10.25.2006

JOHN MAYER, CONTINUED

GIVE SOMEONE ENOUGH TIME AND SPACE, AND WHAT DO THEY COME UP WITH? A CONTINUUM. JOHN MAYER'S BACK, WITH HIS MOST SOULFUL ALBUM YET

by Luis Katigbak

JOHN MAYER IS A FILIPINO

First time I ever heard a John Mayer song, John Mayer wasn't singing it. This was maybe five or six years ago, in a small artsy bar in Manila that boasted a glow-in-the-dark couch, Mark Strand books on its shelves, and the occasional drunkenly passed-out lesbian on the floor. It was the kind of place where someone might spontaneously recite confessional poetry without the immediate danger of everyone else beating him up. It was in this bar where I first heard "No Such Thing," covered by a female-fronted acoustic trio.

Half of the trio's set was made up of John Mayer songs -- this may not sound very surprising, but keep in mind that this was well before Mayer was a household name, well before local radio picked up "No Such Thing" and the giddy-sappy "Your Body is a Wonderland."

"John Mayer is a Filipino," the trio's lead singer asserted, and it was obvious she didn't mean it literally -- though, as I type this, I'm imagining someone pulling Mayer's face off as if he were a villain in an old-school Scooby Doo cartoon, revealing the brown brother beneath. What she meant, I believe, was that like many a Pinoy, John Mayer was into accessible, addictive melodies and emotionally open lyrics. More than that: there was a quality that linked his music to something deep in our collective heart -- a certain sentimentality, for lack of a less loaded word; a certain earnestness. After all, how many people come up with a line like "Your body is a wonderland"? Or "Our love was comfortable and so broken in"? He's still doing it, still serving up sentiments that other artists might deem uncool or embarrassing, as evidenced on the new single, "Waiting on the World to Change": "One day our generation/ Is going to rule the population," he sings. It's a soulful, ultimately hopeful piece, which just happens to share some of the spirit of, say, After Image's "Next in Line".

JOHN MAYER HAS BEEN KEEPING BUSY

Which is not to say that this is the same John Mayer that we all discovered back in 2001. To be honest, a lot of people got sick of that John Mayer: from being this cool singer-songwriter that only a few people knew about, he became beloved of fans of easy-listening acoustic fare and the butt of many so-called "real" music fans' derision. Even his appearance worked against him, in a way, as if a good-looking guy couldn't be a real artist. As if the fact that he sported flowing, curly locks of hair and possessed permanently-pouty lips and deep dark eyes was somehow... somehow... I'm sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, credibility.

Seriously, those of you who may have written him off after Room for Squares may be interested to know a few things: for example, in the past few years, in addition to writing, recording, and touring, he has collaborated with icons and contemporaries like Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Herbie Hancock, as well as Kanye West, the Dixie Chicks, and Alicia Keys, expanding his perspectives and broadening his interests. Teaming up with Steve Jordan and Pino Palladino to form the John Mayer Trio, a blues and rock outfit, he recalibrated his musical priorities. "As a songwriter, the Trio helped me focus on being more raw," he says. "As a guitar player, it helped me get a lot out of my system."

Last year, he won the Grammy for Song of the Year, for "Daughters" (off his second album, Heavier Things). "The night I was recognized for "Daughters" at the Grammys was the night this record started," he says, referring to his third and current album, Continuum. "I knew I had bought the time to learn everything I needed before I started this one. Continuum is not a shot in the dark, it's not a guesstimation. This is the first endeavor in my entire life, music or otherwise, that I did not cop out for a second on."

JOHN MAYER IS ALL GROWN UP

"With any trilogy," John Mayer said, "the third in the series blows it open." Leaving aside for a moment the question of how this theory applies to such travesties as The Matrix: Revolutions, it does seem as if Continuum is the fulfillment of a notion, of a promise, of a musical journey, so to speak. Mayer describes where he's at now as "a point somewhere between the Trio record and Room for Squares, and that's a really good place to be." Continuum is said to be "his most soulful, cohesive collection yet," the album where "all of his efforts, his potential, and his disparate influences fully come together." It may very well be the record that makes long-term Mayer fans, Mayer newbies, and perhaps even Mayer detractors happy.

With a richer, deeper, more satisfying sound, and a willingness to tackle Big Themes such as the state of the world and our generation's responsibility towards it, Continuum could be said to represent maturity -- ”both musically and thematically” -- for John Mayer.

"A lot of these songs are about coming to terms with getting older," he says. "For a long time, I was really upset about getting older, worried that things were just going to level out," he admits. "But then I realized that everyone around me was all getting older at the same time. We're all fighting it together, and we're always going to be those kids, the first really emotionally aware generation. When I realized that, I could relax about it a little bit. And I thought that maybe I can be the guy to sing about it."

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Artist	Song Title	Type
John Mayer	Waiting On The World To Change	Monotones
Jojo	Too Little Too Late	Monotones
Norah Jones	Not Too Late	Monotones
John Mayer	Waiting On The World To Change	Polytones
LILY ALLEN	Smile	Polytones
Norah Jones	Not Too Late	Polytones

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