Jack Johnson - Sleep Through The Static

 Not his best work
I am a big Jack Johnson fan. Love his CDs and have seen him in concert, which was great. However, this cd was his weakest performance to date. Don't get me wrong, i still enjoyed it, but i just don't feel it keeps up with the quality of his other CDs. May 9, 2008

 Masterfully Quiet
This is one of those albums you listen to when no one else is around. It's late at night, you want something to calm you down right before you go to sleep... Let this album seep into your brain for an hour and slip into pure zen. This is such a beautifully written and soothing rhythmic album that it should not be missed. For as quiet as the album is, it never gets dull or boring. Every song is a well conceived idea full of emotion. This masterpiece should satisfy both fans of Jack Johnson and those looking for a well written work of art. May 9, 2008

 Sleep Through the Static
This CD is EXACTLY as I hoped it would be. Additional enjoyable music and lyrics to accompany the others by Jack Johnson. May 9, 2008

 Is This Pot-Smoking Music Or What?
If someone in 2002 had asked me, Have you heard of Jack Johnson? I would have been like Schultz in TV's Hogan's Heroes: I know nothing. But back then I remember going to Tower Records where his Brushfire Fairytales CD was being featured on a listening station. I put on the headphones, punched in the album and then, well, I projectile-vomited straight across the store. My first impression was not a good one.

Fast-forward a few years. I'm standing in Starbucks, looking at the CDs they're selling when a friend of mine who works there asks me, Have you heard the new Jack Johnson? Is it good? I asked. Very good. Very good.

Thinking I have a few friends who like Jack Johnson's work and one or two who literally swear by him--despite the fact that they're $30,000 millionaires--I decided to give Sleep Through The Static a chance. Considering that so much music on the radio these days is static, I've been having trouble sleeping. Maybe Jack Johnson would help me.

I took it home and listened to it all the way through two or three times. I liked what I heard, but the music just hadn't reached me. I just didn't "get" it. But I was still attracted to Johnson's mellow sound. The stuff seems to hearken back to the 1970s era of easy listening, back when the big-time performers all wore white suits on stage, people like Livingston Taylor and Stephen Bishop. Interesting, eh? Jack Johnson, sharing similarities with two now all-but-forgotten performers from a period in musical history that, even today, is looked-down upon....

After listening to Sleep Through The Static quite a bit, and discovering one or two stand-out songs like "Go On" and "They Do, They Don't," I put the CD away for a month or so when I got into this big alt country kick. Then, two days ago, my curiosity got to me again and I put the CD back into the player. It hasn't left the player yet.

I was sitting on the front step, watching heavy rain clouds roll across the sky as wind whispered through the branches of a great big tree that sits outside my apartment. Johnson's "If I Had Eyes" was rolling along and suddenly I got it! I started catching the idea of what the singer/songwriter is doing, although this is difficult to describe in words. Johnson has a nice way of putting simple instrumentation together and the fact that this is the first time that he's added electric guitar and organ to his songs makes for a mellow alternative to some of the quirky stuff I've got in my collection. As mentioned, I took a little time with the album, mainly because the stuff seemed so abstract to me at first. Which is a good thing. Nothing like getting an album of simple material that gives itself up after only one or two listens. But this CD is a CD of relative depth, very lyrically-based and full of interesting twists and turns. There are allusions to a number of performers such as Amos Lee, but Johnson outclasses almost all of them.

You do have to be in the right mood for this one. If you like easy stuff that doesn't demand too much of you, then this Jack Johnson CD is worth trying out. There's an organic quality to this recording in that it tends to grow on you in time. I add that to counter some of the pop-off reviews here that indicate that listeners quit the album after only one or two listens. Things of depth, however, sometimes demand a little committment. This CD is one.

Like I said, I had trouble grokking this CD. At first listen, I thought, Maybe this is music better enjoyed on drugs or something. Half the surfers in Hawai'i would probably agree. May 7, 2008

 what is this?
I did through some cosmic intertwining buy this baboon's first album (I got back .50 of the $11.99 I paid for it). I think it was played once and then sold. I bought it mostly cause of the hype and I was living in California at the time so it was huge among the surfer community (I am not a surfer).

I guess most of us have varying degrees of quality expectation when it comes to certain things, namely music and film, so my question is this, what is this stuff? It's not easy listening really because it's so unrelentingly boring that it grates on your nerves. It's definitely not experimental music or anything that even remotely pushes any boundaries. It's not well arranged or thoughtfully composed, even lyrically it is infantile at best. It is not intimate or revealing, the guy doesn't even have the balls to bare his soul. And as for the music itself, it's so broadly drawn and lacks any kind of engagement that it may not even qualify as "actual" music, more incidental vignettes if you will.

What's left is a product clearly designed to appeal to a particular demographic (his buddies are some of the most stellar wave riders in the history of the sport i.e. Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, Bruce Irons, Andy Irons, etc.). This guy has a built in audience that probably accounted for the bulk of his initial sales.

Jack Johnson is a mediocre musician with absolutely no tricks up his sleeve, instead, he's reached into other people's sleeves and stolen what would seem like the most simplistic and obvious bits that even those artists would've gladly thrown away. He may be a nice guy, but this is music folks, it's serious business! You know what they say, "If you ain't gonna s@#t, then get off the potty!"

Sorry Jack, you just got flushed down the toilet, don't worry though, you'll have company! April 30, 2008

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