned songs became the basis for his second studio album You Want It You Got It, which proceeded to do exactly that in the early 1980s. As the story goes, the release’s first single “Lonely Nights” carved out a foothold in upstate New York, not least because of the efforts of a couple of DJs working late night in the Albany, Rochester, and Syracuse markets. Subsequently, You Want It You Got It started catching on elsewhere in the United States as well, thus making Adams a name of note in said country. Music-wise, the release contained some very popular songs, so much so that a number of them have been covered elsewhere. Still, it is very much a product of the early 1980s, meaning that it can sound rather dated to those of the subsequent decades. Simply put, You Want It You Got It isn’t timeless, though to be fair, the overwhelming majority of studio albums will never manage anything like that.

10. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

 

For whatever reason, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is considered to be one of Adams’s studio albums even though it was the soundtrack for the animated movie of the same name. Those who are unfamiliar should know that the movie is centered on a mustang with the titular name, who is captured by the U.S. Cavalry before being freed by a Native American man during the American Indian Wars. The movie was rather unusual in the way that it depicted its animal characters. Generally speaking, animated movies like to give them very human sounds and gestures in an attempt to make them more relatable. However, Spirit decided to give the horses very horse-like sounds and gestures for that extra touch of realism. Amusingly, the movie seems to have received something of a second breath in recent times, seeing as how there has been a spin-off show as well as a spin-off movie in recent years.

9. Shine a Light

 

Shine a Light is a very recent release. In fact, it would be Adams’s second most recent release, having come out in 2019. It is an excellent reminder that Adams remains a very capable artist even though he is now in his 60s, which is quite impressive considering the sheer number of artists who have managed to fade away long before that point. On the whole, Shine a Light is a solid release from a music legend, thus making it worth a listen even if it isn’t as good as the best of what has come before.

8. Room Service

 

Adams spent a fair amount of time working on Room Service. To be exact, he started working on it in 2001 before he was interrupted by the need to work on the soundtrack for Spirit. As a result, Room Service didn’t come out late 2004, particularly because progress was also disrupted by touring. Regardless, the release had a strong start, though it sputtered out to some extent as it progressed, with the result that much of it came off as being very safe. Still, that is very safe music backed by a great deal of expertise and experience, meaning that Room Service still managed to be very enjoyable on the whole for people who like Adams’s kind of music.

7. On a Day Like Today

 

On a Day Like Today was the first of Adams’s releases to not get a platinum certification in the United States in quite some time. However, it managed to be a successful in other markets, which included a platinum certification in a number of other markets. This might sound as though On a Day Like Today was a flop, but there are good reasons to think that it must have had something to it because it did better than what could be expected of it. For context, it came out at around the same time that A&M sold Adams’s recording contract to Interscope, with the result that neither record label did much to promote it. Something that does have a noticeable effect on a record’s performance in the market.

6. Get Up

 

It is said that the making of Get Up was a very smooth process, which is particularly notable because so much of it happened over long distance rather than with everyone sitting together in the same room. If so, that might explain why Get Up turned out to be such a problem-free release with nothing to hinder it.

5. 18 Til I Die

 

Apparently, 18 Til I Die didn’t do as well in the United States as it had been expected to. However, that doesn’t mean much when it went platinum in said market anyways, which isn’t even mentioning its excellent performance in other markets. Amusingly, 18 Til I Die didn’t become named as such until late in the process when Adams decided that the record needed something extra, thus resulting in the song of the same name plus another one as well.

4. Into the Fire

 

Into the Fire was Adams’s fifth studio album, meaning that it had some sizable shoes to fill. Fortunately, Adams didn’t decide to just make a copy of one of its predecessors, with the result that it was able to stand out and be its own thing rather than be an inferior version of what had come before.

3. Waking Up the Neighbors

 

Adams was motivated to put extra effort into the making of Waking Up the Neighbors, which was prompted by a major change of circumstances. Said effort paid off because this studio album went on to become a massive commercial success. Besides this, it is interesting to note that Waking Up the Neighbors caused something of a political controversy in Canada. This is because it wasn’t considered to be Canadian content because it was co-written with a non-Canadian as well as recorded outside of Canada for the most part. As a result, the rules for what does and doesn’t count as Canadian were changed, which matters because Canadian channels are required to show a certain amount of Canadian content.

2. Cuts Like a Knife

 

By the time that Cuts Like a Knife came out, Adams had already become a name of note for a lot of people in a lot of markets. Even so, he wasn’t quite mainstream, which is why this studio album gets ranked so high. Simply put, “Cuts Like a Knife” plus other hits were responsible for propelling him into the mainstream, thus enabling him to reach a new level of popularity.

1. Reckless

 

Cuts Like a Knife was excellent, but in the end, it was bested by its immediate successor Reckless. Said release is a semi-common candidate for lists of the best releases in applicable genres and other classifications, both because it was just that good and because it was just that successful. Indeed, Reckless saw every single one of its six singles enter the top 15 on the Billboard Hot 100, which was very notable because just a couple of other studio albums had accomplished the same feat at that point in time.