Maroon 5 "Overexposed" Album Review

In the spirit of today being the release of Maroon 5's 4th album Overexposed I thought it was fitting to give my thoughts on a band I can still remember first hearing way back when they released Songs About Jane. Neither of their following albums really reached the heights of Songs About Jane but what Maroon 5 have always been able to do is adapt their style to appeal to whatever sound is 'current' and popular with the masses at that particular moment.

Overexposed hits exactly at just that with it's strong pop and disco/dance vibe. Normally that is not what I listen to but there is just something about Maroon 5 and Adam Levine's vocals in particular which keep me coming back for more and at the same time hoping for better. Adapting their style is what has kept them successful but with that any uniqueness that glimmered from them has slowly dimmed to nothing following their initial success. They are now just simply a measure of what modern pop music currently sounds like.

Tracks

1. One More Night
2. Payphone
3. Daylight
4. Lucky Strike
5. The Man Who Never Lied
6. Love Somebody
7. Ladykiller
8. Fortune Teller
9. Sad
10. Tickets
11. Doin' Dirt
12. Beautiful Goodbye
13. Moves Like Jagger

For the reasons above and for the first time ever with Maroon 5, I have found it extremely difficult to pick out any standout songs. 'One More Night', their next single, is the type of repetitive pop song which will ensure it some commercial chart success but will also ensure it be completely forgotten in a few months. The success of their current single 'Payfone', another typical pop song of the moment, containing a segment from a guest rapper (Wiz Khalifa) is a clear demonstration of what the necessary ingredients, in general, of chart success are at the moment: repetition, repetition, repetition oh and the obligatory random guest rapper.(Obviously there have been some exceptions such as Adele or Ed Sheeran but they are RARE)

All that aside, the main issue I personally had was keeping my attention focused on each track. The main reason for that has to be that most of the tracks were just too similar to each other. The only tracks which stood out to me were 'Sad' and 'Beautiful Goodbye', which had quite a prominent bass riff throughout.

I think my fairly negative review is due to the fact that I am not interested in whether a song sounds 'current', I just like because I like! The other main issue is the general lack of soul in this album compared to their previous. I am always looking for Maroon 5 to be what they were for me when I obsessed about Songs About Jane at age 12 and 13 but unfortunately I think it's about time I accept that will never be and appreciate them as they are now.

6/10

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Emma x