I’ve been through a lot listening to John Mayer. He’s one of those artists that I can say not only have I seen grown and become more dynamic, but I can also identify my growth and dynamism with his path as an artist.

I eagerly await the arrival of the new album next week. It can already be streamed from Rhapsody, and I started to listen to the first track, but I felt like I was being unfaithful to the process. When it’s a new artist that I don’t have a lot of history with, I feel just fine getting a teaser stream of the album. But, with John, I want to get the album and listen to it once straight through in full quality.

I feel I owe that to artists that I truly follow, obeying the process, trusting the artist. John is one of the few I can classify as such.

One of the things that truly has made this time leading up to this album more personable has been following John’s tweets (@johncmayer). He has been painstaking about artistic transparency on this record. He’s done a wonderful job with it; it doesn’t feel anything like voyeurism or crowdsourcing. It’s just open honesty about what he’s doing with the album from writing to tracking to pressing. I’ve had the opportunity to see it all for an artist that I truly admire in so many ways.

As it goes, I don’t condone everything he’s done, but I don’t have to. He hasn’t done it for me or for any of his other millions of fans. He’s done it for himself, and he’s been up-front about it the whole time.

With all of that said, here’s the video for his first single, called “Who Says,” off the new album, “Battle Studies.”