John Mayer the Money Maker

I read an article last week on John Mayer in Rolling Stone. I know two quick strikes against me. Please keep reading before you judge. It was interesting because he sounds totally broken and out of sorts. The main stream media always associates money and power with happiness. He simply sounded lost.

Reading the article lead me to a conversation with my wife about the relationship between music and headcases. Not that music has a higher rate but it seems that the more musically brilliant one is the more demons they have to wrestle. I think there are two major contributors to this occurrence. The first being that creating music has a lot of similar elements to writing. Writing, whether it is music, an article or even a blog seems to draw things out of an individual that other activities do not. It is almost as if you need to have issues to create great music. That is what makes bubble gum pop music so disposable, there is no connection or staying power.

The other reason I think issues haunt musicians is that many songwriters use music as escapism. It is a vehicle to temporarily take a break from the world around oneself. Sometimes the only thing in the world that can truly understand what you are going through is a song. I realize this sounds ridiculous but it is true. The escapist side of music can be dangerous. It can allow people to not completely address their issues. The issues then boil over when the musician looks in the mirror and wonders what they have become. By avoiding their skeletons in the closet, they do do not recognize themselves.

It is sad. With the way the record industry works you have a lot of people who only see music as money. Sure they say they like music but do they truly like music. Does it pulse through their veins. These people take musicians who deeply care about music and chew them up and spit them out. John Mayer sounds absolutely broken in the Rolling Stone article because he is love song hit maker for Columbia. No more no less. Columbia does not care about his musical talent. They just want him to keep writing songs like "Your Body is a Wonderland." That way everyone can pat themselves on the back and feel good about themselves except Mayer.