Album review: Maroon 5 - Overexposed

By Colin Somerville
Published on 24/06/2012 00:00

“One more stupid love song and I’ll be sick,” deadpans Adam Levine, without irony, on Maroon 5’s new album. Sharing a vocal quirk or two with Colin Hay of Men At Work is but one of his paucity of charms, as his anonymous band abandon the last album’s aspirations towards adult rock credibility.

This time they’ve gone with producer Max Martin, concocting a collection akin to being strapped in a chair to endure an entire series of American Idol.

Daylight does that old slow-to-fast transition that worked for Katy Perry on Firework, adding the tiniest dash of Baba O’Riley. One More Night ticks all the desperately forlorn pop boxes, as does Daylight, which just screams out for Robert Pattinson to star in the video.

The cod reggae stream which runs throughout is so ineffectual it makes Sting and Stewart Copeland sound like Sly And Robbie. “She’s in it just to win it” on Ladykiller is a good example of the album’s lyrical complexity, but as someone once said, no one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the general public. Until that happens there is no deterrent, and people will continue to offend by being inoffensive. Maroon 5 clearly have the ability to stimulate but this album just smugly patronises.

**

Polydor, £12.99

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