Friends, lovers, or nothing

Oh John boy, I have been let down.
I just finished listening to the new John Mayer album "Battle Studies" and the last 5 songs on the album (starting with his cover of Crossroads) are incredible! But it took suffering through the tech ridden effects, distortions and so so lyrics of the first 6 songs, (and the distortion at the start of Crossroads which I really don't like) to get me there. Now this isn't entirely fair. I got off to a bad start with the album thanks to the first song "Heartbreak Warfare" which I really didn't like at all and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the album. But some of those first 6 had really positive points to them. But they're nothing compared to the last 5. By the end of "Friends, lovers or nothing" I'm reminded why I love John Mayer, but for a while, this was not going to be a good review...
I was going to try to force it into a good review because I had what Dylan's fans did to him when he experimented with the new direction of Rock and Roll...but one of my main issues with Mayer is that he has serious talent as a guitarist, musician and he's a pretty good writer, but sometimes that gets lost in the poppy nature some of his studio work takes on. I guess I was hoping for a more soulful album, a deeper album, and some of the later songs are deeper, but you have to suffer to get there... But I promised not to write anything until I finished listening, and even then, I'm sure some songs will grow on me, and some songs like Assassin have great guitar. Overall I thought it was way too overproduced...and just once I would like to see Mayer reach his full potential with a studio album. So far continuum is my favorite but it is nothing compared to his live work with the trio.

I really just think he fell short of his potential with this album, but every artist is gunna have one mediocre album, mediocre novel, mediocre sculpture, I just hope this album isn't a sign of his new direction because, if so, I don't like where he's headed... maybe more listening will change that, but right now I doubt it. I hope he steps it up on the next album, leaves his pop following behind and follows his heart to the true deep music.