There was a time when I didn't object to Jack Johnson.
His angst-free take on singer-songwriter shtick had a certain appeal and made excellent background accompaniment for that sleepy, mellow part of the evening when the quantity of empties begin to outnumber the quantity of remaining bottles of wine.
Inoffensively pleasant music such as his has its place in the scheme of things, but through a combination of the man's increasing unavoidability and the shortcomings of my own cold, hard heart, it's starting to really irritate me now.
Upside Down is taken, not from his now ubiquitous third album In Between Dreams but from Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies his soundtrack from upcoming animated film Curious George and that makes exactly not one jot of difference to Mr Johnson's musical stylings. The gently strummed acoustic guitars, laidback vocals and vaguely chirpy lyrics about singing and dancing to Mother Natures song are all present and correct. The only thing lacking is anything resembling a tune. This feels like a doodle, a sketch, not the finished article. You keep waiting for it to go somewhere but it never happens, the song just fades into nothing. Maybe the surf was really good that day.
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