‘Current Mood’ is a Balm For Uncertain Times

Earlier this summer, in the peak ‘before times,’ Ben got us tickets to a handful of Dead & Company shows, which we attended together with great enthusiasm. I joked that he’d tried to trick me into caring about the Grateful Dead but that really, I had tricked him into caring about John Mayer. Here was an opportunity for us as a couple, but importantly, as individuals too. For Ben, to immerse himself in the revival of real Grateful Dead (né Dead & Co.) live show culture and for me, to OPENLY love John Mayer again (an attitude that, not since high school had I so fully embraced).

With the tours winded down and the Online Ceramics tees purchased, I’d let myself fall back into deep fan territory — somehow our shared entertainment diet giving way, for a time, to mostly Mayer YouTube guitar tutorials. I’d started taking piano lessons and appreciated his inexhaustible capacity for monologuing on music theory. Plus, I’d become strangely accustomed to his camp counselor-y cadence.

As far as former pop stars go, late in career revivals are not necessarily guaranteed. So to see a self-proclaimed ‘recovered egomaniac’ who, in trying to sustain commercial success, had withered in the over-saturated pop spotlight, only to then return to his roots, a guy and his guitar, (and then wander into the Grateful Dead, most beloved of music franchises and Americana — after discovering their music from a Sirius XM station!) felt like a wholesome storyline to say the least.

Watching his videos, Ben and I would vacillate between something like a parent’s doting (“I’m just really proud of him, he’s so focused and in such a good place!’) mixed with an ever-present layer of concern for his well-being, particularly when he rounded into hour two of answering fan reactions (“hm, maybe he is kind of…lonely?”).

When he shifted from YouTube to his (mostly) weekly Instagram live show, in the form of ‘Current Mood,’ it seemed like he’d hit upon new levels.

‘Current Mood’ has the lo-fi feel of say, ‘Between Two Ferns’ if ‘Between Two Ferns’ had the virtuosity of Variety’s Actors on Actors and then built into a jam session — a couple of performers genuinely enjoying one another’s company.

With dubious “sponsors” and a DIY set consisting of Beanie Babies, a lava lamp and a specially commissioned rainbow Lisa Frank-style logo, it seemed he was somehow channeling that same wavelength that allowed him to slink into millions of girls’ bedrooms in the first place.

At his makeshift desk, Mayer would perform his cold open, taking a long beat after each joke, and then tossing each blue card to the ground in quick succession, as the joke, with no live audience, fell flat. Much like the Zach Galifianakis brand of humor, the absurdity of performing a dud can be funnier than landing a zinger.

All told, the mix of serious but stripped down production value, feels eerily prescient, as Late Night Hosts such as Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers, and Stephen Colbert are forced to make do, shooting from home, to much the same effect.

When SNL delivered its own first at-home episode this past weekend, writer Mark Harris remarked on Twitter how “beautifully lo-fi” it came off: “entertainment stripped of everything but the determination to make an effort. I was moved.”

In a way, perhaps this explains the allure of ‘Current Mood.”

With a performer’s bent to “only connect” and an early-adopter’s savante-like internet self-awareness (reminiscent of say, Ashton Kutcher’s early harnessing of reality TV and Twitter, and look at him now!), Mayer also possesses a particular brand of humor — mundanity, but with a catchy hook — that is perfectly ripe for the meme age.

His sensibility can be summarized thusly: You know when you do something very stupid and human and make up some very stupid and human lyric to hum to yourself while you’re doing it? Mayer, who has spent a chunk of his career trying to write commercial pop songs, does much the same thing here.

But, his goofy hot take humor seem resonant now more than ever, in a time when the genuine laugh provided from a short video is often followed by the response: “I needed that.” (And not to mention, in a moment when investors have taken an unprecedented almost $2B bet on Quibi, a mobile app designed for the sole purpose of talent-driven video streaming).

One riff that seems particularly emblematic of his genre emerged over the holidays last year in the form of a 30 second storyline: Shot 1: An unboxing of high-end toffee, a typical holiday gift. Shot 2: Mayer, in a sing-song jingle: “Eat one and throw the rest away…Eat one more and throw the rest away…” Shot 3: “”Taketheboxouttathetrash, eat one more and throw the rest away…” Closing shot: camera pointed down at his sneakers on the treadmill.

(Another is an ode to the CVS bag, “the trustiest of companions while staying at someone else’s house for the holidays”).

More recently, he delivered “Drone Shot of my Yacht,” a riff based on David Geffen’s, early pandemic misfire, a drone video of his comically large yacht, to announce to the world how his quarantine was going. (The answer: Just fine). (As his been uttered many times over Twitter the past several weeks: “Read the room.”)

Bob Lefsetz, news and entertainment writer, commented on“Drone Shot of my Yacht” in his popular newsletter, “the funny thing is, this is a hit, it’s the most commercial thing Mayer has done in years. It’s catchy in lyrics, changes and sensibility/humor.”

Chrissy Teigen, who has profited well by her own brand of internet comedienne shared another clip that Mayer released into the world in late March, commenting: “john mayer is one of the funniest humans alive, consistently.” The video in question is his goofy slash surrealist explanation as to why he didn’t appear in the ‘Imagine’ video. (Watch it for yourself!)

In a moment when ‘Celebrity Culture is Burning,’ we’ve already begun to see famous entertainers try — and fail — to find their footing. But when it comes to the current mood, it’s refreshing to see Mayer strike the right note. Finally, someone who just gets it.

Maybe, like sentimental lyrics ripped from his early, acoustic years, he’d been there all along.