Essential Atlantic: Jason Mraz, WE SING, WE DANCE, WE STEAL THINGS

For the next several weeks (or maybe just until we decide that we want to stop doing it, since normalcy seems likely to remain on hiatus for the foreseeable future), Rhino.com will be spotlighting an album from the Atlantic Records discography that qualifies as “Essential.” And what rigorous standards and/or mathematical algorithm did we use to come up with the criteria to define “Essential,” you ask? None at all. You’ll just have to trust our instincts. But they’re really good, we swear...

After making his debut on Elektra Records with his 2002 album WAITING FOR MY ROCKET TO COME, Jason Mraz made the jump to Atlantic Records for his sophomore effort, 2005’s MR. A-Z, but given that it only went gold (as opposed to its predecessor, which went platinum), you can imagine that Atlantic was probably all, like, “This was a good idea, right?”

Right: when Mraz released his third album, WE SING, WE DANCE, WE STEAL THINGS in 2008, not only did it go platinum, but it ultimately did so three times over. Why did this album do so much better? Well, of course, it’s all down to the singles: the first one released was “I’m Yours,” and it’s actually now a diamond-selling single, which is crazy good, and the second one, “Lucky,” Mraz’s duet with Colbie Caillat, clearly got way more airplay that its chart status of #48 reveals, because it was virtually impossible to escape for awhile there.

Produced by Martin Terefe, WE SING, WE DANCE, WE STEAL THINGS quickly became Mraz’s highest-charting album up to that point, hitting #3 on the Billboard 200. Mind you, he’d soon top that with 2012’s LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD, but that’s a story for another piece...