The arrangements, which are reminiscent of the deft pop of Elvis Costello and the Police, are built around Mayer’s guitar but make free use of a rhythm section and keyboards.

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Room for Squares proved to be a well-timed album, quietly heralding the end of teen pop's glory days with clever wordplay, savvy chord progressions, and mature songwriting.

The end result is a complete package of infectious tunes ripe with moving vocals and nakedly honest sentiment. This remarkable effort signifies Mayer as the genuine article: a pop recording artist certain to achieve recording popularity.

John Mayer capably straddles the funk and folk camps on his major-label debut. With lovely acoustic rock tunes that draw on the jazzy flavour of the album's namesake (Hank Mobley's No Room For Squares).

Room for Squares, for all of its baggage, remains a little guitar-pop utopia where it’s OK to keep discovering ourselves as we go along.

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Pinball Gizzard

John Mayer is a huge staple on my childhood, and when I think back to when I was 5 or 6 all I can hear as background music is this album. Sure, it may serve as nostlagia and happy times for me, but this is still a solid pop rock album with some excellent guitar playing.

Bob_Runkel

In second grade I guess I had just bought John Mayer's first album Room For Squares one weekend, and brought it into school the following Monday. The teacher looks at the tracklisting
Teacher: (reading) My..... Stupid Mouth? Bobby, Aren't you too young for songs like that?
Me: VH1 taught me. I like COOL music.
I still stand by this. Great debut release.

5mo

KingIsCole10

I know this album isn't exceptional, I'm gonna guess most wouldn't call this album anything special but come on... This is amazing. John is obviously an insanely good guitar player and his vocals are really good. Yeah ok so maybe the lyrics are pretty corny and maybe not the best but with the energy that John brings it just works for me. If Your Body Is a Wonderland wasn't on this album, I would actually consider giving this a 100. It's an album I just keep coming back to and I just don't seem ... read more

1mo

EXODust

I don’t like John Mayer. Outside of a few decent singles, and a slight appreciation for his talents, I never saw the appeal of his music outside of a boring white guy on guitar singing generic teenage love songs.