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Remember the guy from Sex and the City that hung around his dead wife’s grave, flashing pictures of her in his wallet and crying at the mention of her name to get girls to think he was emotional so they would sleep with him? That’s John Mayer. Remember how Charlotte totally fell for it, and then showed up to the memorial ceremony to find that there were a bunch of other women doing the exact same thing? That’s us.

I like John Mayer. I wish I didn’t, but really, I do. Well, I did. He’s great, in a cheese-ball-guitar-solo-face-adult-contemporary kind of way. His first two records were full of endearing singer-songwriter acoustic pop that was a little too easy to love. On Continuum, he incorporated more of his Jazz influence and expanded the subject matter of his songwriting beyond his Perpetually Pouty, Sensitive, Broken-hearted Boy act, and I liked it. A lot. Having said that (anyone sick of this yet?), I couldn’t even make it all the way through Battle Studies.

I shut the record off halfway through “Perfectly Lonely.” I had already thought about it a few times, but when Mayer sang, “I’m perfectly lonely/Cause I don’t belong to nobody/and nobody belongs to me,” I had had enough. Lyrically, more so than ever, Mayer is blatantly and shamelessly pandering to his young, female audience to the point of insult, and doing so with the most exhausted of lines. Rarely does a record make me go back and re-examine my favorable opinion of an artist’s older work, but this one does. It makes me question whether it’s always been this bad. It makes me question my judgment, frankly.

With the exception of his stab at Cream’s version of “Crossroads” (which is more unnecessary than anything else), and the only glimmer of sincerity on “Who Says,” Battle Studies is a bit too contrived, even for Mayer. It’s “Your Body is a Wonderland” on steroids. It’s Perpetually Pouty, Sensitive, Broken-hearted Boy to an unacceptable degree. It’s that really cute puppy-dog eyed guy in college that was so “open” and “in touch with his feelings” until he got you into bed – and then he never called you again. It’s Feel Bad For Me Jennifer Aniston Totally Broke My Heart Even Though I Enjoyed Spending More Time With My Twitter Account. Battle Studies is a douchebag.

As always, Mayer is channeling the classic songwriting of the Claptons and the McCartneys, but, for the first time in his career, falls embarrassingly short. There are a few toe-tappers here, and, well, that’s because it’s John Mayer. Dude has more Grammy nominations than Glen Ballard. He knows how to write solid pop melodies, record perfectly polished tracks, and, truth be told, plays a mean guitar. I could even forgive his increasing use of recycled, overdone arrangements (a part of me will always be rolling my eyes at “Say”. Yawn.), but I simply can’t stomach 45 minutes of this record’s overly cliched, saturated lyrical mushiness.

“I love you more than songs can say/But i can’t keep running after yesterday/Why you wanna break my heart again/Why am I gonna let you try/When all we ever do is say goodbye.” Yes, really, and that isn’t even the worst of it. “Half of My Heart” with Taylor Swift (yes, that Taylor Swift) laments, “Half of my heart’s got a right mind to tell you that I can’t keep lovin’ you with half of my heart.” Seriously, John? I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

“Disappointment has a name. It’s heartbreak.” LOL. IRL.