John Mayer Rips Off The 80’s In A Boring Melancholy of Self Indulgence
2.0 out of 5 stars
I am not John Mayer’s ideal fanbase or anything, but I have at points in his career enjoyed some of his songs.
However, at this point in his career, I think he needs to find out more about what makes himself tick and what passion he has left for music, because his latest album Sob Rock is just a straight tonal rip off of 80’s greats like Phil Collins and Paul Simon (among others) with the last song sounding a lot like Uncle Kracker’s song “Follow Me” which was already a lame song for the early 2000’s.
There are far too many soft rock artists, songs and albums already made that John Mayer could have just saved himself the time and effort here and written or produced these albums for artists who are well into their 60’s or 70’s that still make this music (looking at you, Richard Marx and Michael Bolton) and Mayer could have probably had a better shot at coming out looking like an inspired artist rather than a passionless performer.
This whole album feels like there was no reason to be made other than to make some money. I can’t say that any of the songs are good, nor would I say that any of these songs would be similar to any of the catalog that Mayer has amassed to date. The only two things that stayed the same are the breathy voice of Mayer and a few very mellow guitar solos.
In fact, while I was listening to this album, I had to keep checking back to see if the song had changed because the first 6 songs sound so similar that I wasn’t sure that the tracks had ended.
There is also a possible tone deaf moment with one of the songs, and I don’t mean that he is off key. Writing a song called, “Why You No Love Me?” is just about the stupidest thing someone could do.
He mentioned that the song was meant to be written as if you had gotten hurt so deep you forget how to talk. Not really the impression I get from that song.
Even if he tries to cite his inspiration for the album as the reason for the racially insensitive lyrics and title - as he said he wanted this album to feel and sound like somebody pulled it off a rack in 1988 to fit the sounds and context of that time period - I am still not buying that's where he was going with those lyrics.
Sorry, John, you don’t really get to pick and choose what time period you want to time travel to just so you can write terrible lyrics that sound as stupid as they are potentially offensive.
I would easily say this is the worst John Mayer album ever made.
I will NOT say this is the worst album ever made or anything like that. The dude still has some great guitar and singing abilities, but this album is just so far below his abilities that you can’t give it anything higher than a 2-star rating.
Honestly, if Mayer came out and said this was just all a big joke, and he was secretly punking the world, I would still only give this album a 2.5. Like an Olympic judge, I would enhance the score for creativity.
Cringe your way through what looks to be a totally serious Mayer in his music video for the song "Shot in the Dark."