It helps that the mixes are very smooth (the most they’ve been in a while from a Mayer album) and it rarely feels as though the album is taking the piss or ripping anyone off wholesale.
From the Toto pastiche ‘Last Train Home’ (admittedly a bit much), to Doobie Brothers-gone-Steely Dan ‘Wild Blue’, to nearly cheese-room ballad ‘Shot In The Dark’, John is very clear about its intentions. I won’t be the first nor last to joke that “Soft Rock” would have been a more appropriate title, as the main appeal of the album comes from its slick seventies/eighties inspirations. This is, of course, except for bizarre centerpiece ‘Why You No Love Me’, whose hook is either hugely misguided or pokes fun at itself. Sob Rock has neither the lyrical neatness nor sincerity of many of Mayer’s earlier full-lengths. I found this disappointing, as Mayer usually has an ability to iterate well-trodden ideas in interesting, sometimes novel, ways (‘Stop This Train’, ‘Never On The Day You Leave’). ‘Shouldn’t Matter but It Does’ is the closest John comes to an authentic or honest number, as lyrically cliched choruses undersell later cuts (‘Shot In The Dark’, ‘All I Want Is To Be With You’) it’s nothing we haven’t heard before. But how does Sob Rock go over?ĭespite the record’s (catchy) title, Mayer is not penning heart-wrenchers here. I had some cynicism COVID dissociation makes this release feel very overdue, and gaudy nostalgia parodies are starting to get very old. Given the wilderness years in between - where singles like ‘New Light’ and ‘I Guess I Just Feel Like’ trickled in on an almost annual basis - this record stands as a culmination of John’s patchy output over the last three years.
Hot on (and late to) eighties revival, John Mayer is back with his eighth LP, a whole four years since his last.
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