Johnson experiments with new album

By Jess Camp

Published Feb. 15, 2008

He made college kids everywhere sit, wish and wait for a big ole plate of banana pancakes because we were all just so hungry for them. He taught us to delude our minds and pretend that it was raining outside so that we could just stay in a bed of hot, sweaty love all day. But does Jack Johnson’s newest album, Sleep Through The Static, deliver any new and deep nuggets of advice?

It can and it does. On this album, Mr. Ukulele Player would like the listeners to believe that he is an intellectual, politically minded person. It might not be necessary though.

Part of what makes Johnson so loveable is that he writes charming, fluffy songs that make you bob your head and feel warm inside. He didn’t need to follow pretty much every artist down the road that leads to Preachy Town. But that is Johnson’s destination.

Johnson is a sneaky fellow. The title track is his shout against war. He sings, “Just cash in your blanks for little toy tanks/Learn how to use them, then abuse them.” Johnson also sings about clubs and guns and how it is wrong to have to choose between being anti-war and supporting the troops.

He could be right in what he says. But the song has such a light beat that it is relaxing and you can imagine yourself sipping a margarita on a white beach in Mexico with a nice cabana boy oiling down your lower back. All the while, Jack Johnson secretly feeds listeners his message. A political song should be strong and loud, not surreptitious and subliminal.

Some of Johnson’s messages are common and relatable, though, and not so condescending. In the song “Enemy,” he talks about a fight he gets into with a snake. He punches out its teeth and sends it afloat in a raft on the ocean, but alas, it just keeps inexplicably charging back against the current to get him. But, after catching the snake again and burying it, Johnson doesn’t seem mad anymore. He knows that the snake still considers him an enemy, but the feeling is not mutual. So this is a story to just forgive, forget and move on. It may not be an original thought, but it has got a nice beat.

The singer Johnson used to be has not totally disappeared. Sleep has an adorable song about relationships called “Same Girl.” After an argument with his girl, he wishes she had read his mind and realized he has better arguments and that they should just stop quarrelling. Naturally, the girl doesn’t let her man win the fight. So he comes to recognize that their fighting is silly and that she’s still the same art-loving girl he fell in love with. It’s perhaps the most reminiscent of his older album In Between Dreams.

Johnson hasn’t completely wasted his talents making this album. Normally his music does not have too many back up instruments, but Sleep features strong instrumental accompaniments. On the other hand, Johnson’s attempt at artsy-ness — a drone of static preceding each song — is altogether annoying and excessive.

While it’s nice to hear Johnson experiment with his art, it’s hard to take the Curious George soundtrack guy very seriously.