John Mayer: Sob Rock and a Pink Silver Sky

Mickeyji

He also does a pretty good job at filling the rather large shoes of Jerry Garcia..

Strat54

Yeah he's done a great job with Dead & Co, and he seems to have been well accepted by the Deadheads. Nice for him to have two gigs.

dindude

TeleMaster said:

So we've gone from Mayer bashing to Spender bashing. I'm not much of a fan of Mary Spender but talentless? That's a ridiculous thing to say. She could out play most of the people here. She can obviously play very well in her style, writes original music and performs. She can sing fairly well. 

If you're gonna say that she's talentless, I'd hope you're incredibly talented or... well, you know.  

Yep, I really don’t get it with Mary, soz. Let’s not talk about my talent, I’m not plugging mine, so to suggest you can’t critique something without having at least equal measure is dumb. Mary’s putting herself out there (a lot) so why can’t she be critiqued.

Back to Mary, there are literally 1000’s of people up and down the country at open mic nights that are way less cheesy and have more talent in their little toes. Have a look at her JM pre-cover, it’s the most cringe-worthy thing, musically and visually I’ve seen on a long time. The difference is that her open mic peer group just choose not to bounce on the back of someone’s unrealised song or do a cover of a Billie Eilish song (one that happened to gain 20m views in 24 hours) the day after it’s released. She is Coat-tail queen.

So yes I stand by it, but if you like her, fair game.

Boromedic

I've listened to Last Train Home loads of times today whilst chilling in the garden in the nice weather today. It's brill I think, world needs some 80's sunshine and this fits the bill. Pre ordered the album, looking forward to it arriving next month. 

Quite fancy a hot pink Silver Sky too....

darthed1981

fretmeister said:

dindude said:

Strat54 said:

I like Mayer he's a clever guy. Great catchy track, it is what it is...a simple pop song. He's enjoying himself, having fun, making music and raking in the cash. At his level you can do exactly what you want. Nice to see him hand Miss Youtube her ample ass too, her version was over thought , overly dramatic and cringeworthy much like most her songs. In comes Mayer with a simple catchy hook laden track and blew her away. That's why she's sat on Youtube making music at home for the over 40's who thinks she's pretty and Mayer is out there filling arenas and shifting product. 

Don’t get me started on Spender, shameless self promotion for per non-talent - I wouldn’t mind if she kept herself to herself and stopped popping up like a bad smell.

Ok boomer.

I actually thought it was quite a clever way of gathering clicks from her demographic (guitarists in their 40s who think she's pretty), ultimately youtube works that way.

Plus they now seem to be in direct touch so maybe Mary will get the interview/shag that she wants from him...?

After all, she will have to accept I'm not available one day.

artiebear

Interesting comments regarding 80's production stuff here. For about the last 6 years, there has been a a big move back to sounds and production last heard in the 80's, both for album and soundtrack work. A whole lot of expensive plug ins are being bought and used to recreate that era, not to mention a desire to utilise processing hardware. One comment referred to "old mans music", I understand that. In the 80's I was in my 20's and was reasonably successful, I'm now in my late 50's and am enjoying some success recreating an 80's vibe for some clients ( I do other things as well ), these clients being many many years my junior. By 80's, it tends to be synths, reverbs, acoustic and string treatments, drums and mix processing. The one thing that hasn't really come back big time is the rack processed guitar that typified the era. ( I had two boogies and about 50 connections pre and post the power stage of the amp, would love to know what they really sounded like 
I do wonder if, bearing in mind my albeit assumed general age demographic of this forum, the very criticism of these tracks is not anachronistic production, but a bit too much time watching boring no mates gits on YouTube etc playing widdely widdely over backing tracks while failing to keep up with the changes in the bit of the entertainment industry called music. I work in the latter and could not give a fuck about the former.
No offence intended to anyone personally, opinions are opinions after all. 

Hattigol

artiebear said:

I do wonder if, bearing in mind my albeit assumed general age demographic of this forum, the very criticism of these tracks is not anachronistic production, but a bit too much time watching boring no mates gits on YouTube etc playing widdely widdely over backing tracks while failing to keep up with the changes in the bit of the entertainment industry called music. 

No it isn't. It's because its a crap song.
But thanks.

ThePrettyDamned

Had a listen and it's a nice homage to a period of music he must really enjoy.

Not for me, but I'm not massively into a lot of 80s music with some exceptions.

The guitar still doesn't look right with a prs headstock, but I appreciate that's my brain being stupid. 

TeleMaster

dindude said:

TeleMaster said:

So we've gone from Mayer bashing to Spender bashing. I'm not much of a fan of Mary Spender but talentless? That's a ridiculous thing to say. She could out play most of the people here. She can obviously play very well in her style, writes original music and performs. She can sing fairly well. 

If you're gonna say that she's talentless, I'd hope you're incredibly talented or... well, you know.  

Yep, I really don’t get it with Mary, soz. Let’s not talk about my talent, I’m not plugging mine, so to suggest you can’t critique something without having at least equal measure is dumb. Mary’s putting herself out there (a lot) so why can’t she be critiqued.

So yes I stand by it, but if you like her, fair game.

No. I'm not a massive fan in the slightest. I also don't think that you need to be on the same level to critique someone. But do you think saying someone is 'talentless' is a critique when it's clearly not true is fair? I think it's just a bit rich for people to call someone 'talentless' when they probably are not on the level of a professional musician. She clearly, objectively has talent. Whether you like her or not is a different matter. That doesn't mean others don't have talent, or don't deserve more, but to call her 'talentless' is just unnecessarily mean and false. 

stickyfiddle

I seriously cant wait for the 80s revival to go away and we can have a mid-90s proper songwriting revival instead. Please?

Dominic

Great Player ,great songwriter
Terrible,awful Song .........he should be ashamed of this Phil Collins 1990 type crap

Danny1969

I don't think he has a lot of new material at the moment. Apparently only 7 songs on the new album are new, the massive streaming hit New Light is on there and 2 others which have been out for a while. Still, any new material is welcome. 

dindude

I’ve got a greater appreciation of 80’s music than I used to have, yes the production can be a bit sickly but some of the production is huge and has an effort often missing these days, it’s the era of spending millions on record creation as that’s where the money was back then.

I have a soft spot for 80’s Clapton (not really into his other stuff), Queen, Bowie etc.

Cookiemonster

artiebear said:

Interesting comments regarding 80's production stuff here. For about the last 6 years, there has been a a big move back to sounds and production last heard in the 80's, both for album and soundtrack work. A whole lot of expensive plug ins are being bought and used to recreate that era, not to mention a desire to utilise processing hardware. One comment referred to "old mans music", I understand that. In the 80's I was in my 20's and was reasonably successful, I'm now in my late 50's and am enjoying some success recreating an 80's vibe for some clients ( I do other things as well ), these clients being many many years my junior. By 80's, it tends to be synths, reverbs, acoustic and string treatments, drums and mix processing. The one thing that hasn't really come back big time is the rack processed guitar that typified the era. ( I had two boogies and about 50 connections pre and post the power stage of the amp, would love to know what they really sounded like 
I do wonder if, bearing in mind my albeit assumed general age demographic of this forum, the very criticism of these tracks is not anachronistic production, but a bit too much time watching boring no mates gits on YouTube etc playing widdely widdely over backing tracks while failing to keep up with the changes in the bit of the entertainment industry called music. I work in the latter and could not give a fuck about the former.
No offence intended to anyone personally, opinions are opinions after all. 

Interesting perspective.

I do not watch hours of widdly guitar backing. 
I do like rock n roll, I didn't like that 80s sound then and I don't now. I do wonder why a younger generation is so interested in the bland commercial sounds of some of the 80s music. Maybe they think it sounds like Bowie ( I think that the 1975 think they do) and in reality it sounds like johnny hates jazz. Who would want to sound like that

Clapton in the 80s or Dylan in the 80s just sound like they are being forced to embrace things they don't like to sell records

Now it's a trend and instead of just younger musicians, people like Mayer,Adams etc are recreating this 80s horrible keys sound. 
Wonder when the slap bass will be back and it all goes Level 42

Can't you have some success as you have said... in creating something new !!! Or giving them some stooges records

stickyfiddle

Cookiemonster said:

artiebear said:

Interesting comments regarding 80's production stuff here. For about the last 6 years, there has been a a big move back to sounds and production last heard in the 80's, both for album and soundtrack work. A whole lot of expensive plug ins are being bought and used to recreate that era, not to mention a desire to utilise processing hardware. One comment referred to "old mans music", I understand that. In the 80's I was in my 20's and was reasonably successful, I'm now in my late 50's and am enjoying some success recreating an 80's vibe for some clients ( I do other things as well ), these clients being many many years my junior. By 80's, it tends to be synths, reverbs, acoustic and string treatments, drums and mix processing. The one thing that hasn't really come back big time is the rack processed guitar that typified the era. ( I had two boogies and about 50 connections pre and post the power stage of the amp, would love to know what they really sounded like 
I do wonder if, bearing in mind my albeit assumed general age demographic of this forum, the very criticism of these tracks is not anachronistic production, but a bit too much time watching boring no mates gits on YouTube etc playing widdely widdely over backing tracks while failing to keep up with the changes in the bit of the entertainment industry called music. I work in the latter and could not give a fuck about the former.
No offence intended to anyone personally, opinions are opinions after all. 

Interesting perspective.

I do not watch hours of widdly guitar backing. 
I do like rock n roll, I didn't like that 80s sound then and I don't now. I do wonder why a younger generation is so interested in the bland commercial sounds of some of the 80s music. Maybe they think it sounds like Bowie ( I think that the 1975 think they do) and in reality it sounds like johnny hates jazz. Who would want to sound like that

Clapton in the 80s or Dylan in the 80s just sound like they are being forced to embrace things they don't like to sell records

Wis. I think it's just that they didn't live through it or grow up just after it, so don't realise how horribly bland it is. 

But these things always come back around 25-30 years later. We're approaching early-90s stylings now with big tshirts and terrible fashion and bright geometric patterns...

darthed1981

This thread has gotten a little mean spirited don't we think?

I'm not a big Mayer fan myself, but the guy can certainly play.  The sort of modern blues stuff he does has never proved very popular in the UK (he is huge in the US, and if you could choose one market...) but actually this new cod-80s stuff he's doing could do very well, the latest 80s revival seems to have brought back the soft-rock ballads, that Miley Cyrus song "Midnight Sky" was huge.

None of us can like everything, but the existence of music I don't really care for has never bothered me, not as an adult.  I just tried listening to some Mayer again and still don't like him much, but who cares, lots more music out there.

Why do so many people have a problem with Mary Spender?  The idea she is talentless is ludicrous, she's a classically trained musician who can play guitar well and sing well and writes decent songs.  She has followed the modern career path through social media with significant success.  I suspect that she can actually count on a high-five figure income in any given year from music (directly or indirectly) and very few of us can do that.  She built that all by herself, that's at LEAST worthy of respect.

Yes, she's also pretty, it doesn't hurt, certainly being attractive to the opposite (or the same) sex has never hurt anyone in the entertainment business.

Like it or not, social media has changed the world.  A lot of people on instagram make a lot more money than Mary does by doing nothing except wearing clothes and make up and posting pictures of themselves doing so.  Any moderately attractive woman can rake it in on OnlyFans, by not wearing clothes.

The Billie Eilish song genuinely is great IMHO, at least Mary's (admittedly slightly cynical) instant cover was half decent, unlike most of the 50,000 others on YouTube.

adampeter

Cookiemonster said:

adampeter said:

I liked everything about that single, the Mike and the mechanics/Toto vibe, the Clapton 80's era guitars, the hooks, and i have always loved a pink guitar.
Then again the 80's was my decade, so the pull is strong

That's everything I don't like. I lived through the 80s and didn't like that stuff then. I have no idea why this sound is suddenly so popular with artists who usually play really interesting music. 

The bland 80s sound and overbearing production was never for me, thankfully there was still some bands that didn't fall into that trap. 

I can understand that always looking back at the sixties and seventies can get a little stale, but surely there must be something new people can create. Instead of recreating a bland sound. A lot of the big acts from the seventies fell into that MTV, CD thing in the 80s and most regretted it.

Is Don Was in that video, thought I spotted him

TBH i didn't like Toto or MATM or its ilk then, (although didn't mind EC in the 80s) but i enjoy it now.
Don't get me wrong, i don't LOVE it, just enjoyed it, but have always LOVED a pink guitar 

Danny1969

Growing up in the eighties I came to hate the drum sounds, and that was before i knew anything about music production. We would listen to radio 1 on the way to work and every record played seemed to have the same crap and fake snare sound. I can understand it though, The Beatles were amazed at the things that could be done with a simple 2 track recorder. It's not surprising people went nuts over 24 track machines, especially when time code allowed 2 machines to sync and now you could have limitless tracks to reverse drum sounds and stack vocals to the hilt. 

There are differences though. The people who tended to be multi instrumentalist and worked alone tended to use a lot of Fairlight / Synclavier, and those records to me sound thin artificial. Other artist like Bryan Adams, Toto, Bowie etc tended to use real instruments and played rather than sequenced. I still think records like Let's Dance, Rosanna, Don't Dream it's over are some of the best sounding records ever. 

TINMAN82

adampeter said:

Cookiemonster said:

adampeter said:

I liked everything about that single, the Mike and the mechanics/Toto vibe, the Clapton 80's era guitars, the hooks, and i have always loved a pink guitar.
Then again the 80's was my decade, so the pull is strong

That's everything I don't like. I lived through the 80s and didn't like that stuff then. I have no idea why this sound is suddenly so popular with artists who usually play really interesting music. 

The bland 80s sound and overbearing production was never for me, thankfully there was still some bands that didn't fall into that trap. 

I can understand that always looking back at the sixties and seventies can get a little stale, but surely there must be something new people can create. Instead of recreating a bland sound. A lot of the big acts from the seventies fell into that MTV, CD thing in the 80s and most regretted it.

Is Don Was in that video, thought I spotted him

TBH i didn't like Toto or MATM or its ilk then, (although didn't mind EC in the 80s) but i enjoy it now.
Don't get me wrong, i don't LOVE it, just enjoyed it, but have always LOVED a pink guitar 

Exactly, it’s a pop song released for people’s enjoyment. He’s clearly not intended to rival Blood on the Tracks in this current phase.

Perhaps some people need to lighten up a bit. And yes, the mean spirited anti- Spender chat is totally unnecessary (and green eyed).

monquixote

I think there is a tendency for people to incorporate the sounds that were around when they were born into music as a retro influence.

Hence you get britpop with artists mostly born around 1970 taking references from the late 60's and bands now adding a lot of 90's sounds.

In this case JM is a little bit too old for 80's to be retro to him so it comes through more as a tribute / pastiche than a modern artist incorporating a retro influence.

I heard a rule of thumb that if you lived it you should avoid it when it's retro.