JOHN MAYER

MELLOW FELLOW

John Mayer remains way laid back on his reflective new Paradise Valley

by Matt Ashare |  
Published August 28, 2013

So, as I understand it, the ongoing saga of John Mayer looks something like this. An earnest and hungry young singer-songwriter finds a home among other similar types with the entrepreneurial start-up Aware Records in 2001, just as the fledgling label is cementing its partnership with the Columbia. He quickly hits paydirt with "Room for Squares," a largely acoustic debut that frames Mayer as a thoughtfully sensitive, clean-cut new adult on a block crowded with preening tweeny-poppers and tired  holdovers from the alt-rock ’90s.
    Over the next few years, Mayer burnishes his wholesome image as a crafty songwriter, collects Grammys at a a rather impressive rate, and proves he's got the chops to rock it jamband style, with a whole lotta blues and a touch of jazz — kinda like Dave Matthews without the Band. As his stature grows, Mayer makes inroads into hip-hop, guesting on tracks by Common and Kanye West, and collaborates with Eric Clapton, B.B. King, and Buddy Guy, establishing his bona fides as a serious musician with the creative juice to hang with the heavyweights. He's also inevitably drawn into the celebrity vortex, dating a series Hollywood types, most notably the three J's — Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Simpson, and Jennifer Anniston — and screen-testing his mettle as a prime-time player in a VH1 comedy special and on "Chappelle's Show."
    But Mayer's decent dude persona suffers a major blow in 2010, when he incomprehensibly decides it's not such a bad idea to reveal, in uncharacteristically crude terms, some rather intimate details about his sexual proclivities and his relationships with Simpson and Anniston. To make matters worse, he's left another one of his famous love interests, the impeccably demure Taylor Swift, so pissed off that she takes aim at Mayer in the pointedly penned "Dear John," a razor-thinly veiled swipe at a manipulative former beau. Then again, if Kanye West's stunt at the 2009 VMA show is any indication, messing with Swift isn't necessarily a bad career move. And, in the larger realm of celebrities behaving badly, Mayer's kiss-and-tell episode doesn't quite rise to the level of a capital offense.
    Nevertheless, Mayer, who recently suffered through a recurring problem with granulomas on his vocal cords (poetic justice, perhaps), dutifully apologized to the offended parties. And, perhaps as a kind of therapeutic penance, he's spent the past couple of years mellowing out at a cabin retreat in Montana, quietly working to refurbish his tarnished image, and diligently writing songs that appear to recast Mayer as well-mannered country gentleman of sorts on 2011's reflective "Born and Raised" and the somewhat more upbeat new "Paradise Valley."
    If Mayer's unstated aim is to clear the decks —  if he's looking for the proverbial clean slate — then he's come to the right place. I never really cared much about his personal life, or his tabloid indiscretions. And, while hypocrisy tends to bum me out, in my experience there's not much correlation between artist's moral rectitude and the quality of his or her output. Indeed, so-called bad behavior has often gone hand-in-hand with pretty good music making, which doesn't excuse the former anymore than it's required for the latter.
    On the other hand, I'm not inclined to cut Mayer any slack based on his past accomplishments, mainly because I've also never much cared for his work. Yeah, he's written some popular tunes, but they've rarely stuck with me. In his preferred mode — the well crafted, slickly produced, feel-good (even when you're feeling bad) confessional — he's never gone much beyond scratching the surface of emotional turmoil, and even at his most soulful he's never sounded particularly invested in the sentiments of his songs. To my mind, he's quite a bit more impressive as a guitarist. but even in that regard he's tended to remind me more of Robert Cray, the not quite gritty enough bluesman who emerged to much acclaim in the ’80s and never fully lived up to the hype, then of Clapton, a guy Mayer's had the good fortune of being favorably compared to.
    That said, "Paradise Valley" opens pretty much where "Born and Raised" left off, on starkly acoustic terrain, with vaguely country atmospherics, the close-mic'd, plaintive vocals dominating the scene. Which turns out to be not such a good thing when Mayer attempts a fairly brutal rhyme —  "Back in Paris you told me that you were suicidal/It's not a vacation if I lose you to the Eiffel" — that lingers in the airiness like an unpleasant odor. He does settle into a comfortably rootsy groove on the next track, the mildly twangy and hopeful "On the Way Home," which promises, in rather bland fashion, that "It takes a little time/But you'll be fine/Another good time/Comin' down the line." And yet, the track does serve as a reminder that, in spite of the Eiffel Tower miscue, Mayer knows his way around a sturdy sing-along hook and a smart turn of phrase, as in "Life ain't short but is sure is small/You get forever but nobody at all," a line he repeats twice for effect.
    But, if Mayer really wanted to put his women problems behind him, you have to wonder what he was thinking when "Paradise Valley" came together. Exhibit A: "Dear Marie," and pick-and-strum ditty written in the form of an imagined missive than can't help but echo Swift's "Dear John" letter, even if it's being sung to a long lost teenage crush whose photograph Mayer searches in vain for online. (I had no such trouble locating images of Swift.) "Remember me/I'm the boy you used to love when you were fifteen," Mayer casually croons against a softly galloping beat and the plaintive whine of a pedal steel, "Now I wonder what you think when you see me in a magazine." (She might be thinking something along the lines of, I hope you didn't say anything stupid about Jessica, Jennifer, or Jessica this time.)
    Exhibit B: "Paper Doll," a gently jazzy little that lazily recounts the sparing details of a past affair by, of all things, picking through woman's wardrobe. "Paper doll come try it on," Mayer suggests, almost tauntingly, "Step out of that black chiffon/Here's a dress of gold and blue/Sure was fun being good to you." He goes on, in the groovy chorus, to suggest, "You're like 22 girls in one/And none of them know what they're running from/Was it just too far to fall/For a little paper doll." Hmmm. . . I don't think that song has to be about Taylor Swift's bruised feelings to come across as a tad caddish and cold, which is to say that it's got a lot more edge to it than the typical Mayer lyric.
    And, finally, Exhibit C: the soul-leaning duet "Who You Left," which pairs Mayer with his maybe current girlfriend Katy Perry, highlights some of the better blues riffing on the album, and, for fans at least, is likely to bring back memories of "Half of My Heart," a cut he recorded with Swift for 2010's "Battle Studies" back when they were still a couple. Incidentally, after some vocal improv by Perry over Mayer's soloing, the track ends abruptly with her singing "You're the one I love," and then giggling. Yet more grist for the rumor mill.
    So, while it's certainly possible to resist the temptation to read between the lines of a new John Mayer album, looking for hints of his faintly chequered past, it's not nearly as interesting. Mayer's a mellow fellow whose penchant for steering down the middle of the road is so well established at this point, that you have to wonder if he's ever even stopped to consider what lies outside of the white lines, on the shoulder and beyond. He's actually at his best when he succumbs to a little touch of road rage on a track like "Paper Doll," or when he's got spicier company like Swift or Perry along for the ride. Let's just say that worse things could happen to Mayer's career than another bump on his trip down lover's lane.