Room for Squares
A few months back I was lucky enough to catch Wheat previewing some tracks from their long awaited third album Per Second…Per Second…Per Second…Every Second. Needless to say the venue was little more than a glorified toilet and that Wheat were, as predicted, a joy. I hadn’t heard of the headline act at that time but knew that he was label-mates with the band (Aware/Columbia) so I thought I’d stick around for his set. When John Mayer appeared on stage he looked a little too wholesome for my liking, as if he’d just stepped off the set of Dawson’s Creek, all khaki’s and short-sleeved shirts. I started to feel I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He began with No Such Thing, the first track from the album Room for Squares and soon I found myself repeating, with mantra like precision, “Run Nick run…run away…run now…run as fast as you can…through the halls of my high school…” Fuck, I’d been caught, Mayer was reeling me in with his blend of acoustic-rock and psuedo-philosophy. He made me want to forget about being cool or even remotely alternative and before I knew it my hypercritical sneer had faded along with my musical snobbery and I was bopping with the rest of the preps and ‘gees’ Dawson it felt good. With that hedonistic night firmly behind me I had started to forget about Mayer and his army of Gapiens until I was asked to review the album itself.
Room for Squares sounds like it was produced by Mr Sheen and then mixed by Mr Muscle. It’s amazingly polished and sure it’s shiny, but like any disinfectant…the effects are only temporary. The cracks begin to appear first in Mayer’s cliché ridden lyrics. Whilst obvious influences like Van the man and Paul Simon can be seen throughout the albums 14 tracks, their ability for story-telling and stream-of-consciousness word play is lost in Mayer’s cheep imitations. To his credit John Mayer does deal with the grand themes, Love (City Love), Reality (No Such Thing), Life (take you pick), relationships (Back to you), touching up girls (You body is a Wonderland) but all are done with such simplicity we are never left wondering whether their might be more to what Mayer is trying to tell us, “Your body is a wonderland...I’ll use my hands” mmmmmm what could he mean here?
Mayer does, however, redeem himself in his musicianship. Let’s get one thing straight: He is an awesome guitarist, but whilst live I heard hints of Stevie Ray Vaughn from his tubey strat the cage that is Room for Squares doesn’t allow this kind of playing to breath hence the rawness that I imagined John Mayer to possess in his approach to music is lost. The only song where he really let’s loose here is City Love and even then he cuts it short to sing about sunsets and driving down long roads. I really wanted to like this album but I can’t help imagining a Dawson’s Creek musical whenever I listen to it. My mum liked it though.
4.3
NJ 14:13 08/09/2003