Music Review: John Mayer - The Search for Everything

The seven-time Grammy winner has done his best to deny that he’s still fixated on Katy Perry. “I wouldn’t say it started as a breakup record,” says Mayer, whose relationship with Perry ended in 2015. Yet most of the songs on this 12-cut compilation, which includes two four-track EPs released earlier this year plus four unreleased tracks, are full of longing. Asked point blank if one new number, the shimmering “Still Feel Like Your Man” was about Perry, Mayer answered “who else would I be thinking about?” The songs, mostly rock and blues ballads with a solitary country track, “Roll It on Home,” range from lovelorn (“You’re Gonna Live Forever in Me”) to heartbroken (“Never on the Day You Leave”). Even the gently funky “Moving On and Getting Over” doesn’t convince that he’s actually over it and moving on. But Mayer wears his heartache well and these sad songs are, for the most part, highly likeable.