John Mayer
Album: Battle Studies
Label: Columbia/Sony
Rating: ** 1/2

John Mayer is one of the rare real talents to come out of the last ten years of American pop music. And he’s got some of the best players in the business backing him up with Steve Jordan on drums, Who sideman Pino Palladino on bass, ex-Faces legend Ian McLagan on keyboards and session wizard Waddy Wachtel adding acoustic guitar. So why does Mayer insist on pushing these oh-so-safe, warm-and-cuddly songs at us? Yes, the duet with Taylor Swift is nice. But he didn’t have to serve up an entire album of niceness. Even when he tries to prove his guitar rock credentials on Robert Johnson’s Crossroads, Mayer wimps out with an oddly smooth version of the blues classic. Mayer needs to find a balance between his self-absorbed live recordings and this overly sweet studio stuff.

On the web
http://www.johnmayer.com

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