Send "Mayer Hawthorne " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 What’s wrong with a little blue-eyed soul? What’s wrong with a little Stevie Winwood? Maybe some Robert Palmer? A tad bit of Michael McDonald? A dusting of Robin Thicke or Remy Shand? And, of course, don’t forget the poster boys for such a movement, Hall & Oates. Really. What’s wrong with them? Can you honestly say that you don’t genuinely (i.e. non-ironically) perk up whenever you hear “You Make My Dreams” or “Rich Girl” come through on the radio or an iPod mix? You’d be lying through your white suit if you argued the greatness or the amount of fun blue-eyed soul provides. The horns. The keyboards. The tempos. The harmonies. The groove. What’s not wrong with a little blue-eyed soul is a harder question to answer, actually. It’s a style that takes time to master. You can’t merely run a drum machine, sing in a few falsettos and hope for the best. You have to think about what you’re doing. The hooks need to fit perfectly in between the heartbroken choruses or alliterated verses. The performance needs to have just the right amount of emotion – don’t even think about coming up short, though be sure not to over-do it. And arguably most of all, you have to provide a rhythm that anyone from any walk of life could mindlessly tap a toe to. That’s right. Blue-eyed soul isn’t easy to pull off, regardless of how natural those four-part harmonies and vintage suits may seem. Just ask Mayer Hawthorne. Sure, his first album, 2009’s A Strange Arrangement, wasn’t a bad debut effort by any stretch of the imagination. And yeah, the grooves were there, and the hooks stayed in your head long after you pressed the stop button. But something about it felt a little off. There was something that simply felt out of place – it was as though the album itself wasn’t a complete reflection of the potential Hawthorne let peek through from time to time. It wasn’t good enough to garner much acclaim, yet it piqued your interest enough to make sure you checked out whatever it was he was going to do next. Enter How Do You Do. The Michigan DJ’s second proper full-length release leaves no questions unanswered and no ignored potential this time around. Gone are the reservations about what the singer/songwriter can do and welcome are the ideas of what he may do next. There is no sophomore slump, no digression of talent or tricks. How Do You Do is the exact reason he tricked soul music fans into giving him a shot in the first place. And for those who did, the dividends have now proven to pay handsomely....full text |
| Craveonline |
| If artists like Sharon Jones, Budos Band and Amy Winehouse provided an affectionate scratch behind the ears for longtime fans of vintage soul, Mayer Hawthorne gives them the kind of intense attention that only comes from true love – and of course, gets their hind legs shaking. While those retro-soul artists took up residence in a sweet spot that went unoccupied for decades as digital recording took over the organic sounds of the 1960s and ‘70s, Hawthorne manages to turn his special blend of rhythm and blues into a genre-smashing shakedown. And on his terrific new album How Do You Do, Hawthorne adds AM-radio idiosyncrasy, ‘80s pop and plenty of modern-day attitude to his multi-era Motown aesthetic, creating a unique and cohesive collection of timeless songs that celebrates old and new-school sensibilities at the same time. Needless to say, one man’s “inspired” is another man’s “derivative.” But the songs Hawthorne wrote and produced for How Do You Do feel familiar for more reasons than their musical resemblance to past classics. For example, “The Walk,” the album’s first single, doesn’t merely evoke Friends of Distinction’s “Grazing in the Grass,” it taps into nostalgia for an old record and an old relationship, even when Hawthorne refers to an ex’s “sh*tty f*cking attitude” as one of many reasons she’s not right for him. Similarly, the album opener, “Get To Know You,” crackles with the sexual energy of a Barry White love jam, but somehow pairs the sentiment with something more meaningful, as if a lothario stumbled unexpectedly into the out-of-control feelings of Bloodstone’s “Natural High.” At the same time, “A Long Time” and “Finally Falling” bear the wholesome, blue-eyed imprint of vintage Hall & Oates, “Dreaming” could serve as a worthy stand-in for Electric Light Orchestra’s “Mr. Blue Sky,” and “Stick Around” could be a musical mashup of 70s radio hits like Edison Lighthouse’s “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes” and The Foundations’ “Build Me Up Buttercup,” suggesting if nothing else that Hawthorne is cutting a wider swath as he cherry-picks from pop’s history. But no matter how similar his songs may seem to older ones, Hawthorne gives each of them something new that elevates them beyond the limits of genre navelgazing. It’s not just Snoop Dogg’s guest spot on “Can’t Stop” that distinguishes his seduction song from what might otherwise be some Curtis Mayfield knockoff, it’s that he enlisted the rapper just to sing – and that the two of them successfully construct an epic, intense love jam that could stand up just as well three decades ago as it does today....full text |
| Slantmagazine |
| Mayer Hawthorne's middling debut album, A Strange Arrangement, garnered some high-profile celebrity fans, among them Justin Timberlake and Kanye West, and that friends-in-high-places platform contributed to a major-label contract with Universal for his follow-up, How Do You Do. Hawthorne puts a bigger recording budget to fairly good use over the course of the album: The musicianship is simply flawless in recreating a '70s-era R&B groove, but the slick production sounds contemporary. Hawthorne's jump to the big leagues gives him new ways to highlight the things he does well, but unfortunately, it doesn't keep the same problems that marred A Strange Arrangement from doing the same to How Do You Do. Hawthorne clearly understands the nuances of the vintage R&B sides from which he draws his primary influences. On songs like "Dreaming" and "Hooked," he's able to strike the same balance singers like Isaac Hayes and Al Green did, between playing a hard-up lothario and guy-next-door approachability. It's a matter of tone, and Hawthorne's songwriting and persona on How Do You Do consistently draw favorable comparisons to the great soul singers of the past rather than coming off like a vile, aggressive misogynist the way modern R&B singers like Chris Brown and Mike Posner so often do. That isn't to say that Hawthorne is exclusively a throwback. His point of view is decidedly modern. "The Walk" sounds like a gentle, Smokey Robinson-style come-on, but Hawthorne cleverly subverts expectations by turning the song into a effective kiss-off, and "The News" takes a similar approach, using a deceptively upbeat arrangement that includes a catchy bassline, a toy piano, and a jaunty horn section to announce a breakup. Though it's clear that his affection for this style of R&B is sincere, Hawthorne is also willing to incorporate a substantial degree of irony into his production. To that end, How Do You Do works as more than just a rote exercise in genre history. The vintage influence on songs like "You're Not Ready" is obvious, but it's not like Hawthorne's modern POV is limited to Snoop Dogg's awful guest verse on "Can't Stop." Like on A Strange Arrangement, the songs and the production on How Do You Do rival those of any contemporary R&B album. But Hawthorne's technically poor voice too often makes it a difficult listen. Though he doesn't sound as consistently off-key as he did on his debut, Hawthorne's shaky sense of pitch is a serious liability. He's noticeably flat for the entirety of "Can't Stop," and he misses the high notes that would otherwise distinguish the melody of "Hooked." His wafer-thin falsetto isn't strong enough to carry the backing vocals on "Dreaming," let alone the lead vocal track on a song like "Get to Know You." It's a shame, really, that Hawthorne just doesn't have the vocal chops to pull off an otherwise solid album. Next time out, he may want to make use of Auto-Tune....full text |
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