Extra Cheese

The announcement of his engagement to singer-actress Mandy Moore capped a strange start to 2009 for Ryan Adams, who had kicked the year off with even more cryptic blog posts and a threat/promise that he was quitting music for good. That entry was quickly deleted, signaling either a renewed commitment to songcraft or a realization that he's more qualified to be a singer-songwriter than anything else. So perhaps his impending nuptials are the reason for the more-intense-than-usual weirdness emanating from Camp Adams and for Extra Cheese, an iTunes-only EP featuring six previously released songs and a studio version of an obscure, 10-year-old live track. Ostensibly this collection of babymaking music is a Valentine's Day tie-in, but it might double as a mixtape to the future Mrs. Adams. Or triple as a sort of non-chronological career retrospective-- a greatest-hits package with no actual hits.