Jack Johnson was the first African American heavyweight champion of the world, and his 1910 bout with James J. Jeffries—dubbed “the Fight of the Century”—provoked race riots across the country. He’s an absolute titan in American history, but if you Google his name, you have to scroll through a half-dozen other results before finding first mention of him.
The boxer has been overshadowed by a surfer-turned-musician of the same name, a white guy who grew up in Hawaii and became a teenage professional surfer with a Quiksilver sponsorship. This Johnson bumped his noggin after tumbling on a wave and began to write frat-boy odes on an acoustic guitar during his recovery. He now has an unfathomably huge audience for his ultra-mellow barefoot jams—”kickback” music for timid suburbanites for whom Dave Matthews rocks a bit too hard and John Mayer seems too bluesy. Johnson’s story is one of riches to riches, a celebration of a perverse but common mutation of the American dream: That you, too, can achieve happiness by accumulating vast amounts of money with minimal effort and spend your days chillaxin’ on a tropical beach somewhere.
Jimmy Buffett did it first, and more brazenly, and with at least a passing knowledge of the genres of Caribbean calypso and American country. Johnson’s humorless soft-rock, meanwhile, is the faux-funk of G. Love boiled down to a sad bastard murmur, like Nick Drake for the date-rape set. It’s music absolutely devoid of temperature and even the most funkified of Johnson’s jamz will do nothing to raise one’s heartbeat.
After providing the soundtrack to a movie about a CGI monkey—not King Kong, the bad one, Curious George—Johnson released his fifth album, whose title, Sleep Through the Static, seems appropriately narcoleptic. It topped the charts on its release in February, so, obviously, flocks of Americans are hearing something through their SUV speakers that completely eludes me. Is this just a case of cooler-than-thou hipster elitism, or sour grapes at his mind-boggling success? It’s possible. But I prefer to think that life’s simply too short to listen to boring music.
What the hell is the matter with you? This kind of snobbery is exactly what’s wrong with this otherwise wonderful little town. If Jack Johnson was playing $5 shows at the townhouse lounge your “review” would probably be very different. Calling his music “frat-boy odes” is just moronic.
Here, here! This is the most honest, well-written music criticism I have seen written in the Mercury in a long, long time. And kudos to you for your knowledge of the boxing legend.
“…like Nick Drake for the date-rape set.”
SLAM!!!!
Jealous much? Maybe his music doesn’t appeal to you, but I find it interesting that b/c he’s a white dude that grew up surfing in Hawaii you feel that he is somehow less deserving of his success.
Oh Ned. Caught up in your confused, sarcastic, snobbis, cool to not be cool, conforming little world – you try way to hard. It is judging losers like you that we could do without in this beautiful special town.
i love it ha 🙂
Slam is right – slam fuckin dunk. This is one of the most honest, well-written reviews that I have read for a long long time. I am glad someone had the guts to speak out against this mediocre bullshit. Personally, I liked “sad bastard murmur”
You overlook the fact that the best demographic for his music is KIDS. My little boy loves it and for that it has inherent value.
amen. Can we talk about the suck that is John Mayer next?
I’ll admit to listening to Jack Johnson here and there. No, he’s not cutting any edges, but being that 99.99% of us are not “music critics”, means that we can actually just enjoy music for what it is rather than have to be “challenged” by it 24/7, which sounds miserable. But that aside, near as I can tell, the songs are anti-war and life/love affirming. Hardly seems to deserve a cheap-shot connection to date rapes.
Hah! Well said!