Jack Johnson is a retired competitive surfer
living with his college sweetheart in Hawaii, but dude wants you to know he
still stresses. "I don't care for your paranoid us-against-them walls,"
he purrs over gentle calypso-rocksteady grooves on "My Mind Is for Sale";
"Fragments" is a wistful ballad for our befouled oceans (see his
documentary The Smog of the Sea). On an LP of quiet activism and love
songs, Johnson reboots the Zen-master delivery and swaying-palm-tree melodic
sense that made his Curious George soundtrack LP a Number One hit. It's
no less inviting, especially with a frozen cocktail. We all need to chill.
