John Mayer: Heavier Things [AWARE/COLUMBIA]

Why you'll love it

This 180g pressing was made in the EU. Heavier Things debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with more than 317,000 copies in its first week, and "Daughters" won the Grammy for Song of the Year.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

John Mayer said he picked the title Heavier Things because he liked how plain it was. After the huge success of Room for Squares, he took more creative control, recorded much of the record in his New York apartment, and worked with producer Jack Joseph Puig to bring loops and horns into the mix. Columbia kept the marketing deliberately low-key, building toward a Saturday Night Live appearance that October.

"Clarity" opens with a gentle groove and Roy Hargrove's trumpet, "Bigger Than My Body" was the lead single, and "Come Back to Bed" shows off his blues guitar chops. "Daughters" is the one everybody knows, a tender acoustic song that became one of his signature tunes, and "Split Screen Sadness" and "Wheel" close the album on a thoughtful note.

Columbia sent "Bigger Than My Body" to radio just a few weeks ahead of the album and streamed the whole record on MTV.com and Mayer's own site a week early. At the 2005 Grammys he also took home Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, and in 2006 the Songwriters Hall of Fame gave him its Hal David Starlight Award. Reviewing the album himself for Esquire, Mayer gave it a B minus, which is a stern mark from a man grading his own homework.

Also at Kops: more John Mayer on vinyl · browse Singer-Songwriter

Tracklist

Listen

On Aware / Columbia, a reissue of the 2003 album.