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BUY THE CD
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It appears as though Adam Levine is having problems with the ladies.
While Maroon 5’s Grammy-winning album Songs About Jane featured songs in a variety of styles—with, accordingly, a decent variety of lyrical topics—the band’s sophomore release, It Won’t Be Soon Before Long, tends to stick with one topic: relationships gone wrong. Poor Adam spends the entire album singing about either (a) the end of a dysfunctional relationship or (b) those devastatingly depressing days after she’s packed her bags and left. And despite the danceable, funky beats that fans have come to expect from the band, let’s face it—listening to song after song about bad relationships can bring you down, no matter how danceable the tune may be.
That’s not to say, though, that there aren’t some great songs on the new album. I found myself strangely drawn to the funky retro grooves on Maroon 5’s 2002 release—and I was happy to find that some things haven’t changed with the second album. In the beginning, in fact, it’s all good. If you liked the synthesized-disco-funk featured in some of the tracks on Songs About Jane, you’ll love the beginning of this album—especially the first four tracks (including the first single, “Makes Me Wonder”).
The influences on It Won’t Be Soon Before Long are pretty obvious. Just as I used to listen to Sarah McLachlan after a painful breakup, it’s pretty clear that Levine listens to The Police—because more than one song on the album sounds like a reworking of “Every Breath You Take.” But The Police aren’t the only ‘80s influence you’ll find on this album. Actually, the guys of Maroon 5 have a sneaky way of making you dig something that sounds frighteningly similar to the stuff you swore you’d never listen to again—stuff that you still pretend that you never listened to in the first place. For instance, there’s an awful lot of stuff that sounds like something Michael Jackson would have recorded back in the days when he still had his original nose. And every time I hear “Back at Your Door,” the final track on the album, I can’t help but think about Huey Lewis. And while I’ll play along with Maroon 5’s little scheme for now, as soon as Adam Levine starts telling me that I need to wear parachute pants again—or that I really should tuck-roll the bottom of my jeans—I’m putting my foot down.
Unfortunately, It Won’t Be Soon Before Long just doesn’t have the same edge as the last album. There just isn’t anything that really stands out here—nothing that’s really wow. And though the music is fun and often even catchy, once you start paying close attention, you’ll find that the lyrics are pretty immature—a mix of goofy innuendoes and the sappy, depressing stuff I would have lived for in high school (especially after some guy that I secretly had a crush on started seeing someone else). Overall, it’s a decent sophomore album, but it all starts to run together after a while. And due to the gloomy lyrics, I can’t recommend listening to it more than once at a time—unless you’ve got some Prozac handy.
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