When the Music's on She Can Do No Wrong

After years of trolling in relative obscurity, a blue-eye soul man finally had a smash hit this year. But enough about Robin Thicke, let’s talk about a blue eyed soul man who actually deserves big success: Mayer Hawthorne. Where Thicke needed six album to reach the top of the pop charts, Mayer Hawthorne is still on album number three just releasing Where Does This Door Go. But much like Robin, he worked with Pharrell Williams, who has had a career resurgence this year, who produced three songs on the album.

None of those tracks have the instant catchiness of Blurred Lines, but The Stars Are Ours sound like something that may have come out of a session from Pharrell’s other summer smash hit Get Lucky if he skipped the electric sound of Daft Punk and made a song completely organic. Pharrell also contributed to what is probably Mayer’s most personal song yet, Reach Out Richard about his father.

The cover and title may suggest a more reflexive turn (and the title track is a bit darker and as close to Pink Floyd as a blue eyed soul man can get), but the album is a much more danceable affair than his previous two. And Mayer also trade in his trademark falsetto for his normal tenor voice for most of the album, one of the few time he goes into the upper register is the last song Pharrell produced on the album and Wine Glass Woman is the song where Hawthorne sound most like Pharrell. The album closes with maybe the least Mayer Hawthorne song he has ever recorded with All Better, it is still in his retro wheelhouse, but trades in old time soul to oldies pop in the vein of The Beatles type power ballad. It may not come with a song off of Where Does This Door Go, but if there is any justice, Mayer Hawthorne will have his breakout moment very soon.

Song to Download – The Stars Are Ours

Where Does This Door Go gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.