'Junky Star' 35 years too late

Ryan Bingham could be taken so much more seriously if Bruce Springsteen never existed. He’s got well-written songs, a great band name and a cool Heartland America-style image. However, the Boss was doing the exact same thing in the mid-70s, and that makes it all infinitely less cool.

You have to give him credit though. His songs are very well-written. He’s done nothing wrong, but everything he’s done has been done before. Why listen to Ryan Bingham’s classic Americana rock when you could just listen to Springsteen’s “Nebraska” or Tom Petty’s “Damn the Torpedoes?” Once you get over the fact what Bingham is doing is in no way original, you start to hear the quality emerge.

There are a few songs on the album that might fit in the sappy part of a “Scrubs” episode, but the best ones are the up-tempo songs like “The Wandering” and “Direction of the Wind.” All in all, it’s a solid album that should have been released 35 years ago.