John Mayer Speaks For His Generation

(CBS)  In 2002, John Mayer descended on his public with a rush. He topped the charts with "Your Body Is a Wonderland" and "No Such Thing." Since then he has charmed the music industry with vibrant sales and audiences and critics have embraced him.

Mayer has sold 8 million records and won three Grammys. This year he was nominated for five more. His style floats between lover-boy pop and guitar-driven rhythm-and-blues and he's wooed the hearts of young women, including pop-star Jessica Simpson, who he has been linked to recently. But at the age of 29, Mayer and his music are growing up.

"The more I grow up inside the more frightened I get, actually," he told E! Entertainment news anchor and The Early Show special contributor Giuliana Depandi . "I have to live up to this music, and I can't go on stage anymore and just dilly-dally through it."

Even a star as big as Mayer gets a case of the nerves before he goes on stage, but he said that somewhere during the show, that fear goes away and adrenaline kicks in.

"People say you should go on stage and play every show like it's your last, and that's just a little too morbid to me, so I always like to play every show like there's a really nice cheese tray waiting for me — a cheese tray or a plate of cookies," he said.

Mayer's album "Continuum," nominated for album of the year, is one-part tribute to old-school blues and one-part torment over lost love. But like he name suggests, it is all Mayer — a young voice in transition. The single, "Waiting on the World to Change," nominated for best male pop vocal performance, points starkly to the apathy of Mayer's own generation.

"I think there's a lot of kids watching TV going 'That sucks, oh that totally sucks,' but then there's this other voice that goes, 'What are you gonna do about it?' and then you say back to it: 'Nothin'. What's on E!?' " he said. "There's more of a conversation coming out of 'Waiting on the World to Change' than a song called 'We Got to Change the World'…The world needs someone to stand between Bono and Paris Hilton. And I want to be somewhere right in the middle."

Mayer struggles to stay grounded in a business that creates monsters every day.

"I got successful, I got happy, I got everything I've ever needed, at a very young age," he said. "Now it's about not losing it and not losing is so much less exciting than trying to get it."

Now with five potential Grammys at his feet, Mayer said he is both excited and nervous for his performance.

"Being there is exciting, playing there is nerve wracking," Mayer said. "If I could just go and hang out by the punch bowl, I would do that."

[parkinglot19]

John Mayer is a bright and gifted poet. Listen to his lyrics. They are full of internal rhyme, end rhyme, alliteration, sussuration, long vowels, metaphor, allusion, etc. His voice is a musical instrument in itself. He's the best rock and blues composer and musician in the U.S. today. Justin Timberlake is a piker, a pantywaist and a puke in comparison with John Mayer -- not in the same league. And his political songs are just fine with me. Shows depth of intellect.

[one_american]

John Mayer is an excellent singer/songwriter, and might very well have a life-long career at it.

If he's smart, and wants to hang on to what he has, he can avoid alienating half of his audience by staying out of political music.