Lopez Blogs

Lots of acts have a bunch of songs that seem to crop up on soundtracks, radio shows, b-sides, etc. that never fit in with albums. I always call them the extraneous tracks and thought I would spend this week tracking down some of those by my favourite acts, that have kept me going while waiting for new albums. Today, laid back troubadour Jason Mraz… this sometimes foxy young man certainly knows how to churn out additional tracks to keep his fans happy. Although he has only had two “full” albums out, there is enough material out there to make up at least a substantial covers ep... He did a great remix of Curbside Prophet on some Mary Kate and Ashley soundtrack and then hawked his wares to the Gap for their 2004 free cd. On it he did a fairly decent cover of One Love (Bob Marley) which suited his laid back faux reggae stylings nicely. One of my fave eighties songs Melt With You was mercifully not ruined when he covered that for Fifty First Dates. A simply swoony cover of Summer Breeze materialised a couple of years back and more recently Beauty in Ugly was released as a tribute to the increasingly over the top but always amazing Ugly Betty, and quite the decent little pop rock ditty it is too. While i was on holiday in Florida I came across a cd in target called Influences. Basically it was a collection of tracks by artists Jason likes and has been inspired by. More importantly tagged on the end of it was his very lovely, mostly acoustic version of the always slightly heartbreaking The Rainbow Connection. If you haven’t nipped to your local target to pick this up lately, then you really should because it’s a close to a hug from Jason as you are ever likely to get...