Remember when Maroon 5 used to put out actual quality music?
In February 2005 the music industry rewarded Maroon 5 by presenting them with a Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Their album “Songs about Jane” certainly shot them to superstardom with songs like “She Will Be Loved”, “This Love” and “Harder to Breathe”. On their 2007 release, “It Won’t be Soon Before Long” it included the massive hit, “Won’t Go Home Without You.” They were certainly on top of their game and had decent radioplay and significant airtime on MTV. They were respectable artists with a great sound that combined whimsical lyrics with melancholy undertones. They could be categorized as more of a soft rock band on, “Songs about Jane”. No one could deny that Maroon 5 was certainly a well-rounded band with a clear vision. So how did it get so blurry?
The release of their 2010 album “Hands All Over” marked their first full step into a strictly pop sound. The single, “Moves like Jagger” featuring Christina Aguilera was a huge success, staying 49 weeks on the chart and hitting the number one position on the Billboard hot 100. After this massive hit, I feel like Maroon 5 gathered the tools for success on the radio and applied it to all their projects after that. A catchy chorus, another popular artist to feature on the bridge, some form of whistling, and sticking to a tiresome beat that is played two to four times throughout the song. They have formulated the art of singing about a topic with some repetitive lyrics that brush the subject but don’t say anything too deep. It is structured to get stuck in your head, but the catchiness does not hide the poor content.
This was solidified with their 2012 release “Payphone” on their album, “Overexposed”, which kind of has the same exact layout as “Moves Like Jagger”:
Also, notice the similarities in their 2014 release, “Animals” on their album “V”:
Their latest single, “Don’t Wanna Know” Feat. Kendrick Lamar really highlights all the problems of pop music today, and really shows that Maroon 5 is not hiding the fact that they are using the same basic formula to gain airplay.
Although they have been on the radio for a long time, their legacy will not stay. They have had three number one hits, 13 top 10 hits and 28 songs on the Billboard top 100, but they lack the authenticity they started out with. It just doesn’t seem like it is earned when they have moved so far away from their original image and message. I do not see the entertainment quality of repeating a chorus a thousand times and the same basic phrase over and over again.
It seems like the Adam Levine show at this point, which makes me wonder why they even keep the title of Maroon 5 when their first album and latest album sound nothing alike. We will never get back the Maroon 5 we knew and loved because they are making an extreme amount of money. I would say that they are the dictionary definition of a “sell-out.” They sold their soul to the radio, and they are not coming back but instead going to release another pop garbage single that will follow all the cliches, which will get airtime just from the comfortability and repetition of the standards of “popular” music. I understand that bands grow, change and experiment with their sound, but this seems like Maroon 5 has hidden motives, rather than just evolving as an artist. Being a fan of Maroon 5 has been disappointing as we watched them dissolve into puppets of the machine.
