Announced unexpectedly today from Ryan Adams‘s camp is the long-awaited (or long-delayed) release of Blackhole. From the description in the webstore:

Ryan Adams’ infamous cult classic album “Blackhole” will be released on classic black vinyl and CD for the very first time.

The album’s contents and final track listing have been widely speculated since its conception in the early 00’s. After nearly two decades of anticipation, Adams is now ready to unveil the official release of Blackhole. Featuring “Catherine”, heard only in live performances, alongside previously unheard material, Blackhole captures the raw, unfiltered emotion that defines Adam’s songwriting.

The shelved album, first demoed in 2006, became heavily bootlegged, with fans circulating low-quality recordings and snippets from live performances, fueling a demand for the album’s official release. This long-awaited, full-length album not only satisfies years of fan speculation, but also reclaims a crucial moment in Ryan Adam’s history.

I made an article back in 2014 collecting everything I could find about Blackhole when he started performing two tracks from it during the self-titled album tour. Here is the link to that article:

The Blackhole Album Story – What We Know (and Ultimately Don’t) About Ryan Adams’s Unreleased Masterpiece

I had been following Ryan’s career really closely for about ten years at that point and the Blackhole album was talked about a lot in the various forums online. The interesting part about the album was that it really hadn’t leaked up until that point and the only information about it was from Ryan himself.

The short version is that he recorded most of the album over Christmas 2005 with Jamie Candiloro and spent four years working on it adding guitar parts, mixing and other work. In 2010 he had the masters completed and showed a picture of the test pressing which marked the long journey of announcements of Blackhole releases with one of the most recent announcements in 2018. The 11-track album confirms some of the tracks that have leaked over the years and there seems to be some new titles, that I’ve never heard, but based on the general tone of the album, which Adams once described as “Love Is Hell Pt. 3” I’m sure they’ll be more of the same Smiths-influenced guitar rock.

Here is the confirmed tracklist from the order page along with my notes about where these have leaked or debuted previously. Some of these songs have leaked in different versions and presumably mixes a few times over the years. It really is some of his best work in my opinion.

1. The Door (debuted on World Cafe here is the 2023 studio version from YouTube)
2. Call Me Back
3. Help Us
4. Likening Love to War (Here is the 2010 version leaked to YouTube)
5. Starfire (leaked in the 24-album dump to his website as part of Fasterpiece credited to Sad Dracula – Here is the 2023 version)
6. Just You Wait
7. For The Sun (studio version leaked to YouTube)
8. Catherine (debuted on World Cafe and Newport Folk Fest Here is the 2023 version leaked to YouTube)
9. Tomorrowland (debuted in the 2006 Pax Am Digital Series)
10. Runaway
11. When I Smile (leaked to YouTube)

You can pre-order Blackhole in either CD or vinyl versions from his webstore:

The LP: https://paxam.shop/products/blackhole-lp
The CD: https://paxam.shop/products/blackhole-cd
The T-Shirt: https://paxam.shop/products/blackhole-t-shirt