Sleep Through the Static by Jack Johnson

Jack Johnson is like a nice, big bowl of macaroni and cheese. I’d love to sit down and dig into some for lunch, but you wouldn’t catch me dead serving it to my porn star friends for dinner, or ordering it in public. Jack is…well, he’s nice. And I mean that, I really do. Plus, he’s a hot, eco-friendly, Hawaiian surfer dude, which is always an added bonus when you’re trying to sell CDs and concert tickets. I’d do a feature with him, if you catch my drift. Still, he has always left me a little dissatisfied, and that’s just something you never want to hear from a porn star like me.

Johnson is following firmly in the footsteps of Nick Drake and Elliot Smith, two handsome and soulful guitar playing boys who had the unfortunate tendency of being rather suicidal, a trait which informed their music with a great intensity but also led to their very early demise. I’m not suggesting that all great guitar boys should be depressed, but Johnson, who survived a terrifying surfing accident at the age of 17 and lived to tell the tale, married his college sweetheart, and generally seems to have a sunny disposition, could do with a little more of the Dark Side in his work.

I get the sense that Jack just isn’t digging deep enough, and after listening to Sleep Through The Static I feel a little…yawn. To be fair, the album delivers a catchy, satisfying sound with cleanly played guitar riffs. He’s mixed it up a bit on this album by adding keyboardist Zach Riff to the band, and the tracks which feature Riff (Riff’s riffs? I crack me up) lend a depth and richness to the band.

Maybe it’s just that I’m going through a messy breakup, but cute love songs kind of make me want to puke right now. Be that as it may, I think I can still objectively and critically say that Jack Johnson’s love songs are both sweet and rather forgettable, and that the best songs on the album are not about his love for his wife Kim (Angel, Same Girl), but his personal struggles (Enemy), fatherhood (Go On, Adrift), and concern for the world at large (Sleep Through The Static).

Take the Sleep Through The Static, an anti-war tune with witty, free association lyrics:

Well mighty mighty appetite
we just eat ‘em up and keep on driving
Freedom can be freezing take a picture from the pretty side
Mind your manners wave your banners
What a wonderful world that this angle can see

Or, a more introspective track such as Enemy, which relates a dream:

After we spoke I had a dream that I broke
The teeth from a mouth of a snake
Then I choked on the teeth they were mine all along
I picked up the pieces when I woke up
I put them in a boat made of things that I don’t want to see
I blew on the sail watched it drift out to sea

Haven’t we all had that broken teeth dream? Juxtapose those with the groaners from Angel (“she gives me presents with her presence alone”) or Monsoon (“monsoon-er or later”) and you’ll see what I mean. Jack would benefit from a lot more free association and a lot less trying hard to be witty, because when he does that it falls flat, and that’s something NO porn star wants to see.