{"id":41960,"date":"2010-04-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/in-between-dreams\/"},"modified":"2010-04-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T00:00:00","slug":"in-between-dreams","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/in-between-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"In Between Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always had a strange aversion to Jack Johnson. There was no real reason for it; I think it started with the songs \u201cBanana Pancakes\u201d and \u201cBubble Toes,\u201d the titles of which made me write him off as a cheesy balladeer. Turns out that the Hawaiian singer-songwriter is more cheerful than cheesy, injecting a nice dose of lightness into the frenzied music scene. His acoustic pop-rock gems aren\u2019t groundbreaking, but they\u2019re enjoyable and soothing, playing with lyrics and twists of guitar and ukulele. Meanwhile, Johnson seems both earnest and, well, cool, lending his material a charming swagger.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In Between Dreams<\/i>, his third disc, is full of meditations on relationships and love, though never in an in-your-face or weighty way. This material is lilting and peaceful; it has the unique power to reset your clouded mind to a sun-and-surf sort of mentality. Opener \u201cBetter Together\u201d features little more than strummed acoustic guitar and Johnson\u2019s smooth, enveloping vocals, but it\u2019s a sweet, inviting sentiment all the same, drawing you into the album. Of course it\u2019s potentially clich\u00e9 to sing \u201cI\u2019ll tell you one thing \/ It’s always better when we’re together,\u201d but Johnson gets away with it \u2013 maybe it\u2019s the sunniness of his instrumentation or the ease of his vocals that elevates his work from a simpering James Blunt ballad to something far more resonant and less guilt-inducing.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Even \u201cBanana Pancakes\u201d is hard to find fault with; Johnson just has a sense of humor to his delivery and his lyrics that cuts how reminiscent this track is of John Mayer\u2019s \u201cYour Body Is a Wonderland.\u201d\u00a0 But it\u2019s the songs that veer a little bit from Johnson\u2019s \u201clife is good\u201d vibe that pack the most punch. Take single \u201cSitting, Waiting, Wishing,\u201d which molds his guitar-and-vocals style into something darker and more tense, capturing the track\u2019s sentiment perfectly that\u00a0 \u201cLearning loving somebody don’t make them love you\u201d but it\u2019s all-too easy to get stuck on their hook all the same. Meanwhile, \u201cCrying Shame\u201d takes on the state of politics \u2013 although while the emotion is all there in Jackson\u2019s punched-up vocals and the swirling guitars, the lyrics are fuzzy. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

He fares better on my personal favorite track on this disc, \u201cBreakdown.\u201d With light, airy flecks of acoustic guitar and the smooth melodiousness of Johnson\u2019s vocals, this song has just enough momentum and passion to make it soar. I\u2019ve listened to it countleS times and it\u2019s easily a highlight of In Between Dreams. <\/i>\u00a0<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Jack Johnson isn\u2019t out to change the world \u2013 in fact, he lists music as second in his life to surfing. But what he does do, he does pretty well. His songs are vivacious, colorful, and catchy, and In Between Dreams<\/i> is an easy disc to pop in whenever you need a little dose of sunshine. After all, it\u2019s comforting to know that there is always music to rely on to add some brightness to the day. <\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":30305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6859],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-41960","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jack-johnson","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41960"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41960"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}