Above all, Mayer said his present-day happiness could be traced to his no longer needing the self-affirming embrace of a mainstream pop audience. “I kind of detached from this IV of needing a certain kind of Number One-ness,” Mayer offered. “And that’s really important you come off it before someone takes it out of you. Because I see artists who are still dependent on Number One-ness. And to me the biggest crime in a way is that they don’t need that anymore. Once you’re so good and once you’ve had enough Number Ones you don’t need to go for Number One again. I feel bad for people sometimes who don’t know there’s life outside of scrambling for Number One. It’s like, no; you have all this power now. You don’t need to go for Number One. You get to go do whenever you want now and people will follow you.