That Guilty Pleasures Meme

Having now been tagged by two people, I suppose I should do this one.  Here are five things that are my guilty pleasures.

1.  Fast Food.  God help me, I know better than this.  It's amazing, I will fix some awesome, delicious meal that's both tasty and nutritious, and then a few hours later, I'm all like "Daaaay-um, I could go for some Cane's right now.  Ooh!  Or some Whataburger.  Or best of all, some Taco Bell!"

2.  While we're at it, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.  I know it's not made of cheese, people, but that's not the point.  I could make pasta with a rich, creamy cheese sauce, but that's not what I crave: I crave that Cheetos-colored macaroni.  Cut up some hotdogs in it?  Heaven.  I wonder if I have a box in the pantry right now... *wanders off*  *comes back*  I do not.  My world is sadness.  Moving on.

3.  Mariah Carey's Daydream album.  This is totally indefensible, except to say: Girl got pipes!  This dates from back when she actually sang, instead of dividing her time between supersonic fluting and wearing ill-considered bandanna headbands in grainy music videos.  You know, my only complaint about Daydream is that "Hero" isn't on it.  If it were... I might listen to that album daily.

3a. Also, Celine Dion's album D'eux.  Anyway.

4.  Speaking of ill-considered headbands, Project Runway.  And Gilmore Girls.  And The West Wing, Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Battlestar Galactica, and Four Kings.  And anything on the Food Network where they actually cook (Marc Summers, what the fuck?), but especially guilty for me is Emeril Live: the man really bothers me, but I can't. stop. watching him.

5.  LJ.  Seriously, y'all need to post more, because I'm about to wear out my refresh button.  Entertain me.  I obviously have no other life.

I don't really feel the need to tag anyone in particular, although puppetoflove's usually pretty funny when she's being self-deprecating.

Mayer and Mraz CD reviews

I recently bought two CDs by a couple of artists that I really like: Jason Mraz and John Mayer.  Allow me, if I may, to review them.

Jason Mraz - Mr. A-Z
I want so desperately to like this album!  I've been a Mraz fan for a number of years now, since before he even released his first CD -- I heard a live performance and was caught by his great sense of fast-paced, syncopated wordsmithing.  So... first song, "Life is Wonderful."  It's a little insipid to my tastes, but I suppose what else can you expect from such a title.  "Wordplay", the current radio single, is a great song, solid Mraz, quite similar in style to "You and I Both" from Waiting for My Rocket to Come.  Then we move on to "Geek in the Pink", where we find Mraz taking his sarcastic geeky white-boy rapper bravado for a spin, to great effect: he's channeling a blaxploitation soundtrack on this one, all bumping synth-bass and Hammond organs.  "Did You Get My Message" isn't bad, and "Mr. Curiosity" is reasonably solid, but from then on it's a steady downhill, tapering off into a sort of insouciant background meh-music.  It's not bad, as such (well, actually "Bella Luna" was pretty low on my list, all clichés and ergh), it just doesn't sparkle.  And to be fair, his last album suffered some of the same tapering off problem, but at least it had "On Love, In Sadness" in the track 9 position, and that's one of the best songs I have heard, ever.  On a repeated listening I was a little more positive toward Mr. A-Z -- there's a great Latin-y vibe on one of those later songs (don't recall which), but really it's the sophomore (sophomoric?) slump effect going on there, combined with a seeming inability to write good lyrics anymore.

John Mayer Trio - Try!
This one, I got exactly what I wanted and expected.  A little bit of background: much as with Mraz, I've been a fan of John Mayer since before his major label debut.  And it has driven me to mad distraction when I here the almost homogenous cries of "Omg he thinks he's, like, Dave Matthews or something, hurrr, and he doesn't really have that much musical talent, hurrr" from critics.  Er?  Further background: Mayer started his musical career in Atlanta, where he was actually better known as a gifted guitarist than as a singer-songwriter (although people liked him on that level too).  When I first heard Mayer it was in a live recording from September '00, and I knew only his name.  I honestly thought he was at least 10 years older than he actually was at the time (22 going on 23), because his jazz-rock chops were so solid.  If you listen to the songs on his first major album, Room for Squares, they're all very well constructed, musically, and they don't all stick to the standard I-IV-V of modern pop/rock.  Heavier Things was a little bit of a letdown for me -- it was overproduced and a little pedestrian, musically -- but it still had some high points and earworms, like "Something's Missing" and "Wheel".  Try!, though... it's awesome.  Mayer teamed up with two very experienced musicians, a drummer and a bassist, and went on the road; this is a live recording from that tour.  It's awesome.  It sounds like 60s rock, a tight three-piece jamming out.  Maybe now I can finally stop hearing critics babble about his supposed lack of talent -- so the guy's good-looking and the girls love him, whaaaaa.  Learn to play lead guitar and they can love you to, then you can get the chip off your shoulder, jesus.  And while we're at it, the knee-jerk reactions against jam-rock (JM3 jam out a bit on this album, so it's cogent) are getting more than a bit passé: just as in EVERY OTHER FREAKING MUSICAL GENRE there is good and bad.  Learn to actually use a critical ear and live up to your self-appointed title, you bunch of unmitigatedly pretentious hacks.