Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 06/02/06
Label: Atlantic

The UK charts' obsession with all things American may suggest otherwise, but there are some US musical offerings which we Brits just can't seem to swallow. Led by the likes of The Dave Matthews Band, Matchbox 20 and Hootie And The Blowfish, there's a whole genre of feelgood, FM ready rock, known collectively as Adult Contemporary Music, which we've consistently failed to take to our hearts. Hootie & co might be filling arenas at home, but here they'd struggle to get picked out of a police line-up. Jason Mraz is the latest addition to their ranks.

Mraz sold in excess of a million copies of his 2003 debut album, "Waiting For My Rocket To Come". Just not this side of the Atlantic. And chances are, his follow-up won't fair much better on these shores. Which for once is a shame, because unlike the majority of those whose humdrum songs from the middle of the freeway rarely make it past customs, Mraz and his second album have much to recommend them.

Having graduated from singing in San Diego coffee houses to filling theatres, he's here bidding to make the next leap to a permanent place on the American coffee table. And who better to help him on his way than producer Steve Lillywhite, who having marshalled U2 and The Rolling Stones knows better than most how to muster a stadium sheen. Together, they spent a whole year liberally applying the stuff to "Mr. A-Z", making the soft-centred melodies and good natured strumming deceptively hard to resist.

On the whole it's pretty standard issue MOR stuff. "Did You Get My Message?" is all super crisp drums and jaunty acoustic guitars playing a stop / start reggae-lite funk; "Mr. Curiosity" is a wistful piano ballad of chick-flick dejection and Bella Luna shimmies to the obligatory Latino sunset sway. Yet there's a nod and a wink to Mraz, which delivers the happy-go-lucky clichés with a certain disarming charm. Elsewhere though Mraz's ear for a king-sized pop hook have him punching way above his weight. Cheeky foot-tapper "Wordplay" and sunny anthem "Geek In The Pink" ride choruses so big that, though hideously uncool, they prompt an involuntary and totally unexpected sense of singalong euphoria.

As the nation which gave the world James Blunt, our ability to turn our noses up at cosy acoustic pop has been seriously undermined. With more than his share of lovable nonsense to revel in, we could do worse than give Mraz a fair crack.

    by Dan Gennoe