Mayer Gets Heavier

From the same artist who wowed us with "Room for Squares" and mellowed us with "Inside Wants Out," only to dazzle us yet again with "Any Given Thursday" comes a fourth Columbian feast for the ears. John Mayer’s "Heavier Things," released on the Columbia record label September 9, is exactly what its title implies. Whereas many of Mayer’s previous works are ballads about lost love, with something of an acoustic, coffee bar – type feel, this CD is different not only in sound, but also in theme.

Born October 16, 1977, John Clayton Mayer was raised in Connecticut, but Atlanta, Georgia is where his musical career took root. Discovered by the Columbia record label at Austin, Texas’ South-by-Southwest music conference in March of 2000, Mayer has gone from being a virtual no name to being included in Rick Dees’ list of the hundred most requested songs of 2002 in the past two years alone. While his main musical influences are Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jeff Buckley, others have compared his sound to those of Dave Matthews and Pearl Jam. However many people Mayer resembles, though, his sound is definitely unique.

Mayer’s first three CDs, one of which – “Inside Wants Out” – was first released in 1999, then re-released by Columbia the summer of 2002, all seem to have the same kind of feel. For the most part, they are slow, balladesque songs with soft acoustic accompaniment. His most recent CD, however, is “heavier” than the others. Did Mayer make the transition from light to heavier well? Absolutely. Mayer seems to rock just as well as he rolls, and this CD does a great job of mixing them both. The only down side to "Heavier Things" is its track listing: only ten songs. However, those ten songs are in no way disappointing. They span a wide variety of subjects, from hinting at the possibility of Higher Power in "Something's Missing" and "New Deep," to communicating a general feeling of wanting to crawl back into bed in "Home Life" and "Come Back to Bed."

The most unique feature of this CD is that it has song keys: an icon list and legend at the front, a map and list of places where each song was written, and even a human body with the suggested target points of each song, among others. So, overall, Mayer's newest baby gets two thumbs up from this critic. It's chock full of all the good stuff a relatively new artist's fourth CD needs to be a success: slight change in sound, thematically different lyrics, and a very coolly laid out CD booklet.