Once upon a time there was a blogpost from Wiwik in which she compared John Mayer to Jason Mraz. It was the read and most commented post on wiwipedia, even after two years readers were still commenting and disagreeing.
It is flattering and somewhat annoying. Flattering, because people still take an interest in my blog, or at least that one post. And annoying because people keep commenting on a post that was valid and true back in 2009, but ever since both John and Jason have moved on in their careers and lives. Because both John and Jason have moved on career wise and life wise, I decided to revisit my original post and do an updated comparison.
Points once again can be earned in the following categories:
Talents: Playing & Singing (1 point);
Their Songs (2 points: each sub-category 1 point);
o Music;
o Lyrics;
Personality & Publicity (2 points: each sub-category 1 point);
o Personality;
o Publicity.
There’s a total of 5 points to be earned. The one earning the most points out of 5 wins, just like the first time.
Talents
Playing & Singing
A lot described in the first comparison is still true. For John his guitar work is more important than his vocals, while for Jason his vocals are more important than his guitar work. I’m going to reward the point to Jason. This time not, because his guitar work is “bearable” where John’s vocals sometimes really aren’t, but because Jason has evolved his guitar work. He’s more than ever experimenting and learning about guitar playing and it shows. His guitar work still isn’t as good as John’s, but at least he puts in some effort in developing a skill that doesn’t lie at the bottom of his musical talents. John however simply delivers vocals. He got a bit better I feel, but hasn’t developed his vocal skills as much as Jason has his guitar playing skills.
Jason 1 versus John 0.
Music
This is a tough one since I don’t follow as religiously as I used to. I’m going to give it a try anyway. I have heard both their last efforts and to me, I think they both delivered strong albums.
John’s album, to my shame, I have only heard once. What I remember is that it felt like he went back to his roots. With that I mean it comes closer to what he put out when he was making a name, though less bubble gummy. I remember quite liking the songs; it just didn’t attract me enough to give it another listen.
Jason’s album, to my shame, I haven’t even bought. This doesn’t mean I haven’t heard any of it. As a matter of fact, I have heard the songs from his newest album more than I have the songs off of John’s album. Truth is that I feel more attracted to Jason’s songs than I do to John’s. Therefore I reward the point to Jason.
Jason 2 versus John 0.
Lyrics
No idea. No points given since I can’t really judge this for a have no idea what John’s songs were about, nor how they were written.
Personality & Publicity
Publicity
John had a string of flings. Well, not flings, it just sounded nice in that sentence. He had some high profile love relationships that crashed and burned and were all over gossip land. From what I understood he’s also a bit in a pickle in his personal life, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. He seems to have picked up a bit, but I don’t know.
Jason still doesn’t appear in gossip land. The one small tidbit I heard was that he got engaged and then cancelled the wedding, because he didn’t feel man enough within the relationship which I found a really lame excuse. Once again, I really don’t know.
I suppose the point has to go to Jason for better rumour control or maybe even a better lifestyle.
Jason 3 versus John 0.
Personality
Very simply Jason wins this category for being optimistic and positive versus John being not that positive and somewhat depressed. Explanation in the first comparison still stands.
Jason 4 versus John 0. Oh dear, John slipped a little, didn’t he?
So, who wins?
Well, uhm, Jason, obviously. I’m not even sure what happened to John. I feel I should give him another chance, but I’m not sure how. I think where John could get one point is in the lyrics category, the category I failed to grade. I think this since John’s lyrics tend to speak to me more than Jason’s, but I’ve been very happy and even impressed by Jason’s latest lyrics, though in some cases he still manages to annoy me with overloaded love messages.
But honestly, what happened to John?
The first comparison.
No comments:
Post a Comment