My Amazon Reviews: Jason Mraz "Yes!"

Maybe.
3 Out Of 5 Stars

Jason Mraz has always seemed like a puppy, always buoyant and ever so eager to please, His albums were catchy and fun, light pop with folk elements. Not so with "Yes!" Moving from slow song to slow song, Mraz has evolved from a fun and loveable lightweight to straight up middle of the road schmaltz. I guess you can call this an attempt at maturity, but with the exception of "Shine," things kind of blend into each other.

He's now working with an all-female, rock-folk band called Raining Jane, but you'd never know it from the general facelessness of the proceedings. They do add some pretty harmonies (like the lush opener "Rise - Love Someone") and some interesting instrumental touches (the sitar on "Shine") and the occasional bouncy bit (the drum beat of "Everywhere"). Yet the album personifies the definition of 'easy listening,' as Mraz doesn't seem to want to challenge his persona as a singer songwriter. It's not that an artist can't swing into a folk style and make it work, John Mayer proved that with his "Born and Raised." However, Mraz is taking it a little too laid back to make things happen. "Yes!" is still eager to please, but the man who laments the lack of "Quiet" in the modern world is taking that a tad too literally here.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Passenger "All The Little Lights"

Who needs love when you've got silicon and strap ons?
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Passnger (aka Mike Rosenberg) are the latest entry it to the singer songwriter as unabashed folkie that has given us some stellar material of late, and "All The Little Lights" is his breakthrough fifth album. Rosenberg is a charming, heartfelt vocalist, albeit one with a wavery voice that all but labels itself as 'earnest.' His specialties are songs about fragile relationships, and the album is loaded with heartbreaks. The main single, "Let Her Go" hit the collective consciousness via the Budweiser commercial where the puppy and the Clydesdale are best friends, and it's kind of hard to miss out on a song as catchy as that one with a commercial as emotionally potent. It's what lead me to "All The Little Lights" to start with,

The remainder is almost as rewarding. While the songs are primarily about relationships and their trials, Rosenberg has a wicked sense of humor, as the lyrical line I pulled from the song "Staring At The Stars" to become the title of this review points out. "The Wrong Direction" is also a lighthearted romp with a nice horn solo (and reminded me a lot of Ed Sheeran). You also get a broader look at his humorous side in the bonus live track, "I Hate," which couples a sing along chorus with a list of things that Rosenberg, well, hates. These include porta-potties, teen-mags and The X Factor while the crowd sha-la-la's along.

"All The Little Lights" walks the balance well. A bit more solid than Sheeran's debut and less bombastic than the likes of Mumford and Sons, Passenger is equal parts delicate and powerful, and "Let her Go" is just a cherry on the top.

     

My Amazon Reviews: A Fine Frenzy "Bomb In A Birdcage"

Short Fuse
3 Out Of 5 Stars

I picked up on A Fine Frenzy after seeing her open a Rufus Wainwright concert a few years back. "Bomb In a Birdcage" is their (or her, since the band is basically a backdrop for Alison Sudol's piano musings) second album, and a bit of a shock after seeing her perform warm, meandering piano pop onstage. "Bomb In A Birdcage" is a band album, with electronic drumming, gleeful Regina Spektor pop, and a few of those moments that won me over in concert.

Sudol likes to mix her happiest music to her saddest moments, which make a song like "Happier" such an exquisite break-up song. She also keeps some of her folksier elements in place for "What I Wouldn't Do" and "Bird of Summer." Some of these songs not just reflect Spektor, but also make one wonder if there were a bunch of Tori Amos CD's on her bedstand. Sudol has that knack for fairy tale poetry in her music, as found in the tale of the lonely lighthouse keeper residing in "The Beacon," which also happens to be "Bomb In A Birdcage's" most beautiful songs. What's lacking here are memorable songs, even at most of them being in the pop range of three and a half minutes, little sticks. The only song with a real kick to it is "Electric Twist," which has a slippery bass line and a vocal that sounds less affected than most of the bulk of "Bomb In A Birdcage."

If you count the couple of songs I've mentioned and the fact that, when she's not trying too hard, Sudol has an expressive voice, "Bomb In a Birdcage" is an OK album. But I can't get past the fact that the sweetness of the voice I heard in concert is trying to rock ("We Stood Up") or just sounds like she's over-singing the material. What I saw and heard A Fine Frenzy do on stage suggests better is possible.

     

My Amazon Reviews: America "The Definitive Pop Collection"

The Original Trio and The Original Songs
4 Out Of 5 Stars

The original America trio of Vocalists/guitarists Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peek, and Gerry Beckley made faux CSN type of California pop so deftly that their initial single, "Horse With No Name," folled many into believing it was the other famed trio. Eventually the word got out and America soon began a string of seventies hits that made their first best of, "History," one of Warner Brothers' biggest selling catalog albums of the time. There have been many anthologies of America issues over the years, but this "Definitive Pop Collection" stands as one of the best.

Focusing solely on their WB tenure, "Definitive Pop" is a pretty exhaustive collection. Culling 30 songs from seven albums, the only things missing are "The Border" and "You Can Do Magic," but they were recorded for Capitol records and must not have been available to be licensed for this 2 disc set. (You can get them on "America - The Complete Greatest Hits.") But for the money, this comes up just short of the even more exhaustive Rhino box set Highway: 30 Years of America."

As to the music itself, the band kept it light but pure. The mainstay was well harmonized folkish pop, augmented with the occasional banjo ("Don't Cross The River"), electric guitar (the mysterious "Sandman") synthesizers ("Only In Your Heart"), and via producer George Martin on their later albums, some exquisite Beatlesy production (you try to listen to "Lonely People" without thinking of "Eleanor Rigby"). The three men also were a formidable songwriting trio, with each man capable of writing their own hits. In fact, it is only the treacle of "Muskrat Love" that came from an outside source on this set.

That's not to say there aren't some clinkers (I could have done without "Watership Down," for example), but they are far outweighed by such classic delights as "Sister Golden Hair," "Tin Man" or "Woman Tonight." Janet Jackson was so fond of "Ventura Highway" that she sampled it for her hit single "Someone To Call My Lover." Buoyed by many enjoyable album cuts, a decent band history/essay, and some missed singles like "Everyone I Meet Is From California" or "Amber Cascades," this is easily all the America you could ask for a minor price. The only thing better would be the "Complete" set, but it's also the America that went on without the late Dan Peek. This is the original trio in all its soft pop glory.

     

My Amazon Reviews: John Mayer "Paradise Valley"

Deep Within The Valley
3 Out Of 5 Stars

I am among those who believe that "Born and Raised" was one of John Mayer's greatest achievements. Introspective lyrics, thoughtful singing, nicely played singer songwriter music. But I now guess that those introspection motivations have been purged from his system, as "Paradise Valley" plays the same sort of lite-folk rock, but without the emotional substance. Sure, he still plays guitar like the whizz-kid he was when his first album dropped 10 years ago (!), and he shoulders the mantle of early eighties Eric Clapton quite well. However, Clapton's albums in the early eighties were light-weight. So is "Paradise Valley."

It does indicate that the folk-pop of "Born and Raised" was no fluke, and many of the songs here sound delightful on first passing. "Wildfire" really does that "Slowhand" thing better than about anyone short of Eric himself, or even how it neatly references the style of Jerry Garcia, and it's hard to go wrong when you pick a song from the late JJ Cale as your cover-version ("Call Me The Breeze," ironically first popularized by Lynyrd Skynyrd). He goes for some of that introspection on "Dear Marie," but the lyric is more like a self-directed pity party. Same goes for "Paper Doll," his response to Taylor Swift's "Dear John." Although I love the line about "22 girls in one." It's all cushioned in the 70's style that defined the likes of Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor as kingpins of mellow country rock, right down the pedal steel in the clever "You're No-one Till Someone Lets You Down."

There are still a couple of unpredictable moments here that, oddly enough, come from the invited guests. Hip-hop artist Frank Ocean does a brief reprise of "Wildfire" that recasts the album's opening gambit as a soulful interlude. The other of "Paradise Valley's" hidden surprises comes courtesy of Katy Perry, who drops the over the top pop chanteuse act long enough to deliver a nuanced and effective duet on "Who You Love." Given Perry's flair for confectionery pop without a drop of subtlety, coming off as a genuine romantic singer will shock both her critics and those who may question Mayer's instincts.

That's not enough to save "Paradise Valley" from being something of a letdown. I doubt if Mayer has run out of things to try, as "Paradise Valley" is as different as "Continuum" was to "Heavier Things" or for that matter, the blues/pop balance of "Battle Studies." It's more of a refinement of "Born and Raised" instead of a growth from it, so "Paradise Valley" sounds just fine without exceeding Mayer's previous or better albums.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Iain Matthews "Pure and Crooked"

In a voice both pure and crooked
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Ian Matthews got a surge of creativity after the success of his Jules Shear tribute album Walking a Changing Line. Shortly after, this album of mostly new folkish material was released, and it is, in my estimation, one of his best solo albums. "Pure and Crooked" (which happens to be a line from one of Shears' songs on the prior album) is a richer sounding set that WaCL, in as much as the instrumentation no longer favors the keyboards that dominated. "Dominoes" kicks the CD off with a poppy number, something also missing beforehand.

He also sounds deeply entwined to the material, be it the nostalgic mourning of "Busby's Babes," the snarling lyric of "New Shirt" or even a terrific cover of Peter Gabriel's "Mercy Street." I even thought he outdid Gabriel's original. Given that Matthews was usually heavy on outside songwriting in the past, it makes the eight self-penned numbers here all the more exciting. This is great stuff, lost when the Gold Castle label went out of business. While Amazon only offers downloads at this page, used CD copies are going cheap. I can recommend putting "Pure and Crooked" in your library.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Loggins and Messina "The Best of Loggins and Messina: Sittin' In Again"

Good compilation but missing essentials.
3 Out Of 5 Stars

"The Best of Loggins and Messina: Sittin' In Again" was put together as something of a concert souvenir for the duo's 2005 reunion tour, but someone was asleep at the wheel. Two songs that should have been here and were substantial hits are missing; "My Music" (#16, 1973 ), "Thinking of You" (#18, 1973). There's also a serious over-dependence on the pair's first two albums, with six of the nine songs on their 1972 debut, "Sittin' In" here, and six of the 11 cuts from "Loggins and Messina." It completely ignores "Native Sons" or the covers album, "So Fine."

What you do get here is Loggins and Messina's finely crafted mix of soft rock and folksy pop. The big hits are represented, like "Your Mama Don't Dance" and songs that eventually became standards, like "House at Pooh Corner" and "Love Song" and "Danny's Song," ultimately big hits for Anne Murray. Several of the others were staples on seventies album rock stations, like "Angry Eyes" and "Vahevala." Given that the duo had basically a four year lifespan, the good stuff gives them a pretty high batting average.

What helped Loggins and Messina stand out over the many soft rockers of the period was that each man brought in individual strengths. Kenny Loggins already had a minor track record as a singer/songwriter ("Sittin' In" was originally set to be a Loggins solo album), while the writing, guitar and production skills came via Jim Messina's time with Poco. They had a vocal blend that only Seals and Crofts could rival during the 70's. "Sittin' In Again" has more songs and better song quality than 1976's "Best of Friends," but "Best of Friends," despite having a mere 10 songs, is a better representation of how the group was perceived in their time. You can pick between the two, or split the difference via downloads.