Bryan Adam’s new record contains a moving tribute to his favourite gas. “Oxygen every moment, oxygen every day,” he sings passionately. “I can’t live without it, don’t take it away, I need to breath you in, over and over again.” Wow, I thought. What a frank and bluntly honest assessment of our need for that particular inert gas. I was then disappointed to find that he was only using oxygen as a metaphor for a lady.
Sigh. I was hoping for a whole album of movingly literal tributes to things like “water”, or “vitamin B12” or indeed “the ground” (“I really need you there, to stop me floating around, we’d just be hanging there without the ground,” he might sing). No, instead it’s lame, lame metaphors for his feelings about ladies. Bryan often “flies on broken wings” (good job he’s not a pilot. He’d be fired.) or kisses girls and feels “electricity” (good job he’s not an electrician. That woman clearly isn’t properly earthed.). So this is lacklustre, middle aged power rock, which I’m giving 3 out of 5 just for old time’s sake.
Key track: ‘Oxygen’