Killer
CDs: Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams
By Eric Bodrero
When one thinks of catchy melodies and
pure guitar pop, the name Jack Johnson inevitably turns up sooner or later,
which is kind of surprising, given he never really set out to make music,
and was perfectly content making and editing surf films in his native Oahu,
Hawaii. But for the last few years you’ve been hearing his name probably
at least once a day on the radio, and he has had a huge following since
his debut Brushfire Fairytales.
Good friends with Garrett Dutton, otherwise
known as G. Love (of G. Love and Special Sauce), Jack wrote and played
on “Rodeo Clowns” from G. Love’s Philadelphonic, but ironically,
was G. Love’s first and only hit from that album. Now, three studio albums
later with the release of In Between Dreams, we find Johnson still
whipping out the laid-back but resourceful vocals and making love to his
guitar with a certain introspective that you can’t help but getting caught
up in.
The pace is immediately set with the opener
“Better Together” in which Johnson’s carefree approach to vocals and the
crisp, clean guitar strums positions the rest of the record in a familiar
foreshadowing. What follows is a mesmerizing thirteen tracks of poetic
justice served up with a heaping helping of captivating guitar pop, ending
with “Constellations,” arguably his most melodic song to date.
Jack Johnson uses his same time-tested
method on In Between Dreams used on his previous records: making
you turn your head so fast that your neck crackles and pops, holding it
there until the last high-hat and string-pluck has ended, then doing it
again on the next track, and so on and so forth until, forty minutes later,
you have a serious case of whiplash and a bizarre desire to do it all over
again.
Johnson sings about a number of things
here, including rainy days indoors, the giddiness of finding a new love,
and the demoralizing effect of watching TV. But no matter what he sings
about, you can bet on hearing about it under a bed of almost hushed vocals,
even when his songwriting turns into a “screw you” session as in “Sitting,
Waiting, Wishing.”
Those who have virgin ears to Jack Johnson’s
music or who have put off buying any of his records will probably find
In Between Dreams an enticing and superlative “how-do-you-do”, and
for fans, a must-have. While not necessarily breaking any new ground here,
In Between Dreams still captivates and holds it’s audience enslaved
to the record’s superb sound and smart sense of songwriting. This is an
instant classic.
CD Info
Jack Johnson
- In Between Dreams
Label: Universal
Records (USA)
Rating:  
Tracks:
Better Together
Never Know
Banana Pancakes
Good People
No Other Way
Sitting, Waiting, Wishing
Staple It Together
Situations
Crying Shame
If I Could
Breakdown
Belle
Do You Remember
Constellations |
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