10 Perfect Songs From Terrible Bands

John Mayer is probably one of the main reasons why good guitar music doesn't chart that much anymore. Fans may have been able to stand the post grunge and even tolerated some of the nu metal schlock, but there was a limit, and that was crossed when the college frat bro brand of rock and roll started to get time on the charts with songs like Daughters and Your Body is a Wonderland. If you look past all of those douchey qualities though, we had one of the greatest guitarists of our generation buried just underneath it all.

For all of the snark that he might cram into his lyrics, Continuum by John Mayer is one of the best pop albums to come out of the '00s, with Slow Dancing in a Burning Room being damn close to his masterpiece. Having already studied the guitar licks of people like Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan, you can hear John's subtle attention to detail even with the slightest string bend, making the guitar almost sound like it's crying during the solo sections of this song.

And while Wonderland might haunt people's dreams to this day, John actually has a more mature outlook on what love is about, depicting a relationship that's slowly falling apart, putting in slight jabs at his lover while also knowing that it's going to hurt like hell when he's left alone. You can call him a pretty boy if you want, and you can easily blame him for radio falling out of love with the guitar, but no musician can write a song like this unless they've put some real miles on their soul beforehand.