Is John Mayer’s new album, Paradise Valley, blazing, or merely a Wildfire?

Imagine refreshing wind blasting your hair across your face just grazing your eyes. Warm sunlight peaks through the clouds above and the tall grasses surrounding your legs and feet slap into your jeans.  What you hear is nothing but your own breathing and sounds of the pure nature on all sides of you.

This serene place that you find yourself in right now, is the same one that musician John Mayer did recently.  After a close to six-month stay in Wyoming, Mayer had a unique, yet inspirational sabbatical.  The primary focus of Mayer’s venture was to recuperate and recover after having surgery on a nodule that was found near Mayer’s vocal chords.  However, the trip also served as a way to escape the media, whom had made his views on previous love interests, Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson, a public matter.

Yet despite the harsh judgments Mayer received from the media, he let it go and produced two quality albums based off of his time spent in the upper mid-west.  Born and Raised, was released in 2012, and had more of a folksy or even country sound to its songs compared to Mayer’s albums Room for Squares and Heavier things, both that Mayer can thank for his multi-platinum stance in the music industry.

Paradise Valley, Mayer’s album following Born and Raised, was released on Tuesday, August 20^th.  The album blends twang with jazz.  But, guitar, especially electric, is entwined into almost all of the songs on the album.  Unlike Born and Raised,  Valley takes on more of an acoustical sound backing its songs rather than harmonica.  On the album are also songs that are accompanied by some of today’s well-known pop and rap artists.  Frank Ocean and Mayer’s current girlfriend, Katy Perry, both share tracks with Mayer that are completely different from their own personal style’s.  “Wildfire”, the song that Mayer sings with Ocean is a slower song compared to Ocean’s usual more upbeat songs and pop sounding songs.  It also strays away from the typical topics of Ocean’s songs, such as women or drugs, and instead focuses nature.  The track that Mayer sings with Perry is also quite different from her typical upbeat songs and is instead a slower love ballad, which the two successfully sing together.  I would even say the duet is better than Mayer’s other well-known duet that he sung with his previous girlfriend, Taylor Swift.  Although Swift and Mayer sung the duet “Half of My heart” from Mayer’s album Battle Studies back in 2009 well, “Who You Love” with Perry on Paradise Valley is clearly the winner between Mayer’s popular duets.

As this is Mayer’s sixth album to be released during his musical career, it’s already climbing up the charts, ranking 13^th in the iTunes top 100 albums list.  With the songs “Wildfire” and also “Paperdoll” being the first two singles released on the album, one, if not both of the songs released as singles will be radio hits at some point in the next few months.

While many may not appreciate the sound and style that Mayer has taken on in the last two years, it’s something different and pleasing to the ears.  Another distinct quality to Paradise Valley is that the songs are all relatable to life.  The songs discuss topics such as a high school romance in “Dear Marie,” or in the song “I Will Be Found,” Mayer sings about the idea of being lost and forgotten, but that you will be found when the time is right; a feeling almost everyone will experience sometime in life.  Paradise Valley is burning up the music scene and is an album worth listening to.

8/10