John Mayer's new album for 2012 'Born and Raised' has topped the Billboard 200 chart for a second successive week, though it's probably no consolation to the blues musician, who says he feels "humiliated" by his ex-girlfriend, the country star Taylor Swift.
The rocker's latest effort sold an additional 65,000 copies this week - a healthy figure that has seen him hold off Adele and One Direction, as well as new releases from Regina Spektor, Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros and Sigur Ros. Interestingly, One Direction's DVD release 'Up All Night: The Live Tour' outsold Mayer, selling 76,000 copies, though it obviously doesn't qualify for the album chart. As Yahoo's Paul Grein noted, it marks the first time in history that the No.1 music DVD release has outsold the No.1 album. However, Mayer isn't having the best time of things lately - telling Rolling Stone that he was left "humiliated" by the song 'Dear John', written by his former flame Taylor Swift about their time together. The song featured the lyrics, "Dear John, I see it all, now it was wrong. Don't you think 19 is too young to be played by your dark twisted games, when I loved you so?", and Mayer told the magazine, "It made me feel terrible.I was really caught off-guard, and it really humiliated me at a time when I'd already been dressed down".
Mayer said he had no prior warning that Taylor was planning on writing the song, and only learned about her feelings when he heard it. Clearly still annoyed by the track's release, he commented, "I will say as a songwriter that I think it's kind of cheap songwriting".