"I see a sunset on the beach, yeah/It makes me feel calm," sings Jason Mraz on his new album. For Mraz, calm is the goal, of life and of music. Inspired, perhaps, by the massive success of his lite-reggae anthem "I'm Yours," he's added more world-music textures to his folk pop, and turned up the blissed-out vibes on Love Is a Four Letter Word. ("Living my life/Easy and breezy/Peace in my mind," he croons in "Living for the Moment.") He's a Gen-Y version of Jimmy Buffett, with booze and boats replaced by veganism and yoga. The album's epigram, in the liner notes, comes from Mr. Rogers, of children's-television fame, and it is not ironic.

Listen to "I Won't Give Up":

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• Photos: Random Notes

“He Will Break Your Heart”

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."