A Non-Review

So I don't usually review things here, because what does my opinion matter and for everything I love/dislike, someone will feel the exact opposite and who's to say I'm right anyway?

But then I got my hands on the newest John Mayer album and I had a lot to say, and I wanted to say it a lot.

I've always liked John Mayer, and I've absolutely adored his last few albums. I've even babbled here or there about how in his last couple of albums some of the songs perfectly aligned with who I am and where I was at the time. Oh, and not to mention the highly magnificent dreams I had about him for a while there...

So of course I was excited about his new album, and I listened to the early release clips and went ahead and pre-ordered the album, and you can be sure I listened to it as soon as it was released, on repeat in my house and my car.

And I didn't love it.

I knew it was a departure from his usual style, and I knew he was feeling a little country, but it wasn't that that annoyed me, it was what felt like forced rhymes in a couple of the songs. They grated on me and I felt like I was listening to a fifth grader who was proud of all the words they'd figured out could rhyme with each other.

I missed his soulful guitar too, and felt like I could hear the soreness in his voice (he's battling some kind of throat "injury" and isn't able to tour to support this album).

And man oh man did I want to rant about how disappointed I was in the album. But it felt rude to put it out there, so I searched to see what the critics were saying; surely someone else had noticed the things I was struggling with.

But no. Positive review after positive review which then annoyed me even more because I started to wonder if anyone actually gives an honest review anymore or if they're all just part of the industry of selling.

So instead, I took a break from listening to it over and over and just let it sit. And then I went back to it and found that with the exception of the two heavily rhymed songs (which I can skip over, even though they have catchy melodies) I quite liked the rest and really liked a couple.

And to be fair, there are probably a couple of songs on each of his albums that I could take or leave and the more I listened to the songs the more I liked them.

Is it my favourite of his? No, but I can't expect an artist to stay static their entire career and I can't expect our lives to be in similar places of angst or joy at the same time.

So, yeah. I don't love John Mayer's new album Born and Raised as much as I loved his last, Battle Studies, but he's got some good songs on it and I really like a couple of them.

But what will always bring me back to his stuff isn't this, which I like (in all its Great Big Sea-ness):


John Mayer - The Age of Worry (Born and Raised)


But this...which I *love*. Love, love, love, love, love.:


John Mayer - Gravity  
(Please tell me that wasn't just sex via the guitar/voice)

So, there's my review of Born and Raised.... I was frustrated by it, then let it go and came back to it and realized that all in all, I liked it and there were a couple of songs to love. The end.