John Mayer singles poll

no such thing

... as a good john mayer song

lol good one

top 10:
1. No Such Thing
2. Clarity
3. Daughters
4. Half Of My Heart (featuring Taylor Swift)
5. Why Georgia
6. Say
7. Heartbreak Warfare
8. Bigger Than My Body
9. Who Says
10. Gravity

srsly though... i'd pick "half of my heart," but i can only ever remember hearing that one, "waiting on the world" (snoozy, stars-in-yr-eyes passive anthem for "change"), "yr body" (smarmy) and "heartbreak warfare" (ugh son)

Waiting On The World To Change (live)

i only know like three of these, i guess i would vote for this one, altho i have no idea what the "live" version is about

"no such thing" obv

no such thing

I've learned to love "Half of My Heart."

Waiting On The World To Change (live)

i only know like three of these, i guess i would vote for this one, altho i have no idea what the "live" version is about

― *plop*timist (J0rdan S.), Thursday, December 16, 2010 12:56 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i fucked that up, the song before it "Who Did You Think I Was" is from a live album and i added the (live) part to the wrong title. that song is ass, though, you should vote for something else.

I'd like to say 'Clarity by a mile', but I like "Bigger Than My Body" a lot too. But after that it's a drop.

The relative failure of "Clarity" to "Daughters" couldn't have helped him on his path to ultimate douche-itude

aw, you should vote for "Clarity," you're the only other person i know of who knows how good it is. surprised you don't like anything since then, though, imo "Half of My Heart" and "Say" and "Heartbreak Warfare" are all top notch.

I've never been able to decide if "Waiting on the World to Change" is intended as a critique of passivity or just as an honest expression of powerlessness. I don't like the song very much, but I think it's sort of a good cultural signpost. Of some kind.

Christgau's 2008 presentation at EMP asked the same question.

Oh, I def voted for "clarity." Just had to admit I loved "bigger" too. Liked about half of continuum, but the singles weren't so hot ("Belief" is probably my fave by default, "Waiting" is like Randy Newman without the irony). The Battle Studies stuff just seemed really bland and trite, feels like his whole smart-guy-who-knows-he's-hot-shit thing has curdled since it went tabloid.

what was the answer?!?!

xp

nothin mayer has said implies its a critique, there's a whole thread about it somewhere.

wish Randy would actually cover "Waiting" just to point out the absurdity of it

I don't remember. I think he accused him of wanting it both ways. I know I was thirty and ran out for a water.

Yeah Randy Newman w/o the irony sounds about right.

is why georgia the one where he goes OOHHHHH BUT YOU KNEW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MILES AND COLTRANE

woops, no, that's the album track "comfortable"

"Why Georgia" was big on adult contempo station i'd have to listen to when working breakfast shifts at a shitty sandwich shop circa 2003. just thinking about the song reminds me of making egg sandwiches, but i really do think it's got a pretty great melody.

afaik "waiting on the world to change" is the last of these i've heard

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

dreaming with a broken heart

Heartbreak Warfare

i heard this song on the radio today & it totally rules -- would like to change my vote

it's pretty decent, though I've always been kind of lukewarm on that one, mostly because it clearly signified him moving back away from his blues-infused pop on Continuum and headed to something that wasn't even as engaging as what he did before.

in fact the whole album is pretty boring sans a few songs. even the singles didn't seem to be up to their usual standard.

red wine and ambien
you're talking shit again

I know I was thirty and ran out for a water.

― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, December 16, 2010 2:30 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark

an unsung typo

J0rdan S., your taste in rock/pop deserves its own forum separate from ILM

i don't even know what that means -- not to mention that my tastes in rock & pop are not really abnormal by ilm standards (except for maybe extreme blink 182 stannery)

heard "No Such Thing" in the mall yesterday, that is a good-ass song

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

http://cdn.20minutos.es/img2/recortes/2011/10/06/34013-944-550.jpg

glad "no such thing" won because if not that would've been stupid

fathers be good to your markers, markers will love like you do

i actually like "bigger than my body" a lot

this guy can really shred!

thought this revive was gonna be the album out next week with Frank Ocean and Katy Perry features and a Taylor Swift diss

wow that is a hideous sentence

he moved to some ranch in montana and listened to the dead 24/7.

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18mkzdvkkinc8jpg/original.jpg

makes sense, he's kind of the Ben Affleck of music

new album is boring even by his standards

i wish i was paying attention to apple when he was doing shit w/ jobs during keynotes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MRDDJjTwTw

wow, kanye IS the new steve jobs, he knows john mayer too

http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/761181fda92ac8f1225f7a1a29509c3d753cce2c.jpg

thread need more pictures of the modern day john mayer that gets to see katy perry naked

http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/ac1394dbdcca6a36cbf486633b129cd813095ac3/r=x404&c=534x401/local/-/media/USATODAY/USATODAY/2013/07/13/1373736450003-AP-People-John-Mayer-1307131332_4_3.jpg

http://www.billboard.com/files/styles/promo_650/public/media/john-mayer-press-2013-650-430.jpg

Craftsman, feh. I wouldn't sit in his chairs -- and he'd use that one as a sex metaphor.

Oh please.

Sob Rock. July 16. pic.twitter.com/Hhn2sO9KRY

— John Mayer (@JohnMayer) June 1, 2021

You want to play with yourself in a hotel room and cry, go right ahead.

is there an album cover he's directly aping or is it just a general 80s AOR look?

Are we sure it's not "SOB rock"?

gottem

i think im gonna have to like this album

i hate him
i hate him
i hate him
i hate him
i hate him
i hate him
i hate him
i hate him
i hate him

where is brad’s hot take that his consensus fourth or fifth best album is actually the best?

uh i try to have as few opinions on john mayer as possible but i feel like there's no way he's made a record better than continuum and iirc that's the fan favorite

My sister picked out some Taylor Swift songs for me to listen to and I told her I thought “Dear John” was very good, and she told me it’s about John Mayer, who is not Josh Groban.

i enjoyed a number of songs from heavier things (not including "daughters")

i think i've figured out which album cover this reminds me of

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41cN2xnb0oL.jpg

*grits teeth* didn't see the damn amazon logo

DON: I think it was my wife who alerted me to John Mayer's work years ago, back when "No Such Thing" was all over the radio and television. I've kept listening through the years, quietly admiring his career arc proving he's more than just a smart guy with a guitar--a struggle I'm all too familiar with.

GLENN: We truly were the Vasco de Gama and Cabeza de Vaca to his Kit Carson in exploring bodies as Wonderlands.

DON: Well, yeah.

It's got the tropes down:

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

(Don Was producing! Toto/Thriller guy on keebs!)

I…. don’t hate this?

it's pretty good. nice to see maren

Xpost lol was gonna say synths sound like "Africa".

Is this his Tunnel of Love?

It feels like a sibling of Miley’s Plastic Hearts, as far as mining a specific 80s sound that hasn’t been overdone already, and then aiming to write a standard that holds its own against the originals from that time.

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.

honestly didn’t know he wrote his own songs, Dianne Warren analogy makes sense

thats why all the guitar hero dad nerds love him - he writes his own stuff and has guitar chops and brings in a bunch of great studio cats to work with him

I've yet to hear any guitar work from him that seems the least bit compelling to me, but he definitely seems to get a lot of kudos in that world

think he says on record he just dumbs it down and keeps it simple

Continuum has most of it but honestly the most he shredded was on Chappelle's Show lmao

lots of 'tasteful' playing yeah

Yeah his studio stuff isn't really where to hear it. But I'm also not going to waste any energy trying to convince anyone on ilx that his playing with Dead & Co is occasionally worth hearing.

this is his best work IMO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynq7pAEwp6Y

Given the period detail, will be funny if this is his New Jersey!

20 years deep in a steady career, it seems unlikely he'll ever have a New Jersey—unless his debut album counts. I imagine he shed some "Your Body..."-only fans/album buyers by the time of his next one.

I looked up his stats for the NJ thread, and, well, yeah he doesn't really qualify. Big debut, followed by several solid sellers albeit with ultimately diminishing #s, ala Pearl Jam.

It's not the same, but I do recall tons of copies of his Trio live album hitting used bins shortly after it came out.

Something I made and posted elsewhere on ILM

https://frinkiac.com/video/S04E05/ZcxmdX47EyOkm0rfXgzDlPTKch4=.gif

I've yet to hear any guitar work from him that seems the least bit compelling to me, but he definitely seems to get a lot of kudos in that world

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, July 16, 2021 3:08 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

think he says on record he just dumbs it down and keeps it simple

― pure rim rest (Spottie), Friday, July 16, 2021 3:16 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've said before I'd like to hear him stretch out on something, maybe take some risks, make mistakes. Even in the Dead & Co footage I've seen he plays it safer than I'd like, part of why I more enjoy Billy Strings with Billy and the Kids even though you could make a case for John Mayer as the "better" guitarist. Like Mayer is obviously a guitar wiz -- if you've ever seen his guitar tik toks where he breaks stuff down, he is undeniably brilliant. But there's something about him that just can't bear to allow any cracks in the perfect facade. Even this new record, the concept, the way it's marketed, the sound, really "nails" the aesthetic. Does it do anything else?

Fwiw, part of the thing with Dead & Co, especially in the early tours, is that Bob Weir is the de facto leader and he can be weirdly risk averse for a guy who built is legacy with a band like that. There were several times I'd get really interested in what Mayer was playing during a jam, only to have Bobby ripcord and overpower him with the song's main riff to bring it back in. It's gotten a lot better in recent tours though.

"his legacy"

MORE LIKE SAAB ROCK AMIRITE

https://img.discogs.com/aEDzC0rVjpqPJTTvL1C7LDg4kSA=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-4096718-1355103855-8401.jpeg.jpg

continuum: really good lowkey neo-soul record. so good that i look at most of what he's released since and think wtf happened to this guy

otm. Continuum is his classic, and then he abandoned that and went back to mostly middling stuff

actually remember being surprised when I first heard "Vultures", as I hadn't heard anything of his after "Your Body is a Wonderland", and was like "this is THAT guy?"

"vultures" sounds like a freaking maxwell song, it is outrageously wonderful

Surprised “vultures” was not released as a single, it’s one of his best songs and sounds to me very radio friendly.

I did have to endure an xgau panel paper where he went all-in on "Waiting for the World to Change."

But yes, agree that Continuum is his definitive album.

Great production, great musicianship and his songwriting improves a lot from previous efforts. It’s the one that best balances his pop, rock, blues, soul influences into a John Mayer cohesive style. This album and the live performances around the era showed and undeniable skill and knowledge, shame he wasn’t up to continue on this path.

i dont trust myself sounds like a dangelo song

that song was weird for me because I got into this album because the girl I was dating at the time was obsessed and both of us identified HEAVILY with "I Don't Trust Myself" lyrically at the time, but for different reasons.

was a beautiful bonding experience listening to the songs together.

best Mayer song is Back to You imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AqY7fMJjqU