By Delia Paunescu
Jack Johnson has perfected the neo-hippie aesthetic. He records his own albums at a studio in Hawaii that is environmentally friendly and uses recycled materials in their distribution.
He’s a champion surfer, is married to the love of his life, has two beautiful children and is generally a happy human. This all comes out in the simple fact that he rarely wears shoes when performing.
On “Sleeping Through the Static,” Johnson returns with his fifth solo album (including the soundtrack for “Curious George” he released in 2006). At first listen, the album can sound dull and not much different than the whole of his work. Surprising given that this was supposed to be a departure from the tried-and-true method of his past platinum albums. It’s still mellow with a gentle, syncopated guitar that accompanies Johnson’s soothing, unintrusive vocals but it’s not much different. Whereas his past album had him asking, “Where’d all the good people go?” he faces much larger issues on “Sleep.”
He’s clearly been keeping up with the news and in the title track as well as in “All At Once” the normally peaceful crooner takes on the war in Iraq and the state of the country. It’s quite strange to think that this is the same guy who sang silly jingles on a movie about a cartoon monkey.
“Hope” and “Monsoon” are by far the album’s standouts. Both rely on a lite-reggae base for a sound that’s a fun contrast to the more serious tone of “Sleep’s” other tracks. The funky, lazy beat of “Monsoon” even uses a jangly piano in the mix. But it is also this track that brings some of this album’s most outlandish records. Certainly Johnson’s hippie lifestyle and stoner roots come out as he sings, “All of life is in one drop of the ocean waiting to go home.”
Musically, “Hope” is this album’s “Better Together.” In that popular single, Johnson used little more than guitar to keep beat and this time around, it is a light piano that supplements his calm singing.
Johnson is best when he sticks to the sweetly unproduced tracks about his two children. He may be reaching broadly in subject matter with this album but Johnson’s talent on tracks like “Angel” makes it obvious that his family and environment are what he cares about most. “You’re so busy changing the world but when you smile you change all of mine,” he sings of his daughter. The song is so gentle that it could double as a lullaby, but it’s profound and has a lovely lightness that sticks with you even after its two-minute running time has ended.
Perhaps for his next project, this relaxed crooner will focus more on the surroundings that make him happy and less on his general dissatisfaction with the state of the country.