Room for Squares

Room for Squares is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter and guitarist John Mayer, originally released on June 5, 2001, and re-released on September 18, 2001, by both Aware and Columbia Records. Upon its release, it peaked at number 8 on the US Billboard 200 and received generally positive reviews from critics. It earned Mayer a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for the single "Your Body Is a Wonderland".

Room for Squares
Studio album by
John Mayer
ReleasedJune 5, 2001
September 18, 2001 (Columbia)
Studio
  • Loho (New York, NY)
  • Sunny Acre (Easton, MD)
  • 33 & 1/3 (Brooklyn, NY)
Genre
Length54:14
Label
ProducerJohn Alagia
John Mayer chronology
Inside Wants Out
(1999)		 Room for Squares
(2001)		 Heavier Things
(2003)
Singles from Room for Squares
  1. "No Such Thing"
    Released: February 18, 2002
  2. "Your Body Is a Wonderland"
    Released: October 14, 2002
  3. "Why Georgia"
    Released: April 29, 2003

Room for Squares is Mayer's best-selling album to date, having sold over 4,484,000 copies in the United States as of July 2014.[2]

Background

The album's title is a reference to Hank Mobley's No Room for Squares album.[3] All songs from the album are written by Mayer; three songs, "No Such Thing", "Neon", and "Love Song for No One", were co-written with Clay Cook. The first two of these, along with "My Stupid Mouth" and "Back to You", originally appeared on Mayer's 1999 EP Inside Wants Out. The songs are largely based on Mayer's personal experiences.[4]

Through constant shows, including in the Atlanta-area Eddie's Attic, Mayer's reputation began to build. In March, an acquaintance of Mayer's, a lawyer, sent an EP to Gregg Latterman at Aware Records.[5][6] After including him in the Aware Festival concerts and having his songs included on Aware compilations, in early 2001, Aware released Room for Squares as an internet-only album. During that time, Aware signed a deal with Columbia Records that gave Columbia first pick in signing Aware artists, and so in September 2001, Columbia remixed and re-released Room for Squares.[7] As part of the major label "debut", the album's artwork was updated, and the track "3x5" was added, which did not appear on the original as the recording was not yet complete at the time. The re-release included reworked studio versions of the first four songs from his indie album, Inside Wants Out.[8] The cover art for the most recent release of Room for Squares features a periodic table design beginning from the back cover which continues to the front cover, ending at the right-side.

The album was relatively unknown at its time of release, but it became more well known through word of mouth and John's touring,[4] and reached number one Billboard's Heatseekers chart by March 2002.[9] By the end of that year, Room for Squares had spawned several radio hits, including "No Such Thing", "Your Body Is a Wonderland", and ultimately, "Why Georgia" (a radio-only single).

Reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
Blender[10]
The Boston Phoenix[11]
Christgau's Consumer Guide(1-star Honorable Mention)[12]
Now4/5[13]
Pitchfork7.8/10[14]
Rolling Stone[3]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[15]
Slant Magazine[16]
Stylus MagazineB[17]

By April 2002, Room for Squares had seen increases in eight of the previous nine weeks, earning the Billboard 200's Greatest Gainer (from number 82 to 56)—a 36 percent surge.[18] The increase was attributed to combination of a March performance of The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and the radio-and-retail campaign launched in more than 10 markets where Mayer was receiving airplay.[18] It reached number seven on Billboard's Top Pop Catalog.[19] A steady seller, the album was certified platinum despite never being a top-ten hit.[20]

Anthony DeCurtis for Rolling Stone gave the album four out of five stars, calling it "irresistible".[3] PopMatters gave an unfavorable review, saying "It doesn't offend, nor does it attempt to make itself too exciting for the most part."[21] Robert Christgau said that composition lyrics like "She keeps a toothbrush at my place/As if I had the extra space" on "City Love" are an improvement over Norah Jones.[12]

By the end of 2002, Room for Squares had spawned several radio hits, including, "No Such Thing", "Your Body Is a Wonderland", and, ultimately, "Why Georgia", which was released as a CD single six weeks before the follow-up album, Heavier Things, was released in 2003.

In 2003, Mayer won a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for "Your Body Is a Wonderland". In his acceptance speech he remarked, “This is very, very fast, and I promise to catch up.”[22] He referred to himself as being sixteen, a remark that many mistook to mean that he was only sixteen years old at the time.[23]

Track listings

All tracks are written by John Mayer, except where noted

Original version (AWA 110)
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."No Such Thing"Mayer, Clay Cook3:51
2."Why Georgia" 4:30
3."My Stupid Mouth" 3:47
4."Your Body Is a Wonderland" 4:08
5."Neon"Mayer, Cook4:23
6."City Love" 4:03
7."83" 4:55
8."Love Song for No One"Mayer, Cook3:24
9."Back to You" 4:04
10."Great Indoors" 3:36
11."Not Myself" 3:39
12."St. Patrick's Day" 5:20
Total length:49:47
Columbia re-release (CK 85293)
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."No Such Thing"Mayer, Cook3:51
2."Why Georgia" 4:28
3."My Stupid Mouth" 3:45
4."Your Body Is a Wonderland" 4:09
5."Neon"Mayer, Cook4:22
6."City Love" 4:00
7."83" 4:50
8."3×5" 4:50
9."Love Song for No One"Mayer, Cook3:21
10."Back to You" 4:01
11."Great Indoors" 3:36
12."Not Myself" 3:40
13."St. Patrick's Day" 5:21
Total length:54:19

Note: On the Columbia re-release, "St. Patrick's Day" is consistently listed as track 14; track 13 is an unlisted song with a duration of 0:04, and sometimes even 0:00.

United States Columbia bonus disc with VCD bonus video (An Intimate Session With John Mayer)
No.TitleLength
1."EPK An Intimate Session with John Mayer (video)"6:15
2."Back to You" (acoustic) 
3."No Such Thing" (acoustic) 
4."Lenny" (live) 
5."The Wind Cries Mary" (The Jimi Hendrix Experience cover live at the X Lounge) 

Alternative covers

The album's cover for its initially planned June 2001 release in the United States and its Japan release had alternative covers.

  • Original release cover art
    Original release cover art
  • Japanese release cover art
    Japanese release cover art

Personnel

All track numbers correlate with those on the Columbia release of the album.

Musicians

Production

Charts

Certifications
Region CertificationCertified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[38] 3× Platinum 210,000^
Canada (Music Canada)[39] 2× Platinum 200,000‡
New Zealand (RMNZ)[40] Platinum 15,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[41] Silver 60,000*
United States (RIAA)[42] 5× Platinum 5,000,000‡

* Sales figures based on certification alone.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

References
  1. Leahey, Andrew. "Room for Squares – John Mayer". AllMusic. Retrieved December 29, 2009.
  2. Grein, Paul (July 8, 2014). "USA: Top 20 New Acts Since 2000". Yahoo! Music.
  3. DeCurtis, Anthony (December 6, 2001). "Room For Squares". Rolling Stone (883–884): 152. Retrieved December 29, 2009.
  4. Newman, Melinda (November 24, 2001), "Mayer Proves He's No 'Square' With Release Of Aware/Columbia Disc". Billboard. 113 (47):14
  5. Wood, Mikael (March 28, 2002). "Room at the Top". The Dallas Observer. Retrieved 22 December 2017. I met a great lawyer who was willing to promote me. He sent out my records to labels, and Aware was one of his first ideas. He knew my music well enough to know it was gonna take a smaller label to do it, and he was right. Aware was the label.
  6. Proefrock, Stacia (2005). "Biography" AllMusicGuide.com. Retrieved on April 23, 2007.
  7. No byline. "A Brief History" AwareRecords.com. Retrieved on June 12, 2007.
  8. Back, Alan (2001). "John Mayer carves out his own niche with national debut album" Archived 2005-10-27 at the Wayback Machine Nique.net. Retrieved on June 22, 2007.
  9. Hay, Carla (April 6, 2002), "Aware/Columbia's John Mayer Makes 'Room For Squares' A Hit". Billboard. 114 (14):22
  10. Powers, Ann. "John Mayer: Room for Squares". Blender. Archived from the original on December 13, 2004. Retrieved December 29, 2009.
  11. Wood, Mikael (February 21–28, 2002). "John Mayer: Room for Squares (Aware/Columbia)". The Boston Phoenix. Archived from the original on February 2, 2010. Retrieved December 29, 2009.
  12. Christgau, Robert. "John Mayer: Room for Squares". RobertChristgau.com. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  13. Liss, Sarah (February 14, 2002). "John Mayer". Now. Retrieved November 17, 2018.
  14. Hogan, Marc (October 6, 2019). "John Mayer: Room for Squares". Pitchfork. Retrieved October 6, 2019.
  15. Sarig, Roni (2004). "John Mayer". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 522–23. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  16. Blanford, Roxanne (September 18, 2001). "John Mayer: Room for Squares". Slant Magazine. Retrieved December 29, 2009.
  17. Blanford, Roxanne (September 1, 2003). "John Mayer – Room for Squares – Review". Stylus Magazine. Archived from the original on January 9, 2016. Retrieved December 29, 2009.
  18. Mayfield, Geoff (April 6, 2002), "Over the Country". Billboard. 114 (14):71
  19. (April 3, 2004), "TOP POP CATALOG". Billboard. 116 (14):79
  20. Willman, Chris (August 9, 2002), "Meet John Dough". Entertainment Weekly. (666):36
  21. Thompson, Jason (2001-09-17). "John Mayer: Room for Squares". PopMatters. Retrieved on 2009-12-29.
  22. Bream, Jon (2007). "Win or lose, John Mayer says his work keeps him happy" Star-Ecentral.com. Retrieved on April 23, 2007.
  23. Serpick, Evan (February 2007), "Grammy Preview: John Mayer", Rolling Stone Volume unknown: 32
  24. "Australiancharts.com – John Mayer – Room for Squares". Hung Medien. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  25. "John Mayer Chart History (Canadian Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  26. "Offiziellecharts.de – John Mayer – Room for Squares" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  27. "Charts.nz – John Mayer – Room for Squares". Hung Medien. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  28. "Chart Log UK 1994–2010: M – My Vitriol". zobbel.de. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  29. "John Mayer Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  30. "Top 200 Albums of 2002 (based on sales)". Jam!. Archived from the original on September 6, 2004. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
  31. "Canada's Top 200 Alternative albums of 2002". Jam!. Archived from the original on December 4, 2003. Retrieved March 26, 2022.
  32. "Billboard 200 Albums – Year-End 2002". Billboard. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  33. "Top 50 Global Best Selling Albums for 2002" (PDF). IFPI. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 17, 2008. Retrieved February 3, 2023.
  34. "ARIA Top 100 Albums for 2003". Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved October 21, 2020.
  35. "Top Selling Albums of 2003". Recorded Music NZ. Retrieved August 21, 2021.
  36. "Billboard 200 Albums – Year-End 2003". Billboard. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  37. "The Decade in Music – Charts – Top Billboard 200 Albums" (PDF). Billboard. Vol. 121, no. 50. December 19, 2009. p. 164. Retrieved January 11, 2022 – via World Radio History. Digit page 168 on the PDF archive.
  38. "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2004 Albums" (PDF). Australian Recording Industry Association.
  39. "Canadian album certifications – John Mayer – Room for Squares". Music Canada. Retrieved July 19, 2023.
  40. "New Zealand album certifications – John Mayer – Room for Squares". Recorded Music NZ. Retrieved January 14, 2022.
  41. "British album certifications – John Mayer – Room for Squares". British Phonographic Industry.
  42. "American album certifications – John Mayer – Room for Squares". Recording Industry Association of America. February 25, 2021.
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