Saturday 21 June 2014

The Singles Collection: "Maps" by Maroon 5

So, we return to the realm of pop rock, in part because I didn't feel up to taking on the new DragonForce. Shame, as I had a really good gif I wanted to include in the review...actually, it would kind of work here, so I'll include it anyway. Can I have a chance to do a second intro?

...I can? Cheers!

*Clears throat*

Now, I'm sure a lot of people will be thinking "Really? You're doing this crap again?" Well, I did have something else that I wanted to look at (DragonForce's "The Game", which was released yesterday), but, uh...I think the badger sums up my thoughts on the song nicely.


Yeah...I wasn't especially fond of it.

So, rather than try to look at that, I figured it was time to give my ears a slightly less metallic listening experience. And, as luck would have it, Maroon 5 happened to step up to fill that spot very quickly indeed!

...Well, OK, "luck" might not be the best choice of word, considering my less-than-impressed reaction to Overexposed in my review of it (which you can read here, if you want to refresh your memory of it). But I was surprisingly curious to see where the band went after that album: after all, Overexposed was a commercial success despite the change in sound and generally mixed-to-negative reaction it got, so I figured it would actually be worth putting in the effort to see whether the band opted to continue with the sound of Overexposed or went back to their original sound.

Which option did they go? Well...neither and both, if that makes sense!

Anyway, let's dig in to this single.

As per usual, I'll allow you guys listen to this song before you jump into my thoughts on the song. So, here you go!


The first thing you'll notice is that the sound, as I mentioned earlier, is a mix of the band's more pop focused sound from Overexposed and their earlier sound. It's not got the darker vibes of stuff from Songs About Jane, but it otherwise could be fairly considered a middle ground between the two eras of the band. And, surprisingly, I actually kind of like this sound! Sure, it's undeniably more pop than rock when you compare it to, say, "She Will Be Loved", but I think they manage to balance the two sounds well enough that it's hard to really draw any major dislike of the song for that reason. It has a strong hook to it, which is really important for pop music, and builds up to sounding like a strong pop single, but the verses are not too far to the band's brand of pop rock. I could have done with more rock influence in the verses, but that's just my personal preference, being a bigger rock and metal fan than a pop fan: what the song does is still fine in itself. The song does have three credited outside writers, but I think that is more like what the band should have aimed to do with Overexposed, as the outside writers manage to help the band to find a great match for their two sounds without making the song sound like it was stitched together from two different songs. To reference my review of Overexposed for a few seconds, while Overexposed suffered from outside writers forcing their sound upon the band's music and not giving them space to really work around it, these outside writers complement Maroon 5's sound and let it grow while giving it the added pop touch to help make it...I hesitate to say "better", as that's ultimately a subjective point, but I think that the added pop touch in the chorus works rather well! It still doesn't completely sound like a band effort in the same way that their first three records did (it arguably still sounds like an Adam Levine solo record, just one with more of Maroon 5's sound in it), but you could feasibly imagine this as being something that is actually on a Maroon 5 album.

Lyrically, I think the song is OK. I'm not convinced that the sentiment behind the song is as strong as everyone else did while writing it (a map that leads directly to your lover? Erm...hate to point this out, but maps don't allow you to track people, they just give you an idea of the sounding area! Unless you have a huge X on top of the house where your lover lives on your map, there's no point in reading a map while trying to find your lover unless you're lost...in which case, I think that finding yourself would probably be a wiser idea than trying to find someone else!), but it's handled well enough that, aside from the obvious point I've raised, I have no real issues with them.

...What? There's really nothing else I can say without repeating myself: I still don't like Levine's singing voice much, everyone still doesn't sound like they're doing anything really distinctive outside of Levine (although their performances are definitely good), the production is fine (if still lacking a bit in the bass guitar)...I think most of what I've said in the past about Maroon 5 is still pretty much the same as I'd said in the Overexposed review, so, if you've read that, you know what I'm going to say already! If not...well, I've summed it up already for you!

So, would I say this is worth checking out? Well, if you like pop music, then it is worth a look at least, although you don't have to do this as you're probably going to be hearing it on the radio for the next few weeks anyway! If you like Maroon 5...I'd say it depends on whether you just want them to do the darker Songs About Jane sound or are happy with their other stuff: if you're the former, this won't appeal much, if you're the latter, this should be fine with you! If you don't like Maroon 5 or pop music, then this isn't going to win you over in the slightest, so you should stay clear.

Final Rating: 7 Out Of 10

A nice mixture of the band's well known sound and Overexposed, backed up with a strong chorus, but not really offering anything that will win over people who aren't fond of Maroon 5. This should be worth checking out if you're into pop music or Maroon 5's less dark sounding stuff. People who aren't interested in Maroon 5 and pop music won't be won over by this, though.

(Also, I would like to correct a mistake that I made in my review of Overexposed: it turns out that Jesse Carmichael was not actually involved in the recording of the album. Since I got rather annoyed about the keyboards and synths in my review of that and pointed some blame towards him, despite acknowledging that he might not have actually been on the album, I still feel I own Jesse an apology, as I was unfair towards him. So, if Jesse is reading this, please accept my apologies for being so rude about you in that review: I made a critical research failure and, through it, I unfairly pinned blame for my issues with the album on an innocent person. I would pass on the blame to PJ Morton, who DID play keyboards on the album, but I feel that I should be fair and let him off the hook on the grounds that he did not actually contribute to the songwriting for the album and, as such, was likely just playing what he was given to play.)

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