Cheap Love

Most people are aware of the daily "Gold Box" deals at Amazon.com. Occasionally, these deals are for MP3 album downloads; one such deal recently offered several bestselling albums of the year-to-date for just 99 cents a piece. And while current pop music isn't much my thing, I did find one selection I was willing to chance a buck on, the newest album from Jason Mraz, Love is a Four Letter Word.

I wouldn't call myself a "fan" of Jason Mraz, but I do have a sprinkling of his earlier music. The bulk of it borders too much on Easy Listening for me to get truly excited about it. However, some of his songs pick up the pace and serve up machine-gun-fire lyrics full of clever rhymes. I do enjoy listening to those tracks, for the way they really do require active listening to keep up.

Fortunately, I spent only a dollar on this new album. It skews heavily toward that sleepy, overly introspective (and phony feeling) material I don't like. Quiet percussion and soothingly strummed acoustic guitar chords dominate the songs -- though "dominate" seems like a far too active word to properly convey the laid back tone of the music.

There are a handful of tracks that step out a bit from the pack, but none that are likely to make it into regular rotation for me. "Everything Is Sound" is kind of schmaltzy but also fun, with an effective and bouncy melody that pulls you in. "Frank D. Fixer" has nice music, but is a drop in an ocean of love songs with on-the-nose "I wish I could fix you" lyrics.

This isn't an "I want my dollar back" situation, but I certainly feel like I should be warning people not to pay full price for this album unless they're die-hard Jason Mraz fans. (In which case, you must already have the album.) The two or three better tracks pull the whole up to maybe a C- average in my book, but that's certainly nothing to recommend.