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Jul 16, 2021His performance style is just affectless enough that he’s always tended to be more of a heart-tugger than tearjerker. And yet there’s a real pathos at the bottom of these era-specific arrangements that lends itself to the idea that a lonely boy might seek solace from the troubles of today in the musical comfort food of the yacht-rock era. All of which is to say: The damn thing kind of works.
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Jul 16, 2021Mayer’s songs about bruised male egos, damaged hearts and hard-earned life lessons conjure up slow motion sequences from a long-lost John Hughes movie. It really is Some Kind of Wonderful.
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Jul 15, 2021It is by all means a stimulating body of work with ample substance, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Less focused on his innate individuality, it’s a John Mayer passion project that toasts to the good old days, when musicians were more inclined to follow instincts and feelings than clicks and likes.
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Jul 15, 2021From its picture-perfect album cover on down, though, “Sob Rock” — Mayer’s eighth studio LP and his follow-up to 2017’s “The Search for Everything” — is so crisply rendered that it achieves an almost art-project-like quality that transcends those emotional and commercial circumstances.
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Jul 27, 2021Sob Rock is a pleasant album whose thematic '80s affections add some stylistic flair to Mayer's laid-back songs.
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Jul 15, 2021Uniting these different moods, and the different styles in which Mayer dabbles, is the effortless warmth in his voice, which never puts too much weight behind his heartbreak or his happiness. He sings like a man who knows his place in the world.
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Jul 16, 2021The truth is he could have amped it up in both departments—more hunger to prove himself beyond his influences, more fearlessness to work outside his comfort zone. Even if this is one of his stronger albums, the whole thing feels self-consciously minor.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 31 out of 40
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Mixed: 5 out of 40
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Negative: 4 out of 40
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Jul 16, 2021
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Jul 16, 2021Amazing! 40 minutes long but it is not enough. I could hear it over and over again.
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Jul 16, 2021