Jack Johnson (not the boxer) is everywhere. Everywhere I tells ya! I never paid him much mind, kind of pegged him as a guitar playing surfer dude with no real talent off the board. But, the best thing about not being a Republican is I can admit I was wrong and flip-flop, as it were. It may cost me the presidency of the blog-a-sphere, but so what, I’ll just kick back and live off my woman’s condiment fortune while the Repubs run amuck.
But condiments are not the topic here. What is important is I have decided to flip-flop. Jack Johnson is not as bad as I first thought, in fact, I likes what he does.
He may have first made a name for himself as a surfer but I think his lasting legacy will be his body of musical work. Jack is adept at writing chilled out, beach bumming, pina colda sippin’ little ditties with the slightest hint of pop sensibility that melt as they hit my eardrums. His new album, In Between Dreams is full of acoustic beach banter and ballads. Then there are his other appearances in the recent months, including showing up on the new Handsome Boy Modeling School disc White People and a guest spot on the Black Eyed Peas’ new one, Monkey Business.
As a side note: I would love to hear Jack Johnson play the blues. Yeah, Hawaiian blues. Not like blue Hawaiian punch, but a little bit of distortion and a little bit of crunch. There’s always the next album, I guess
Stuff to Sample: From In Between Dreams “Good People,†Handsome Boy Modeling School’s “Breakdown featuring Jack Johnson†and the Black Eyed Peas’ “Gone Going featuring Jack Johnsonâ€
Jack Johnson makes me feel like stapling my neck to my desk and jabbing permanent markers into my eyes. His music, although performed well enough (his rhythm section in particular is quite good) is unoriginal and boring. Like watching-paint-dry boring. If you want some chilled out acoustic shit why not get a Kings of Convenience record or some Iron & Wine?
In conclusion, I ask: Why do us Ohio boys want to listen to music about surfing sung by a surfer? You might as well download some South Korean dance-pop, it probably has more to do with your life than what this jackoff spits out.
(Deep breath)
ABBA ROCKS!!!
[1] I love your indignation! It's so righteous!
Anyway, while Iron and the Kings are both chilled out in their own right, they don't convey a summery, beached-out mood like Jack does. (I dig Iron and Wine for fall and Kings are a total winter band). Jack may like to surf but doesn't write songs about surfing. They are more along the lines of the typical love ballad or spend-time-with-the-girl song.
It's not so much about what he's saying as about the mood he's conveying. (Although I have listened to the lyrics and they are mostly fluff, falling in or out of love). But i know how you feel, i felt the same way before I flip-flopped and cost myself a shot at the blog presidency.
And how can you bitch at me about listening to some surfer sing surf songs while you extoll the virtues of a Swedish pop band (who suck) singing about dancing queens?!? If that isnt the definition of ironic, I don't know what is.
Not much to say about ABBA or Jack Johnson, but I love the stab at Republicians.
"Fuzzy Math"
"Your Record does not match your rhetoric"
-George W. Bush, Campaign 2004
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
—George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 Audio
Boy oh boy, you fellas sure sound angry. All Jack and ABBA are trying to do is spread love in their not-so-original-and-many-would-say-crappy-ways. But I have to say that track on Handsome Boy ain't too shabby. And I, for one, love South Korean dance-pop.