Audio By Carbonatix
There’s so much wrong with pop-soul slicksters Maroon 5’s Songs About Jane–which, after an inconspicuous release in June 2002, has been picking up steam recently among fans of John Mayer and Michelle Branch, both of whom have soundbitten the L.A. band–that it actually ends up kind of right. For starters, singer-guitarist Adam Levine sings in a pinched, blue-eyed tenor that shouldn’t indicate much more than fussy Hollywood petulance; yet on “This Love” and “She Will Be Loved” he works the instrument to dig into the itchy white-boy anxiety that surprisingly undergirds Jane‘s tunes. Ditto the rest of the band, who overwork their rehearsal-room chops–lots of gratuitous wah-wah, tasteful cymbal splashes and oatmeal keyboards–but end up saying something semi-meaningful about the dubious efficacy of rehearsal-room chops.
New York-based opener Gavin DeGraw’s debut, Chariot, is probably the dullest thing I’ve heard this month: pinched, overworked blue-eyed soul that reaches for Jeff Buckley’s grace but ends up stuck inside a Hallmark card addressed to Adam Duritz. Sources I vaguely trust report that there’s more to DeGraw’s live show than there is to his album–not a real feat, though I admit that descriptions of his “Let’s Get It On” have piqued my interest–so give the guy a chance before filing him next to well-meaning dopes like Jason Mraz (only without any tunes). Or don’t. See if I care.
