Room for Squares — John Mayer
So, the other night I saw this video pop up on my YouTube recommended video section of John Mayer performing “Gravity” live, and it was absolutely incredible, so I wanted to originally review the album that song was released on. Unfortunately, I don’t have that CD in my collection right now, but I was pleased to see that I had his first couple albums. Ultimately, I decided that this would be a fun chance to explore his first album, “Room for Squares” released June 5, 2001.
The front cover of this album is this interesting square pattern transparent layer over a photo of John and his guitar. It’s a pretty simple cover for what the album is and when it was released. Feels like an early 2000s Pop/Rock type album cover. Once you dig into the rest of the packaging, you see the square pattern is actually the Periodic Table of Elements circa 2001. It’s cool to see the gaps in the table of the element that had not yet been discovered. Not really sure how the Periodic Table relates to this album or it’s context, but it’s a coo lil design element I guess haha.
First track on this album is “No Such Thing”. A banger of a leading song to your first album. A track of just straight “I’m gonna live this life to the fullest” energy. Standing out against the cultural norms n such. Throw this in a Rom-Com and you have yourself some iconic cinema haha. This is one of those songs that you don’t realize you know until you hear it again.
Closing out this album we have Track 14, “St. Patrick’s Day”. A song about coming back around it seems. Staying together for the winter, holding out until spring. Idk if it’s toxic or optimistic, but the song seems to make it seem like through these winter months, they are spending more time together. Learning about each other and maybe moving past whatever issues may have been forming in the summer or fall.
On a side note, I think it’s fun that they chose to skip track 13. Seemingly for superstitious reasons, they didn’t want to have the album end with “13”, so they skipped it and labeled “St. Patrick’s Day” as track #14. Little things like that shows how much thought was put into the formation of the album. Little human tweaks to make something feel alive.
This was a cool look at an artist who’ve I’ve grown to know as this sorta Pop/Rock guy turned Blues man. Seeing the album that jumped it all off is always a super fun look at what the future can hold. I would be curious to know if John has released a full Blues/Soul album yet. I’d imagine that his voice mixed with his incredible guitar playing would make for an incredible listening experience.
After all was said and done, this album got a final score of: 7.1
Favorite Song: “Your Body Is a Wonderland”
Skips: “Great Indoors”
Stand Out Tracks: “No Such Thing”, “My Stupid Mouth”, “City Love”
