John Mayer is pretty and he sings. He is signed to Columbia Records. Please read on.
If you'd just put this paper down, your actions would have been warranted. Since the Spice Girls, the major record labels have insulted our intelligence again and again, with mediocre-but-heavily-promoted bands (Limp Bizkit, Lit) and corporately assembled vocal outfits (*NSYNC, O-Town). Discerning music lovers are incredibly skeptical of finding new artists among such tasteless offerings, but Columbia has found a gem in John Mayer.
Room For Squares, the 24-year-old Connecticut native's second full-length album and major label debut, challenges the conventional term "singer/songwriter." And though most of the album is recorded with a full band, Mayer remains quintessentially true to that title. He not only provides brilliantly honest lyrics and memorable melodies, but sprinkles the entire album with perfectly placed jazz and blues guitar solos. He adeptly moves from electric guitar to acoustic and back again, giving the 14-track disc a certain fluidity that's hard to come by today.
Room For Squares is, of course, a major label album, and comes with all of the big league perks: backing vocalists and string sections, Hammond B3s, exotic percussion instruments, and so on. While the album sounds great, one wonders if some of Mayer's honesty is lost somewhere in the album's soundscape.
Diluted or not, it is definitely Mayer's words that make the album. Room For Squares opens with Mayer's first single, "No Such Thing." The song is a convincing, touching, and rocking visit to Mayer's own high school years, a time of just-not-fitting-in. "Welcome to the real world, she said to me/Condescendingly/Take a seat," the song opens as Mayer's acoustic guitar sets the pace for his full band.
The band, of course, jumps in and builds the song up to its sing-along chorus: "I wanna run through the halls of my high school/I wanna scream at the top of my lungs/I just found out there's no such thing as the real world/Just a lie you've got to rise above." Mayer's voice cascades from a forced falsetto, to a rasp reminiscent of his idol, Stevie Ray Vaughan. And his lyrics are truly one of a kind: you'll find "the type of morning/ that lasts all afternoon" on "Why Georgia?" and phantom lovers you "could have met...in a sandbox" on "Love Song For No One."
Instrumentally, the album is far from disappointing. The searing jazz-blues lead on "Neon," a song of losing yourself in the bright city lights of Atlanta, also recalls the work of Vaughan, but with a refreshing newness. The bouncy, acoustic guitar intro to "My Stupid Mouth" not only sets the tempo for the rest of the song, but the emotional atmosphere as well. With a few simple chords, Mayer inspires his listener to feel his honest regret.
On "Your Body Is A Wonderland," Mayer confidently weaves his composition skills together with his softly-sung, feel-good lyrics: "And if you want love, we'll make it/Swim in a deep sea of blankets/Take all your big plans and break 'em/This is bound to be a while...your body is a wonderland." Major scale melodies interact with the soft chords, tying the song together as an emotion more than a recording.
Whether Mayer looks back to his childhood in "83," assesses the present in "Great Indoors," or considers the future of his love life in "Back to You," each of his songs takes on a life of its own. Such a talent is remarkably difficult to find these days.
Look for an interview with John Mayer in next week's Daily.
