Album Roundup: New music from John Mayer and Clairo, reviewed

Two pop musicians at drastically different points in their artistic development released records this week. Are either worth the listen? Let’s dig in!

John Mayer — Sob Rock

After 2018’s ‘New Light’ saw Mayer dipping his toe into the 80’s funk/disco pastiche that has dominated popular music for nearly a decade, he jumps headlong into the pool on his new record Sob Rock. The album sees the oft-maligned singer-songwriter taking stabs at a number of different sounds from a bygone era. Standout single ‘Last Train Home’ drew instant comparisons to Toto’s ‘Africa’ with its lush synth line, and different songs carry hints of him putting his spin on Steely Dan grooves, Clapton (circa ‘Tears in Heaven’)-esque ballads, and other pop sounds of the 80’s and early 90’s.

While his natural instinct for pop songwriting gives Sob Rock a high floor, Mayer often feels asleep at the wheel. The lyricism mostly leans on trite aphorisms; “All these tears I meant to cry/Dance across the evening sky”, he croons on ‘Wild Blue’. While his work has always been somewhat plush, this is a long way from his career heights on Continuum; ‘Waiting on the World to Change’ evokes a clear point of view and throughline, while work like ‘Gravity’ and ‘Slow Dancing in a Burning Room’ combine evocative imagery with musicianship befitting an artist I consider perhaps the finest guitarist of this century. Conversely, many of the guitar solos here feel like first drafts, the kind of noodlings he could do in his sleep, and frequently does on his strangely entertaining TikTok channel.

There has often been a divide between perception and reality with respect to Mayer’s talent as an artist, largely thanks to his tendency to create gentle pop-rock instead of the blistering blues rock he seems born to play. On work like Continuum, Born and Raised, and the live record Where the Light Is, he finds a happy medium, making it clear why legendary artists like BB King and The Grateful Dead have chosen to collaborate with him while still making the softer music he seems drawn to in his own work. By contrast, Sob Rock feels like a capitulation, a willing retreat into the pigeonhole he has been placed in, albeit dressed up in new colours. It’s far from disastrous — although the bizarre ‘Why You No Love Me’ (the real title, and the chorus!) comes close — but it’s far from the reinvention that the aesthetic choices of the album seem to represent.

2.5/5

Clairo — Sling

After the consciously simple toy keyboard-driven ‘Pretty Girl’ became a strange viral hit, the 22-year old Clairo took a quantum leap forward with her 2019 record Immunity. While using a similarly limited instrumental palette — largely keyboards and acoustic guitars — she showed an incredible aptitude for song structure, combining it with her simple, stark lyrics of love-lorn and pain-stricken adolescence to create deeply stirring moments.

On her sophomore effort, Clairo’s expanded vision reveals her aspirations as an artist — namely, to become a songwriter and pop artist in the classic sense. Sling evokes greats like Joni Mitchell and Carole King, but none more so than Paul McCartney. The instrumentation hews more towards the retro, with real piano and analog electric piano, as well as dabbling in orchestral sounds like horns, strings, and flutes. Like McCartney, Clairo showcases a scattershot approach, leaping headlong from established grooves into sections that could be songs unto themselves, but still feel of a piece within the composition. Her control over production (the record was co-produced by Clairo herself and pop monolith Jack Antonoff) feel like that of a conductor, with the timing and sound of the instrumentation more vital than the notes they play. At times the quotes are more direct, like in the loopy bassline of ‘Amoeba’ and the roomy tom drums of ‘Partridge’.

If there’s one downside to these symphonic stylings, it’s that it serves to paper over some of the emotional devastation that Immunity was capable of. There are moments on that album that, even after dozens of listens, feel like gutpunches: “But you know you saved me from doing something to myself that night” on ‘Alewife’, or the vengeful snarl of “Shut up/Don’t wanna hear it now I’m fed up” on ‘Closer To You’. There’s nothing like that on Sling.

Part of that could be the change in producers. On Immunity Clairo worked with Rostam Batmanglij, whose talent for creating music that feels emotionally honest and immediate is evident on this year’s Changephobia; while Antonoff is undeniable as a titan in popular music, his sensibilities feel as though they trend towards musical idealism rather than emotional availability. (To be fair, Taylor Swift’s folklore and Lorde’s Melodrama, both of which were produced by Antonoff, both have plenty of devastating moments.)

Part of it could also be a function of growing up; while the records were released just two years apart, it’s not hard to understand why the difference between songs written by a 19 year old and a 22 year old could be drastic. The lyricism of Sling evokes tracing a scar more than it does picking at an open wound, and its musicality might necessitate a perspective of world-weary wisdom more than one of teenage emotional immediacy. Regardless, there’s no doubt that this album represents a significant work by a burgeoning artist with plenty more to say in her career.

4.25/5