6. Battle Studies (2009)
Best Track: Heartbreak Warfare Worst Track: All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye The album with the unlucky title as Mayers weakest piece of work would have to go to his fourth studio album, Battle Studies, released in 2009. By the time the album was starting to get some hype Mayer had already released three successful albums and was known as one of musics biggest stars of the era. Fair to say the album had some big expectations which to some degree could have been a bit unfair, yet people were asking for a lot and expected results but it seemed the album just didnt deliver. Battle Studies did have some memorable tracks and to the day still remain some of Mayers best work. The best song being Heartbreak Warfare the opening track which laid down a nice mix of blues and soft rock to set the tone for the album as a whole, giving it the best possible start. While the other most notable hit was Half of my Heart featuring former flame Taylor Swift, showed a different side to Mayer and his music giving it a more pop rock sound that is often unseen since his early days. Both singles performed well on the charts with Edge of Desire, War of my Life and Who Says the other more successful and well-loved songs to come from Battle Studies. While the album as a whole was a success debuting at Number 1 and going on to sell over 880,000 copies, Battle Studies at times seem to lack direction and even though it did produce some great material, it was not up there with Mayers previous efforts making the album fall short of expectations. It is not a terrible album not by any means, neither is it an amazing album. With songs likes All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye and the cover of Crossroads slipping from memory quite quickly and really as a whole not giving us what we thought we had coming. Despite its best attempts Battle Studies underperformed and underachieved as the Mayer album we all thought was going to be better than all the rest, not a total mess and still a good album but there are better options, about 5 better options.