It's Not a Silly Little Moment, it's Not the Storm before the Calm

There hasn’t been an artist this decade that has changed more musically than John Mayer granted he has yet to have a U2 type transformation yet, but the effort is there. Mayer started out his career, to some, as a solo Dave Matthews knock-off. And as much as his major label debut, Room for Squares, was pop perfection, he didn’t rest on his laurels for the follow-up Heavier Things. As the title suggested Mayer moved on from the safe world of pop-rock and made music more in the vain of his guitar idol some of which he even had the chance to play with over the years. To descend even deeper into the blues, Mayer recruited two heavy hitting studio and touring musicians in Steve Jordan and Pino Palladino to form the John Mayer Trio and tour behind a mix of new songs, cover tunes, and even made some of Mayer songs even bluesier.

Now Mayer is back to being a solo artist with the release of Continuum. The album does rehash a couple of the songs that were recorded for the live album the trio made, but Gravity and Vultures sound better now that they are polished up especially the latter which features a more crisper Mayer falsetto. It’s just the Trio again as the cover Jimi Hendrix’s Bold as Love but this studio version sounds a little overproduced and a Hendrix song should never sound overproduced. The band has done killer live version (you can find a version on a music service not named iTunes from the Tsunami Relief Benefit telethon) and may have benefited from putting a live version on the album instead. And just like its predecessor, the latest album Continuum lives up to its name as instead of making another blues album, this latest outing has much more of a soul vibe to it like on I Don’t Trust Myself where Mayer croons over silky horns and a mellow beat.

Aside from his musical growth, Continuum can also point to Mayer’s growth as a person as he deals with many grown up themes including not one, but two song with political commentaries. First up is the album opener and lead single Waiting on the World to Change. In the song Mayer brilliantly sums up the conscience of whatever you want to call the generation born in the late seventies to the early eighties highlighted by the line “It’s not that we don’t care, we just know that the fight ain’t fair.” Later there is Belief, featuring Ben Harper on guitar, where Mayer sums up all the wars in the world, most over religion, in Belief where he sings, “We’re never gonna win the world, we’re never gonna stop the war, we’re never gonna beat this if belief is what we’re fighting for.” Aside from the state of the world, Mayer takes stock of the state of his own life in Stop this Train featuring a dude from Maroon 5 who contributed some acoustic guitars, singing lines like, “So scare of getting older, I’m only good at being young.” I feel ya Johnny, I really hate this whole getting old thing too.

For those who prefer Mayer’s lovelorn songs, just head to the back of the album starting with Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, a song that you will undoubtedly be hitting the back button multiple times until you realized after an hour it would have been easier just to have hit repeat. I’m going to go ahead and call it right now that this song will replace You’re Beautiful from last year (as well as You and Me from two years ago) as the song that every television show plays at some romantic juncture for added effect (just think had Rescue Me played this song at the end of the season finale this year and how much more fitting it would have been). The song also has the potential to be this decade’s token mistake love song (see Crash into Me for the nineties; Every Breathe You Take for the eighties). For all of you that were teenage girls when Mayer first broke and flocked to his shows only to drown out ever word he sang as you shouted over him, prepare to shout, “Do I have to fall asleep with roses in my hand,” (Dreaming with a Broken Heart) and “I’m in repair, I’m not together but I’m getting there,” (In Repair) the next time Mayer visits your town.

Song to Download - Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

Continuum gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.