Another graduate from The OC soundtrack hall of fame, Jason Mraz is best described as a funkier version of John Mayer or a close relation to New Radicals front man Gregg Alexander. At its best, the follow up to 2002’s Waiting For My Rocket To Come sees Mraz continue fusing hip hop beats with folk melodies to fine affect. It’s as a singer-songwriter that Mraz begins to flop.
Pensive opener ‘Life Is Wonderful’ is the exception to this rule. A simply arranged acoustic track, Mraz’s quirky observations lead us to expect a fun and varied record. That expectancy is fulfilled on ‘Wordplay’, with a catchy chorus and some fine production from Steve Lillywhite. This continues through the old skool beat of ‘Geek In The Pink’, another fine rap establishing Mraz as a more streetwise Justin Timberlake, but the sombre ‘Mr Curiosity’ brings us crashing down to earth. From here in, through the MOR of ‘Clockwatching’ and the sober intensity of ‘Plane’, Mraz switches from experimental modern songwriter to '70s folk crooner. The opening section, which promised so much, is over. By track four, you might as well have stuck a different CD onto the stereo. This is not to say that the remaining songs on Mr A-Z are poor, but they’re not a patch however on the opening, and by the time ‘Song For A Friend’ dribbles out, you can’t help put feel like you’ve been led up the garden path.