There are exactly two times on “Sob Rock” where the singer lets you see any sense of mirth behind the straight-faced, hangdog mask. Humor is music has not really been Mayer’s thing, though - aside from non-LP/Internet goofs like last year’s David Geffen-inspired podcast masterpiece “Drone Shot of My Yacht,” which, if there were a just God, would at least be a bonus track on this album. (It might count as a slightly bitter joke for aging musicians who think the turn from sales streaming has killed their livelihoods, though it’s not clear Mayer means this visual gag as a complaint.) And if there were a joke-of-the-year award, it might have to go to the alternate album cover that accompanies the streaming version of “Sob Rock,” taking the already ’80s-steeped iconography of the jacket art and slapping an ’80s “The Nice Price” sticker on it… the gag being, in case it isn’t obvious, that there’s no discounted “nice price” quite like completely free. Anyone who is nerd enough to take an interest in period typography, for starters, probably has a newfound love for Mayer thanks to the different elegant but long-gone fonts that have been revived just for the ephemera surrounding this release. So it was nice to see it find some other fruition in the cover imagery and videos and mock-advertisements for the new album. Mayer has long been one of the most naturally funny guys in rock, but he’s saved it all up for the interviews (or maybe the upcoming talk show, an obvious destiny perhaps about to be fulfilled). All of which is to say: The damn thing kind of works. 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.
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And his performance style is just affectless enough that he’s always tended to be more of a heart-tugger than tearjerker. So, is it possible to wink and cry at the same time? hat question may not get definitively settled by “Sob Rock,” because Mayer has done such a good job of following through on his ’80s-pastiche conceit that it’s not always easy to forget that you’re listening to a sort of semi-comedic art-piece (or a “shit-take,” as Mayer referred to it with Zane Lowe this week) long enough to viscerally connect with the real heartbreak he insists lies beneath the expert conceptual troll. That campaign is really inextricable from the new record itself, a dare that invites you to enter the album already having laughed till you’ve cried, then stick around for a less ironic dab at the eyes. John Mayer’s new album seems like the material of which Grammy nominations are made - but the question is, should it be up in a pop or comedy category? Not that “Sob Rock” is outrightly comic at its earnest songwriting core, but everything else about it provides at least a gentle nudge to the ribs, starting with the very overt slap to the knee that is the cover art and the funniest marketing campaign in recent music history.