Review Summary: John Mayer manages to prove that there is no such thing as the real world.
Choosing an album cover and title must be a real challenge for the artist. I would even go so far as to say that it is as challenging as making the music itself, but I think that is just me. But it is surprising how often artists get it so right; not that there aren’t missteps (Love Lust Faith + Dreams anyone?) but often an albums artwork becomes inextricable from the album itself. Look at famous examples like Abbey Road or Sgt Pepper’s. The covers of these albums are often the first images to spring to mind when the songs like ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ come on. The cover for John Mayer’s 2001 debut album Room For Squares shows what we can expect from the music that lives on it. It shows a shy, but handsome looking man posing awkwardly in front of a guitar. The music on the record sound exactly like the music that guy would make. The shy, poppy sound of a young man trying to make sure he is living it right.
This album came out of three years of living in Atlanta, Georgia, working hard for money, playing gigs at coffee houses and clubs, first as a member of the Lo-Fi Masters with Clay Cook and then solo later on in his career. The fact that these songs were subject to this kind of exposure really shows through in the way that every song has a strong guitar centre. They were designed to be played live by one man, possibly two, with at most an acoustic guitar and a bass. So the main part of every song is the guitar line. Usually acoustic. The best example of this is the finger shatterer itself: ‘Neon’. The song is a bouncy electric number, with a sparse backing of drums and some really groovy bass. The main part of the song however is John’s voice and guitar playing. Having said that though, there is a lot of musical detail on the album. It is usually behind the guitar and vocals, doing the ever so subtle job of enhancement.
The best example of this is my favourite song on the album: ‘3X5’. I can never really explain logically why I love this song, but it will always be a standout. Something about the really high up and down guitar line that opens the song, and the lyrics about missing someone back at home, but then also not wanting to miss your own experience of the world by constantly taking photos for them. It seems an outdated idea in the modern world dominated by status-updating-selfie-inflicting vanity, but it is something that could be more often expressed. There is also that line: ‘Today, skies are painted colours in the cowboy cliche/and strange, how mountains in the sky, are next to mountains anyway’ that just manages to serve as reminders of John’s casual poetry. His lyrics aren’t great like Bob Dylan’s, which could be analysed in an English classroom, but they are great because they manage to sidestep cliché and instead just be expressive. Throughout the whole song he just manages to describe both the emotion of longing and the beautiful scenery that he wishes not to miss in terms that manage to be both really simple and really elegant. This is also a song best listened to through headphones, as the level of instrumental detail is simply enormous, from the rhythmically understated drums to the keyboard that follows John’s voice throughout verse and pre-chorus, there is just a wealth of hidden musicianship in this song.
Since the album was written in the free flowing realm of the acoustic guitar, most of the songs here eschew the conventional pop formula of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus in favour of a more fluid, unrestrained style. In fact in most of these songs the chorus doesn’t appear until about two minutes into the track. This means that the whole album doesn’t start to grow stale, and is instead constantly keeping itself fresh. That’s not to say, however, that this is a record that removes itself completely from the norms of popular music, as the records two biggest charting singles No Such Thing and Your Body is A Wonderland both make fantastic use of the traditional verse-chorus-verse formula, with No Such Thing containing hooks, hooks and more hooks. At some point just about every line of this song will have been stuck in your head because each has a hook of its own and every single one of them works fantastically. Then there is ‘Your Body Is A Wonderland’, the song that put Mayer on the map. It’s an incredibly infectious radio hit that maybe doesn’t have as much staying power as the rest of the songs on the album, but still manages to be a really well executed to the numbers pop ballad.
There are however some songs on the record that don’t stand out as much. ‘Great Indoors’ is one of these. It’s probably the only song on the record that could really be called weightless. It just floats in and then leaves, making no impression whatsoever on the listener. There are some good parts, like the soothing bridge and the fun lyrical concept, but the rest is just not that good. ‘City Love’ is another. This song does boast the only true guitar solo on the album, and what a solo it is. It’s not a screaming, wailing, climax kind of a solo, but rather just a groovy extension of the song that shows how good Mayer is at being a restrained guitar ninja. There is also some pretty sweet organ happening in the song, but in the context of the album it just doesn’t feel as catchy or laid back as the rest of the song; but then on the other hand it doesn’t race out of the gates and grab you by the scruff of your neck either. It is instead happy to inhabit some sort of middle ground that just doesn’t thrill this reviewer.
Despite these, this is still an excellent album. It is one of those records, the kind that you throw on when guests are over, that sits in the background, happily spitting out wonderfully friendly melodies and thousands of catchy hooks that people will find themselves singing later, but that will also stand up to serious listen if one ever feels that to be necessary. I would recommend this to people looking for some laid back, catchy, pop music that still has substance. John Mayer came out of the gates strongly with this release and it is still, fifteen years later, a pop masterpiece.
Standout Tracks:
3X5
Why Georgia
Neon
My Stupid Mouth
