Credit where it's due—many aspects of this music should add up to a piece of shit album, but the album is never a piece of shit. I actually quite like it. I like it despite what goes wrong, or what would go wrong in anyone else's hands, I guess.
Should I tally 'em up? Let's see. One: John Mayer comes about as close to pulling a Weezer-covering-Toto snafu as one possibly can without covering Toto, in hiring Toto members to be his backup band for "Last Train Home" to play a song that sounds remarkably like a Toto song. Two: the phrase "Why You No Love Me" is internet-speak that really gets under my skin for some reason (i.e. What is this, a Cheekface album?!). Three: "New Light" does what Kacey Musgraves already does better. Four: Guitar World declared this the "best guitar album of 2021." Five: described as a "COVID pandemic album," which is a concept that has already worn out its welcome, even though the pandemic clearly isn't over (audible boos during the line "inside my bubble" on "Carry Me Away"). Six: Mayer described the album as a "shitpost," which proves the point about internet-speak; save for some purposefully corny videos, there is nothing "troll"-like about this music (maybe the description itself is the troll?). Seven: an explicit "'80s aesthetic" that requires delicate handling when used performatively in the 2020s. Eight: a pretty boy singing delicate love songs hasn't necessarily always been my own personal cup of tea. Nine: a pretty boy who has been so open about his sexual proclivities that the "kinks" that Bridget mentioned last Sunday were impossible to specify via google because there were so many answers to that mystery. Ten: this is a very recently released album from an artist whose biggest hit was released more than 20 years ago, which is a combo that I feel like doesn't really have a great track record, historically, within the context of Record Club reviews (think: Fastball, T-Pain, and, sure, Weezer, for some random examples).
Yes, all valid concerns, and it feels especially daunting when presented in one big ugly paragraph together. But at the end of the week, nothing ever came of the warning signs. The weatherman was wrong. No storm. Just some pleasant adult contemporary rock. Completely fucking harmless. Nice background music for the first nice summer days. You get it.
Look: I don't like writing album reviews that are under 1000 words, so I'm going to hem and haw till we get there today, but I really don't have that much more to say. That's just how it is some weeks. This mindset of mine usually settles in when some white dude takes a bunch of sounds from other artists and places them all under one roof (see: Harry Styles, though I don't have the energy to do the dumb fictional framework thing this week—will I ever be not tired ever again, or did COVID put me permanently on my ass?).
I don't know enough about John Mayer to say whether he is "taking" other people's styles, or if this has always been his thing, and I just wasn't around for it. Is the whole '80s thing just one step to the left from his usual shtick, or is it a whole new bag? Pam played me some of his earlier music this week (mostly Room for Squares and Continuum), and Sob Rock in comparison definitely has at least one added layer, but it's a thin one, and doesn't do all that much to separate 2021 John Mayer from 2001-06 John Mayer.
So the "taking other people's styles"—again, kinda like Harry Styles I guess—is actually beneficial, when viewed through this lens. John Mayer's Body Wonderland is different than Toto-figuratively-and-literally-via-John-Mayer. Had he not swiped Toto in toto, this would be "just another John Mayer album." Someone else's old hat can theoretically be your own new hat.
It's just a matter of wearing it competently, that's all. That's why I'll shit on Jack Harlow for swiping Drake and praise Brandon Flowers for swiping Bruce Springsteen and shit on Stereo League for swiping War on Drugs and praise Uncle Greg for swiping the Strokes and shit on Roy Blair for swiping Post Malone and praise Harry Styles for swiping Joni Mitchell and Vampire Weekend and Bon Iver—if you can do a good enough impression, then you can add the impression to your repertoire, and you're better off for it, but if your impression is lacking, then you just look like an asshole.
Shit, still fewer than 750 words. Okay, maybe we can talk about how the final song, "All I Want Is to Be with You," has a hook in the chorus that sounds exactly like the chorus of "I Want It That Way" by Backstreet Boys? And it's not just the use of the word "want." The notes are exactly the same. Listen to "All I Want Is to Be with You" again, and tell me I'm wrong.
I don't necessarily know what this says about Sob Rock—that cribbing from a late-'90s megahit threatens to topple aspirations of straight '80s yacht rock? that the BSB song was so saturated in our culture that it's entirely possible that John Mayer subconsciously remade it with no intended malice? that all music is the same when you break it down and comparing John Mayer's Sob Rock to Backstreet Boys, or Toto, or a younger John Mayer, or whoever the fuck, is a fool's errand?—but it must say something, right? Maybe not.
Over 900 words now. I'm gonna make it.
If there is a way to tie all of this together, then maybe we can take everything—the old John Mayer, the new John Mayer, the way they are linked, the way he links to others, those links, plus the kinks, the peein', the poopin', the Backstreet Boys scoopin', the '80s, the internet's incessant need to parody the '80s, this artist's need to be on the internet, or maybe this man's need to stay off the internet and juxtaposing that with his need to seem like he is on the internet by describing his art as a "shitpost," whatever the fuck that means I still don't really know—and just say that it's all window dressing. All of it. Who gives a shit. Seriously. This man can play the guitar well, and he can write songs that range from somewhat catchy to pretty darn catchy, and for real, who gives a fuck about anything else.
The truly great albums need something more, of course, but I don't think anyone expected this to be a "truly great" album. It's just good. Nothing more. No, nothing more. Don't let all the vamping in this review fool you.
GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5
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