On the turntable this Sunday...Continuum

Continuum is the third studio album by American musician John Mayer, released September 12, 2006 on Columbia Records. Recording sessions for the album took place during November 2005 to September 2006 at The Village Recorder in Los Angeles, California, Avatar Studios and Right Track/Sound on Sound in New York City, and Royal Studios in Memphis, Tennessee.^[4] Production was handled primarily by Mayer and Steve Jordan. It marked a change in Mayer's musical style, and incorporated musical elements of blues and soul more heavily than in his previous work with pop-rock.

The album debuted at number 2 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 300,186 copies in its first week. It also reached the top-ten in several other countries and sold over 3 million copies worldwide. Upon its release, Continuum received generally positive reviews from most music critics and earned Mayer several accolades, including a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 49th Grammy Awards. Rolling Stone magazine named it the eleventh best album of 2006.

Mayer made the decision to name his third album Continuum at least a year before the album was released. In his column in the April 2005 issue of Esquire, Mayer wrote, "I'm obsessed with time lately, constantly crunching the numbers to get some sense of where I stand in the continuum." In his column in the September 2005 issue of Esquire he confirmed the title, writing, "I've never experienced anything like the recording process involved in making Continuum, my third-album-to-be.

The album features mainly new songs, though "Gravity" and "Vultures" are available in live versions from John Mayer Trio's Try!, and "Bold as Love", which is a Jimi Hendrix cover: the first Hendrix cover that Mayer has ever recorded as a studio release (although Mayer has recorded other Hendrix songs over time in live settings such as "The Wind Cries Mary" and "Wait Until Tomorrow"). (Mayer had played "Bold as Love" live many times prior to the release of Continuum such as on the televised Tsunami Aid: A Concert of Hope which aired on January 15, 2005.) The album contains a collaboration between Mayer and 8-string guitarist Charlie Hunter on the tune "In Repair". The song "Stop this Train" was written during a time of, what Mayer calls, "solitary refinement;" He was in bed suffering from double kidney stones, and living in a hotel while finding a new residence. 

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