Jason Mraz

Jason Mraz is the kind of guy that moms wish, hope and pray that their daughters will bring home. If his pleasant music is any sort of indication, Mr. Mraz doesn't have a mean bone in his body and wouldn't hurt a fly even if it were attacking him to the point of death. Mraz's inoffensive, wholesome, and we'll give it to him, catchy hybrid of pop, rock and folk is expressly the type of music that parents and older folks endorse and enjoy. They even breathe a sigh of relief when they realize that their kids have started listening to this relaxed type of rock, too.

On We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, Mraz, who scored a major radio hit with 2004's "The Remedy (I Won't Worry)," coos in a soft, sweet and innocent tone, exposing his usually sharp wit in his lyrical turns of phrase. He's clearly a hopeful romantic. We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things doesn't change pace very often; for the most part, Mraz keeps things at an easily digestible pace. He flirts with slow and middle tempos, save for unexpected brief flashes of neo-disco on "Butterfly." He invited AAA radio sweetheart Colbie Caillat to lend her darling pipes to the couples-friendly "Lucky" and he encourages the handclaps on upbeat album opener, "Make It Mine" which sounds like Mraz wrote it for the purpose of it being used as background music for shoe shopping and sipping Cosmos in the forthcoming Sex and the City movie. Mraz is no dummy; he knows how to manufacture smart and serene soft rock.

Smart dudes would be best served by attending a Jason Mraz concert, regardless of your feelings toward the music. Why? Simple. There will be tons of swooning and swaying women in the crowd and it'll be an easy way to meet chicks. — Amy Sciarretto
05.27.08

Obsessed with carnality as he is, it was only a matter of time before Jason Mraz realized that it's better to sound sexy than to blather about it incessantly. This monumental moment arrives on his third album, We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, easily his sleekest collection of sounds and his only album to contain a suggestion of seduction within its grooves. Actually, We Sing is Mraz's only album to actually groove, as he sets down his acoustic guitar for much of the album and rides along on smooth rhythms partially indebted to '80s blue-eyed soul by Hall & Oates and Steve Winwood -- in that sense, the album recalls John Mayer's Continuum -- but he relies more heavily on Thriller, mixing it up with some modern neo-soul that gives this a surprisingly soulful sound. Mraz can glide on these surfaces, leaning on the gentle art of insinuation instead of goosing his paramour, but old habits die hard: it's only a matter of time before he punctures the seduction by scatting sophomorically, slipping in juvenile come-ons ("You make my slacks tight"), or stuttering manic syncopations on "The Dynamo of Volition." Mraz is also prone to terminal cuteness, drafting in a kids chorus to close out the coda of "Coyotes" and mewling out phrases like "always a goody doer," and while these are often so close-miked and forthright they're hard to ignore, they're also just not as prevalent as they were on the icky Mr. A-Z. Also, they're cleverly camouflaged beneath that gossamer gloss, typified by the quite catchy "Butterfly," whose Quincy Jones-styled horns disguise his mildly queasy oral sex puns. Mraz's lyrics don't stand up to such close scrutiny -- something the McCartney-esque, perhaps autobiographical divorce ballad "Love for a Child" ("Was it my mom who put dad out on his ass/Or the other way around") makes plain -- but the nice thing about the soulful shimmer of We Sing is that it's so slick that it's easy to ignore the gibberish spilling out of Mraz's mouth and just enjoy the sunny, easy sound. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide