John Mayer singles poll

feel like there may be songs like Genesis's "Throwing It All Away" here, surely he'll pull out the guitar more.

It was several days before I heard the "Africa" thing people were talking about, because my immediate impression was Steve Winwood. Not just the synth sound choices, but the progression, et al. I mean, I assume it's a hodgepodge of many different things, but Winwood stuck out to me most initially (and still does).

I heard Winwood too more than Toto. Smart of him to upload an acoustic version, just to show the bones underneath the arrangement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtDhSX_77fg

hornsby

kinda

I think I like everything about this except the outro with the female vocalist. It gets too corny at the end there. Also that add histrionic vocals for extra emotion in the last choris sounds more like a 90’s trick than an 80’s one to me.

Some interesting bits in this interview.

“Yeah, it was, ‘Pretend someone made a record in 1988 and shelved it and it was just found this year.’ I think if you’re wise enough and care enough about the thing you’re doing, you can go back to another time and reanimate it —you can go heat that mercury back up, and find a way not to reproduce something but continue to produce it from the original loom.”

Around 2011, the idea returns that being stingy with melody is what’s cool, and it was, because people had gone too extreme with being so melodic. Now we love asymmetrical song composition — as perfected by Frank Ocean. Post-’Pyramids,’ we go, ‘I could be melodic, but I choose not to. I’m not going to paint a face, I’m going to paint shapes.’ Then everyone spoofs that and you get people painting impressionistic shapes — and at a certain point, people go, ‘I really wanna see a face again!’ No offense to anyone doing triangles, but I wanna see humanity in the music, and for me, Sob Rock is this cautious return to how powerful it is to hear wide intervals played loudly on a synth.

Ge1r to thread

It's interesting to me how he's sort of reinvented himself as a guitar hero (blues rock, fronting Dead & Co., etc.). Like he is constantly mentioned in guitarist circles today. I guess deservedly so, not exactly my thing but he is a really good guitar player.

I guess it's partly interesting to me because the category of guitar hero is semi-dead, and to the extent it exists it's mostly people outside of the pop world.

I don't know, I think the "guitar guy" narrative has followed him for a lot longer than that, so I don't think it's a "reinvention" - more of a parallel thing to his pop star beginnings.

I mean, I really remember people telling me "but he's actually a killer guitar player" even before he started doing his trio records.

yeah like 15 years ago this dude played me Mayer covering Hendrix on some Live at Abby Road thing and I actually enjoyed it. Probably annoyed a few people with “actually John Mayer is a smokin guitar player” challops

Yeah I guess maybe it's more like it's emerged as a dominant theme about him where it was previously in the background.

I go down a lot of guitar youtube rabbit holes lately. I found myself watching a few videos about Neon today and how impossible it is to play, but thinking "I don't care, because I wouldn't want to play this song"

Yeah, I mean, whatever you think about his music, he's landed in a pretty sweet spot - I have to imagine the money from those Dead & Co tours is really damn good and they aren't exactly taxing itineraries considering half the band is in their 70s. Plus he still gets plenty of time to do his own thing.

Definitely. He has about the best career/life a pro guitarist can have.

pro guitarist/stand up comedian

I can absolutely see this as a full page ad in Rolling Stone.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E58maLJUYAEbhr0.jpg

That is a cool interview.

It is an interesting interview, tho the “voice” of the website/interviewer is highly irritating.

spinning Sob Rock now.

not sobbing yet, but I'm only on the lead single.

I will let you know when the sobbing commences and for what reason.

Shouldn't Matter But It Does mostly sounds like typical acoustic Mayer, with the same warm 80s synths from the lead single, but sitting more in the background. also a piano that serves as window dressing. and then faintly a little organ shows up.

also he says "fuckin" in this song.

"New Light" - uses typical 80s muted clean guitar, though not like the Police or anything, more like Mike and the Mechanics.

cheesy Maroon 5-esque funk riff comes in for like 20 seconds and.....meh, bad choice. but it leaves fast.

this is pretty warm overall. terrible funk riff aside, good tune.

"Why You No Love Me" has to be the worst song title of the year, made worse by the fact that the chorus is just him singing that over and over again.

great verse, disappointing chorus. also he sings "me" funny.

"Wild Blue" - more of the mute guitar thing. pretty forgettable tune. has a muzak blues guitar solo

"Shot in the Dark".

disappointed it wasn't an Ozzy cover.

this feels like Bruce Hornsby without the heartland elements and just completely "popped" up.

he says "i loved seven other women and they all were you", barf.

good song though. nice moods. makes me think of getting family photos at the mall for some reason. the song has nothing to do with that. but my feelings are valid.

"I Guess I Just Feel Like", another terrible song title, and he opens the song with it.

this feels like a campfire song if you had electricity outside and could plug in synths and an electric guitar along with the hippie guy strumming the acoustic.

middle part feels like he wanted to do a soft rock version of SRV's "Crossfire"

pretty good!

Oh my god its such a treat to log in to see Neanderthal live posting the new Josh Mayer record.

"Til the Right One Comes"

brief appearance of "Human Nature"-esque synths, but very underutilized. this song uses the same chord progression as almost all generic Mayer. feels a bit lazy. meh.

xpost lol, and this is actually the first one I've listened to in over a decade I think.

"Carry Me Away" - this feels like a sister to the lead single. more of the weird tacked on piano, where it's really not needed cos the synths and acoustic do most of the job.

a bit dreamy, but it's not like Thompson Twins or anything. pretty effective penultimate tune

and the grand finale, "All I Want is to Be with You". more of the "popped up Heartland rock" sound. like really slicked-over Springsteen ("Tunnel of Love" but more guitar-y and well you know Mayer's voice isn't Bruce's).

nice window-dressing instrumentation in the middle

on this entire album he never leaves his low register, it's weird. he usually always does, but he just sits in a very small pocket throughout.

overall, i'd say b-plus album, it's pleasant enough, doesn't do enough with the concept advertised via the album cover or the lead single, but pleasant enough. won't convert new fans.

ok, back to the Bathtub Shitter listening thread I go.

lol

I'm definitely curious to check this one, probably get around to it sometime this weekend. Disappointed to hear it doesn't go far enough with the "concept" though, that's what had me sold.

fwiw, I loved the "Last Train Home" video, really nailed that aesthetic imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66Ne5dVDfLM

that song did the most with the concept. where the synths actually came to the forefront and were percussive and stabby rather than kind of laying in the background.

good lead single choice, adn now I have another karaoke tune to sing.

he says "i loved seven other women and they all were you", barf.

"Four of you that want to own me
Two of you that want to stone me
One of you says she's a friend of mine"

The video just reads to me like a low-budget parody of the style. Maren Morris’s involvement is pretty random.

I mean, she sings backup on three of the album's songs, so probably not that random.

I mean on the album generally (I guess she does love her 80s Mercedes…).

I was preparing a guy for his 'contemporary guitar' college audition about 10 years ago. All he wanted to do was John Mayer tunes.

which ones

I like this album, but the 80s-ness of it mostly begins and ends with Last Train.

However, Why You No Love Me instills me with a murderous rage.

I skimmed thru it on my morning drive. His gtr is sort of Knopfler-esque on "Wild Blue," but mainly it just sounds like an album of bad John Mayer songs. (And as already pointed out, the melody of the final track is totally "I Want It That Way.")

He should have hired Hornsby to play on Shot in the Dark. It's clear the song is modeled on him, so not hearing his distinctive sound on it is a big letdown.

They're both in the Dead family, too.

"Slow Dancing in a Burning Room" and "Come When I Call". There were a couple of things you were required to play as well but these were the 'own choice' tunes. He was really good. xps to Neanderthal

He already knew these songs. I was helping more with the required pieces and theory/reading. I was just reminded of it by the 'guitar guy's discussion.

lol missed seeing this ad

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E6HKGQ0WYAILHX4.jpg

this guy is truly one of the dumbest fuckin lyricists in history

'm the boy in your other phone
Lighting up inside your drawer at home all alone
Pushing 40 in the friend zone

I mean...I dunno, the mimicry of a certain mid-to-late 80s Hornsby/Dire Straits/etc production style is impressive in a way but he just doesn't really have the goods in terms of songs

this feels like a 1988 album that would have had 2 singles that peaked at 28 and 32 on the Billboard charts then disappeared

Are we supposed to be believe that Mayer has a hard time getting laid? His penis's well documented white supremacy views aside

I think the angst being expressed in these songs is that he gets laid all the time but not by The Right Girl.

"Wild Blue" stands out on the album because the lyrics are simple and the guitar noodling goes on a long time, and it's just good chill beach-and-bistro music.

I wish the album were as playful and funny as its ad campaign, but I do think he's thoroughly self-aware as a pop songwriter and not aiming for confession any more than Diane Warren is.

I think a lot about the post in the Ryan Adams thread a couple years ago that suggested the music industry invested in Adams to be what Mayer ended up becoming: a pop songwriter, connected to the lineage of those before him in fun ways (touring as part of The Dead), connected to pop culture beyond music (doing shows with Chappelle), and so on.