Bryan Adams - So Happy It Hurts (2022)

Bryan Adams - So Happy It Hurts (2022)

Tracklist front / back album covers

1. "So Happy It Hurts"   3:35

2. "Never Gonna Rain"   3:18

3. "You Lift Me Up"   3:08

4. "I've Been Looking For You"   2:01

5. "Always Have, Always Will"   3:46

6. "On The Road"   2:49

7. "Kick Ass"   5:37

8. "I Ain't Worth Shit Without You"   3:11

9. "Let's Do This"   3:18

10. "Just Like Me, Just Like You"   2:11

11. "Just About Gone"   2:50

12. "These Are The Moments That Make Up My Life"   3:26

Total length:   39:10

 

Bryan Adams Band Members / Musicians

Bryan Adams – Vocals, Bass, Electric guitar (all tracks); Acoustic guitar (1, 3–5, 9–12), Backing vocals (1, 2, 7, 9), Drums (1–4, 6, 7, 9–12), Organ (1, 2, 5, 7–9, 11), Percussion (1, 2, 4, 9–12), Rhodes piano (3), Piano (4, 5)

Keith Scott – Electric guitar (1, 3, 5, 7, 9) ..".

Pat Steward - Drum (5, 8)

Michael Elizondo – Backing vocals (2)

Mutt Lange – Backing vocals (3, 5–7, 9), Synth bass (3), Keyboards (7)

John Cleese – Spoken voice (7)

Luke Doucet – Electric guitar (11)

Olle Romo – engineering

Hayden Watson – engineering

Emily Lazar – mastering

Chris Allgood – mastering

So Happy It Hurts is the 15th studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams, released on 11 March 2022 through BMG,.

The album is the singer's first to be released on the BMG Rights Management label after his previous album Shine a Light was released by Polydor Records and its parent label Universal Music Group. Adams confirmed that the album would be called So Happy It Hurts, describing the album as a "return to life" after the COVID-19 pandemic. Describing the album, he also said: “The pandemic and lockdown really brought home the truth that spontaneity can be taken away," he said in a press release. "Suddenly all touring stopped, no one could jump in the car and go. The title song "So Happy It Hurts" is about freedom, autonomy, spontaneity and the thrill of the open road. The album of the same name touches on many of the ephemeral things in life that are really the secret to happiness and, most importantly, human connection."

Adams played the majority of the instruments while recording the album. He detailed the process in an interview with the Rock Cellar Magazine: "The only thing that’s different on this record compared to previous albums is I couldn’t perform it with my band. I had to find another way. And so what I was doing was recording all the instruments myself, one by one, and trying to create the feeling of a band — and in the meantime, perhaps this is one of the reasons the record is quite joyous. I had such a good time doing it. It was really fun to try and live my lifelong dream of being a drummer and then structuring each piece of the record one-by-one until it sounded like a song or it sounded like an album."

Several of the songs pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic, Adams told Dutch newspaper Metro. He admitted the song "These Are The Moments That Make Up My Life" was originally intended for the 2008 film Marley & Me, starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. "We never completed it in time. However, when putting ideas together for this album I found a rough demo I'd made of the song and so I went at it again. This could be my favorite song on the album compositionally, at least today it is."

The song "I've Been Looking For You" dates back to the writing sessions for Pretty Woman: The Musical, Adams explains: "Writing that musical was a masterclass in songwriting, it was also a masterclass in not losing your mind, as there was so much re-writing and rejection during the process of the production. But that doesn’t mean that the rejected songs haven’t found a home. I love 'I’ve Been Looking For You,' 'Please Stay,' and 'I Could Get Used To This,' and of course it’s too bad they aren’t in the musical, but that’s the way the Broadway ball bounces."

In the same interview Adams comments on reconnecting with songwriter and producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange: "We had been bouncing ideas back and forth for a couple of songs, just prior to my working on the record. It just happened naturally, so we kept writing songs. I liked a song he had started called 'Kick Ass' and so we worked that up. Then I asked him to help me with an idea I had called 'On The Road' and we got that done. It was just one song after the other, it was a bit of magic if I think about it. " Their last collaboration was on the 2008 album 11.