Singing about love and heartbreak isn’t something new for John Mayer, but don’t let the title of his newest album in four years fool you. “Sob Rock”, his 8th studio release, encompasses a sound that feels nostalgic for past love and a past era, which is most blatantly portrayed through the pastel light and subtle ’80s throwbacks for the album art and merchandise. The consistent snare rolls it more towards the soft rock category just as the slogan claims “Life is Hard. Rock soft”. Perhaps songs like “Carry Me Away” are as close to sad boy summer that Mayer and his fan base are comfortable getting.
The quirky music video to the catchy synth, “New Light” shows the most personality out of any song and is worthy of being the first single, released all the way back in May 2018. Following in the footsteps of other seasoned artists with maturing fan bases like Weezer, the album art is a front compared to the songs themselves even though during a Clubhouse talk he cited popular ‘80’s names like Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. Produced by John Mayer and Don Wiss. “Sob Rock” ebbs and flows between upbeat and slow burn but the lackluster lyrics still leave something to be desired.
Adding to the twang of the tracks are guest vocals from grammy-winning country artist Maren Morris at the end of “Last Train Home”. This song and music video, which dropped June 4, 2021, isn’t the first time the two have collaborated – he lent a hand in a live version of Morris’ hit “The Bones”. The first track is a good metaphor for coming/riding/rolling with him through his latest musical endeavor. The real noteworthy song is, “I Guess I Just Feel Like”, which is the closest to embodying the album’s namesake but also has a crooning guitar – the only thing you can count on to be consistent throughout all of his bodies of work.
Amid backlash about the song’s title “Why You No Love Me”, Mayer tries to express that you don’t need a grammatically or politically correct title to get the point across:“It’s not English as a second language, it’s language as a second language…Maybe it takes 43 years to ask that question, but you still ask it in the language of a child – how is it possible? How is it possible that you couldn’t love me, right?” he said in his interview with Apple Music. If it wasn’t for the controversial title, this song would be better suited for the cutting room floor, because the weeping guitar only provides a short-lived break from the repetitiveness of the chorus.
Underneath it all, the album actually touches on hope on several occasions: “And I’ll always let hope in/Wherever I’ll be”. Hope for love even after multiple (“seven”) women to hope in proving the naysayers wrong in “‘Til the Right One Comes”, “Some people ’round here been calling me crazy/Some people say I’ll never love someone/That’s alright, give it time and maybe, I/Prove you wrong when the right one comes/Won’t be long ’til the right one comes”
The closing guitar solos at the end of most of the songs are what you are left remembering and the album finishes much as it started, with the country twang that you would expect from sad country songs underneath Mayer’s somber vocals and guitar. With a title like ”Sob Rock” the anticipation for an emotionally progressive collection where Mayer pushed himself as an artist was high, but unfortunately, the most depth we got was a simple metaphor about the ocean in “Wild Blue”. Mayer’s musical identity always seems to be at a crossroads hopefully, he’ll head back towards “Paradise Valley” rather than down the 1980’s nostalgia highway.
E.J. Inkmire 