Review: John Mayer’s love letter to El Lay yacht rock is more than just easy nostalgia

John Mayer’s savvy use of Instagram and TikTok has made him one of the very few over-40 guitar wizards to connect with kids from the generation behind his. “Killer new track John,” Steve Lukather of Toto wrote in a comment on Mayer’s June 9 Instagram post about his latest studio album, “Sob Rock,” and its lead single, “Last Train Home.” Lukather, an architect of the highly chillaxed soft-rock sound developed in Los Angeles in the early 1980s, went on to praise Mayer’s “tasty playing” and to say that “Last Train Home” had the makings of “a smash” — the ultimate proof of concept for Mayer’s homage to the era of soulful white dudes, pastel color schemes and Bret Easton Ellis bestsellers. In an interview with the Blackbird Spyplane newsletter, the singer spoke with characteristic precision about his vision, saying his goal was to “make a new record from archival cloth” — to “find a way not to reproduce something,” he added, “but continue to produce it from the original loom.” Inspired, he’s said, by Quentin Tarantino’s casting various OGs in his movies, Mayer recruited ’80s studio standouts like keyboardist Greg Phillinganes and percussionist Lenny Castro to complement his usual players; their work provides just the right sparkle and groove to conjure the moment when blues-based rock was giving way to something shinier and more synthetic — a sonic manifestation of the affluent optimism of the day. Mayer says he wanted to “make a new record from archival cloth.” Even the record’s marketing material, including old-school billboards peppered around L.A., nail the exact fonts his predecessors would’ve used. As with Henley, what brings you around to Mayer’s side is his songwriting — the luscious melodies in “Why You No Love Me” and the Dire Straits-ish “Wild Blue” and the vivid images in “Carry Me Away” and “New Light,” where his self-pity takes this gorgeous shape: “I’m the boy in your other phone / Lighting up inside your drawer at home, all alone.” In the wistful “Shot in the Dark,” one of several tunes with backing vocals from country star Maren Morris, Mayer longs for an ex by rhyming “I want you in the worst way” with “Is the gate code still your birthday?” — an instant-classic addition to the ranks of great monied L.A. love songs.