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February 2, 2004
Your Body Is A Wonderland
… But John, your face is a bloody disgrace!
Last night I stumbled across John Mayer performing live on cable TV channel musicMAX’s ‘MAX Sessions’.
Now, first things first, I should explain the past that Mr Mayer and I have. John Mayer is one of my “musical flings”. I had a brief and passionate obsession with his album which lasted a good six weeks, before I suddenly couldn’t stand it and removed the CD from my stereo and placed it back on the shelf, where it’s remained ever since.
It wasn’t particularly anything that John did that caused this - I guess my obsessions just tend to burn out. His voice, which I originally found soft and emotive, began to irritate the fuck out of me - I wanted to scream “Damn it John, why do you sound like that! There is no need to breathe every word out like some kind of chronic asthmatic!”. His music, which I had loved and enjoyed, suddenly sounded more and more middle-of-the-road. Why hadn’t I noticed this originally? Finally, he got it on with Jennifer Love-Hewitt, something that troubled me deeply.
He’s not the first musical fling I’ve had. My first was Alanis Morrissette. I had no interest in Alanis during her initial stage of success. But in 1996, while in London spending Christmas with my sister, I discovered her album in my sister’s collection and became obsessed. Jagged Little Pill was all I listened to, day in and day out. I love every whimper, every whine. After six weeks I came back to Australia believing myself to be converted for life when suddenly….. it was gone. That passion had dissolved and to this day, I still twitch a little uncomfortably when forced to listen any songs on that damn album. Again, not her fault, I’m just fickle I guess.
But I digress (rather a lot). So there I am, flicking through the channels as I am wont to do, when I stumbled across John performing live. I’d never seen him sing live, so I stayed to see what it was like.
The answer? Painful. Not just for us, either! John’s expression while singing could be compared to that of someone getting a rectal exam… with a chainsaw. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, some of the worst face pulling in the history of rock. And was it annoying? Was it ever! It did something I never thought possible - it beat David Gray’s Head Wobble as the Official Most Annoying Singing Trait Ever. Dave’s been relegated to second place, while Craig Nicholls from The Vines remains steady at Number 3 with that stupid fucking eye thing he does while singing.
But here I am, just whining about the grimaces! There’s more! For some unknown reason, John also likes to randomly jam his tongue out of his mouth while in the middle of singing a verse. Seriously. He looked absolutely spazz-fucking-tastic. I’ve searched far and wide on the Internet to find some photos of this facial phenomenon, but regret to inform you that the ones I have found don’t do justice to his deformity.
On the upside, through out the puzzlement and confusion I felt while watching John’s face twitch and contort beyond recognition, I listen to his songs and was reminded as to why I like them. I still want to buy him an asthma inhaler, but I do still have some remaining affection for a few of his songs. I guess I’m a sucker for AOR. Whaddyagonnado?
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