Mayer Hawthorne: the charm of candor

It is always great when you listen to music that not only fulfill your ears but also enlivens other parts of your being. I am referring to records like Mayer Hawthorne’s How do you do (2011). His opera prima, A strange arrangement (2009), was quite a revelation in terms of delivering irresistibly sweet tunes played in an-old-school R&B-kind-of way. For his sophomore album, Hawthorne grows both as a singer and a songwriter. His confidence is materialized in the variety of the songs, its delicate and stylized production and the warmth of its sound. Listening to How do you do is like eating a candy that admittedly at times can get a little bit too sugary. The thing is that it really doesn’t matter if this record ends up being corny, what’s really important is that by listening to it you end up feeling happy.

This is the video for Dreaming