Quick Hits, Vol. 128 (John Mayer, Ed Sheeran, Temples, The Candles)

John Mayer - The Search for Everything - Wave Two.  Mayer appears to be releasing his new album in four song tranches.  I've always liked Mayer, likely more than I should, because some of his music is straight up cheeseball.  BUT, I can't help but acknowledge that he is a guitar master and can hone some pop ideas right into the sharpest of hooks. The stand out on this one is the third track, "Helpless," which sounds to me like Clapton in his "Pretendin'" form from the late 80's.  He mixes a good pop groove with some guitar action that is just too good.  But the top track from the EP is "Still Feel Like Your Man," the opening track lamenting love lost in a comfy little soft-rock Al Green groove.  5.4 million streams.

OK, I just laughed out loud at those dancing pandas.  Got that little BB King reference in there everyone knows because of the Primitive Radio Gods.  This is a good EP.  Looking forward to hearing more.

Ed Sheeran - <symbol for division>.  You know what is weird?  The keyboard doesn't have the division symbol on it.  We have stupid crap like { or ~ or | available for regular use, but one of the four major elementary school math symbols gets nothing.  In fact, if you keep your number lock on, you have two keys that do asterisks or plus symbols.  This is tragic. But I was able to find it in the blogger emoji list - ➗ - so there you have it.  3 minutes of my life gone because Terry Keyboard (the originator of the keyboard) hated division in the 3rd grade.  Prick.
I've bagged on Ed Sheeran before, but I've actually come around on the guy since then. First, it was his Grammy performance where he created the different aspects of "Shape of You" into a cool looping solo band.  I thought that was pretty boss.  And then I read a recent profile in Rolling Stone that made the guy seem less like a complete cheeseball and more like a real person who doesn't know what he's doing but is enjoying the (drunken) ride.  My thought about him the other day while listening along to this album is that Sheeran is like a modern day James Taylor.  Some of his stuff can get pretty cheesy and lame, but if you just go with it, you'll actually enjoy it and find yourself singing along to sweet lyrics about love and true friends and love for mom who is your true friend.

Speaking of John Mayer, "How Would You Feel (Paean)" has some guitar licks where if that isn't John Mayer on guitar then he should sue someone for stealing his signature licks.  (and it is, just found that on Twitter).  This album also does some weird travelling in it too, with "Galway Girl" going for Irish jigs, "Barcelona" going for a sunbathed dance party, and "Bibia Be Ye Ye" hopping across the Strait of Gibraltar to borrow some African riddims to back up a tune about getting shitcanned and passing out.  I'll take "Barcelona" as a good example here - if you try to really pick this thing apart, you're going to roll your eyes at pretending to dance in the street like you're in Barcelona and the little flute playing and Sheeran singing some random Spanish words.  But if you just let all of that go and have a good time, you're going to actually enjoy the song and have a good time.  And "Bibia Be Ye Ye" is also highly fun, with the sound of Paul Simon and Vampire Weekend biting the African feel and then handing it down to Sheeran for a tune that involves him losing his shoes during a drunken evening.  Two of the tracks on here have massive hit status by now - "Shape of You" has 686 million streams and "Castle on the Hill" has 300 million streams. Here is the latter.

Well, fucking hell, man.  That video just gave me full arm goosebumps and then I got pricks of tears in my eyes.  I want to go back too, Ed!  Let's go back to being stupid kids again! So, from that tune, you get the idea of what is going on here - some huge, arena-sized pop rock jams of earnest lyrics and love and sadness and happiness all rolled into one messy ball. Despite myself, I like this album a bunch.

Temples - Volcano.  Their last album (Sun Structures) touched a nerve for me back in 2014, and I listened to it a bunch.  I don't know if I had ever really paid much attention to the psych rock world before then, but since then I have loved things like Tame Impala and King Gizzard, so now I'm a convert.  This album is all excellent stuff, echo-ey and fuzzy but bright and clean and groovy.  Echoes of the Beatles on tracks like "In My Pocket," or Tame Impala/Spoon groove rock on the hit song "Certainty."  That track has 2.1 million streams and should have 10 times that many.

That video is tripping balls.  But if it doesn't make you want to kick back your desk chair and dance a little bit, then I don't know what to tell you.  You are a sad and lonely human being. That track is definitely the most beat-forward of the tracks, but the whole album is just plain good.  I hope they'll come to ACL and show me the way live.

Good Lord.  I just looked at my New Stuff playlist.  I have 47 hours and 54 minutes of tunes to listen to.  Criminy.  That is depressing.  I'm just going to listen to Temples all day.

The Candles - Matter + Spirit.  I have no recollection of how I came across this album, but its a pretty solid derivative of the country-steeped version of the Grateful Dead.  The Dead tune that is particularly obvious to me is "Lost My Driving Wheel," which really sounds like a long lost tune being covered by a passable cover band.  But most of these songs just have a few thousand listens, except for one with Norah Jones that has shot up to 757k.  Here is that one, called "Move Along."

One of those sun dappled, laconic love songs that seep out of southern California like a quiet spring.  Their second most popular track is the album opener, with 48k, but after that none of the tunes break 10k, making me think this is an album that people go try out because of the Norah Jones collab, and then they toss back to the sea.  I like the tunes well enough, but I too will let it go.