When it comes to Maroon 5’s breakout opus, Songs About Jane, “This Love” gets most of the love (and deservedly so), but let’s not overlook the album’s fourth single “Sunday Morning” which was just as good of a grab. With it’s lightly skittering drums, blissful piano work and out-of-nowhere mini jam breakdown, the record summed up the band’s soul-influenced pop-rock grandly (and don’t act you still don’t get all warm inside once Levine’s catchy chorus hits the ears).
For Maroon’s new set Call & Response: The Remix Album, the ‘04 hit achieves a new level of magnetism thanks to the input of The Roots’ Questlove. Here, hip hop’s most recognizable drummer inverts the piano chords, edging them with somber electric guitar accents, and trades in the jam bit for a sad-eyed, string-lined bridge probably born out of his obsessive studying of old Al Green records. Quest has ultimately muted the sunny vibrancy of the original, but by shading the record in this downbeat melancholia (perhaps a more fitting nod to the soggy imagery the title typically brings to mind), the lyrics’ bittersweet reflection of long-lost romance (and Adam’s throat-straining yelps at the end) take on a deeper emotional heft.
It didn’t take long for Adam Levine & Co. to reclaim their perch at the forefront of Top 40 with their hooky chart topper “Makes Me Wonder”, a slick “This Love” re-write that nailed their now distinctive blend of soul and pop/ rock. On new single, “Wake Up Call”, Maroon 5 remain true to their signature style but amp up the drama with a big screen-worthy infidelity/ murder scenario that has the potential to pull out a crazy music video.
Love can bring out the worst in people and it seems underneath his newly dapper look, Levine is a homicidal maniac just waiting to be pushed. Not too long after giving his lover the cold warning “I’m not kind if you betray me”, Levine is forced into action after catching her sleeping with another man in their bed. “Six foot tall/ Came without a warning/ So I had to shoot him dead,” Levine matter-of-factly emotes on the hook, satisfied with the sinister assurance that “he won’t come around here anymore”. As the narrative unfolds, the band joyfully play into Adam’s perverse id, pulling off another jubilant, guitar groove that bears a slight island tinge. Even when his icy demeanor melts away into horrified regret (“What was I thinking?/ Is his heart still beating?”), the festive arrangement doesn’t let up, the band now seemingly mocking the grim situation his crazed jealousy has put him in like popcorn chewing movie-goers excited by the sadistic twist.
Save for cartoonish rap hyperbole or the occasional Macy Gray song, murder rarely sounds this fun, leave it to the sticky hooks of Maroon 5 to have you celebrating someone’s death all summer.
Back when Maroon 5 ruled the world as “This Love” was hitting it’s peak, the light bulb must’ve clicked in everyone in favor’s head: we’ve been without something as unashamedly hokey, yet blissfully soulful and infectious as Hall & Oates for a very long time! In it’s wake, the band formerly known as Kara’s Flowers picked up a Grammy and became Black people’s token fave White act. Meanwhile frontman Adam Levine made Kanye West’s Buddy List and became a quick-rising tabloid fixture, romantically associated with nearly every celebrity beauty he happened to be photogged alongside.
But even if Maroon 5 scratched an itch we didn’t realize we had, no one was dying to see what the group could pull out next. “This Love” and “Sunday Morning” remain great pop nuggets to karaoke to and that’s all that was truly needed from them. Hearing them try to reconfigure that formula on new material was a unappealing ideal that needn’t even be attempted. Of course, few really believed Maroon 5 would just fade away so we get a new album, It Won’t Be Soon Before Long, to look forward to and a lead single that does what many expected it would.
Another piano-based rock and b number, “Makes Me Wonder” obviously wants to have the same aspirations “This Love” had, and while it holds up as a decent copy, it lacks the “new interesting band” aroma it’s predecessor cradled. Success has made the new single feel too labored and all-pleasing. No longer the fresh-faced lead singer with the golden vocals, Levine tries a little too hard to sound good. His delivery runs the gamut from faux-grit to falsetto sublime and is distracting, especially when backed by a charged groove already jumbled by too many layers.
The lyrics confusingly compile intimate thoughts (“Struggled to memorize/ The way it felt between your thighs”) with an irritated political undertone (“Give me something to believe in/ Cause I don’t believe in you anymore”) and the aspirations are so obvious the joy is quickly sucked away. Even worse the feeling easily emerges when you can’t stop humming the hook that they will probably earn major radio points with this one. That’s when the sucky realization hits that we do still need the Hall & Oates sound in our lives.
“Makes Me Wonder” might not hold the lasting longevity of Maroon 5’s previous hits but you’re forced to begrudgingly admit that the band do work their niche well. Oh well, looks like we’ll have to just suck it up and sing a long, cause it looks like they won’t be dying away anytime soon.
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When it comes to Maroon 5’s breakout opus, Songs About Jane, “This Love” gets most of the love (and deservedly so), but let’s not overlook the album’s fourth single “Sunday Morning” which was just as good of a grab. With it’s lightly skittering drums, blissful piano work and out-of-nowhere mini jam breakdown, the record summed up the band’s soul-influenced pop-rock grandly (and don’t act you still don’t get all warm inside once Levine’s catchy chorus hits the ears).
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