In my opinion. this is Jack Johnson's best album. He also released another album "Sleep through the Static" last year. I really love it, but just not as much as this album.
Music style
The thing that brought me to Jack Johnson's music is his really simple and unique acoustic guitar style. For most of his songs, he uses his trademark strumming style with drum, bass and piano. They sound so smooth together. In this album, that is strongly reflected in many songs like Better Together, Sitting Waiting Wishing, Banana Pancakes and many more songs. I love every single songs in this album!
He also uses some picking styles in Constellations, If I could, No other way and Belle. The short song, Belle, only about 1:45 is written in 4 languages (Italian, Spanish, French and English) is a funny song for his wife, who speaks French as her second language. The first 2 lines in the lyrics all mean "hey beautiful, what's up" in Italian and Spanish. The third line means "but beautiful, I don't know how to speak French" and then "so you'll have to speak to me some other ways" in English. I played this song to my friends and after I explained the lyrics to them, they fell in love right away with it. The Bossa Nova style in this song just adds another perspective to the album. It shows his creativity and the ability to implement other styles into his style, so they sound "great and wierd" and you'll know right away that is Jack Johnson.
He always appears on the media with his Cole Clark acoustic guitar. I love the sound so much that I bought the exactly same one (Fat Lady 1) and the guitar is great (going to do a review about it soon).
Music tracks
As said before, I love every song in this album. You might find that some of them are quite simillar ar first because they are all played in Jack Johnson's style, but after listening to his lyrics, close your eyes and think with the music, there is really something new in each of his song. He said on a radio interview that all the songs in this album is about his personal life and the album is more like a autobiography to him.
Besides the "hit" songs like Better together, Banana Pancake, Sitting Waiting Wishing, I personally love the song Do you remember. This song is a story telling song about him and his girlfriend, who is now his wife, during his time in colledge, of how they grow up together and how their love remains after "almost 10 years". It just reminds me of my own time in high school, when I had a girlfriend but we broke up adter that. Everytime listening to this song, the memories just come back, and I really wish I could turn back time and live those lovely days again.
Overall
With his great music style of the Ocean, of Hawaii, where he was born and grown up, Jack Johnson can really make you feel like you are living in his songs. You'll have the sweetest dreams sleeping with his music and it's a great way to wake up, with your mind free-flowing in his melody.
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awesome review... I was first introduced to this artist when watching the MacWorld keynotes..(dont remember which one..) a great musician
Bojack 09.06.2009 08:25
Informative and well written, I'm definately going to have a listen to Do you remember. I like the way you talk about the music, seems like you're into it.
May 30th, 2009
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