Films, and such.

listening to: Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles

Being a John Mayer fan, i've read countless of arguments over whether his musical direction. Some love the acoustic pop stuff he did on his album, while others applaud his Blues tendencies in his latest Continnum album. These two groups argue a lot. Almost every youtube video with Mayer has fans debating in the comments. 'John Mayer is a blues player', 'John Mayer plays pop songs' and the random 'John Mayer sucks'. Funny then, that nobody actually bothers to listen to what the person in question has to say. Mayer has stated that his roots are in Blues music, but what he wants to create is a so-called hybrid 'Modern Music' which fuses Pop and Blues. He quotes the latter day Eric Clapton as an example, in particular the album 'Journeyman' (if im not mistaken).

So turns out both camps are right, John Mayer is a Blues player..AND a Pop singer.

Mayer is possibly trying to make Blues more acessible to the people by fusing Pop. Valiant effort, but really i think he suffers as a result of these attempts. He certainly makes enemies, as pure Blues aficionados constantly lambast his Blues-Pop offerings. Certainly many find this dilution of Blues gimmicky and perhaps even threatening to the culture of the Blues. His earlier fans may feel let down by the lack of Pop tunes on his new albums and grow apart from him. Mayer himself suffers, with his songs at times lacking both the intensity of the Blues and the catchiness of the Pop tunes.

I'm big on John Mayer, really like his stuff. And i must admit his bubblegum stuff really drew me into his music initially, with songs like 'Why Georgia' and 'No Such Thing'. But as my taste developed, appropriately, i've grown to embrace his Blues input. Which ultimately brings me to my point, it's frustrating to see Mayer stuck in between the two genres. I sympathize with his efforts to merge Blues and Pop, but i think ultimately for Mayer to be taken seriously, he must make a blues album. And not just a blues album, but a hardcore, 'out there' Blues album. (Try! doesn't really count.) If only to establish his Blues credentials (playing with Clapton and B.B King is fine and all, but does he really belong in that company?). He has the Pop, mainstream audience relatively convinced (Proof? His repeated Grammy wins and commercial success of albums), now he has to woo the Blues crowd. Failing which, he will probably never be able to sew the two groups together.