Our Name Is Our Virtue

There is no artist that is more hit or miss than Jason Mraz. He creates these annoying pseudo raps that he surely thinks are clever but get old quick. But he also makes really heartfelt love songs that you cannot help but sing along. And it is odd that he would name We Dance, We Sing, We Steal Things when he isn’t really known for two of the three.

It doesn’t take too long to figure out where the first part comes from as the opening track Make it Mine sounds like a long lost track of a rock band trying out that new disco thing in the seventies. A couple tracks later, Butterfly bust outs with horns straight from the Ohio Players handbook.

The We Sing portion on the album is highlighted by I’m Yours, the quintessential fireside ditty that is easily the best of his career and should be played at every beach this summer. The other standout is the heartbreaking slid guitar aided Love for a Child, a song seen through the eyes of a kid whose parent are divorced debating the pro (having two birthday cakes, less rules) and cons (loss of innocence, drug addled parents) of the split.

Mraz brings along two friends on the album, most notably is the bubbly girl herself Colbie Caillat on Lucky that could have been easily a leftover from her album as it is simple and enjoyable as anything on her disk, but nothing extraordinary. Later on the album James Morrison pops up on Details in the Fabric where the two voices really play off each other well with the backdrop of a haunting acoustic guitar.

Unfortunately that pseudo rap does show up on The Dynamo of Volition with silly lyrics about Gun n’ Roses finally finishing their album and blisters from playing Nintendo. And there is a weird answering machine type message that bleeds into and out of Details in the Fabric. But for the most part Mraz is on the right track with this album.

Song to Download - I’m Yours

We Dance, We Sing, We Steal Things gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.