M5+
here are my favorite Maroon 5 tracks, organized into an "album" of sorts. link to playlist in the comments. |
| 1 |  | Maroon 5
Hands All Over
"Stutter" - everyone who has a favorite pop artist has a song that they wish had been released as a single, and this is it for me. Fun, spunky, and satisfying in a way not much else on Hands was. |
| 2 |  | Maroon 5
It Won't Be Soon Before Long
"Makes Me Wonder"
They had already found their groove on Songs, but this stepped it up a notch. One of their best singles ever. |
| 3 | | Maroon 5
It Won't Be Soon Before Long
"Can't Stop"
Aggressive, cheesy, the kind of thing angry teenagers who know nothing about music would probably call punk, and one of the most "third track" songs I've ever heard for a song that isn't a third track. |
| 4 |  | Maroon 5
Songs About Jane
"Secret"
One of the most complex M5 songs in their discography, this is the one thing Songs did that It Won't couldn't touch. |
| 5 | | Maroon 5
Songs About Jane
"She Will Be Loved"
Their most iconic, personable, and tear-jerking song, and overall their peak. |
| 6 | | Maroon 5
Songs About Jane
"Sunday Morning"
Despite obvious big label production and influence, this could almost convince you that M5 was some overlooked jam band. Try to play it in a car full of friends without anyone singing along. |
| 7 |  | Maroon 5
Overexposed
"Payphone (feat. Wiz Khalifa)"
The first single from Overexposed, anger channeled through an unusually spirited Wiz, it really set a false stage for how good their worst album could have been. |
| 8 |  | Maroon 5
Red Pill Blues
"Don't Wanna Know (feat. Kendrick Lamar)"
Easily the best song on Red (and it's not even really on there), "Don't Wanna Know" was also the best pop track to come from the mostly terrible tropical house movement of the mid-2010s. |
| 9 |  | Maroon 5
V
"Sugar"
A confusing mess of an album led to a few fun singles, but this is the only one that really stands out, and it's all because of the development - Adam's falsetto layering helps overpower any conscious thought process. |
| 10 | | Maroon 5
Hands All Over
"Just A Feeling"
I bashed this album for trying to appeal to LITE FM stations, but I love a lot of the tracks that play on them. If "Moves Like Jagger" hadn't happened, maybe "Just A Feeling" could have joined "I Love You Always Forever" and "Lovefool" in infinite airplay. |
| 11 | | Various Artists
Begin Again OST
"Lost Stars"
The most overlooked track in their discography, which makes sense because it's not really in their discography. It's also their most frustrating, because the depths of intense emotion and sheer effort they completely let go of years before this came out and proved that they still had it in them, that they had just given up. |
| 12 | | Maroon 5
It Won't Be Soon Before Long
"Better That We Break"
Rounding off the "album" is my favorite ballad on It Won't, which is a tough battle. "Back At My Door" is a more traditional closer, "Won't Go Home Without You" is more iconic, "Not Falling Apart" is darker, but "Better That We Break" is the one I find myself turning to the most, it's harmonies and key changes are a fitting end to a band that soundtracked my introduction to music. I'll miss them, hopefully they find themselves again someday. |
| 13 |  | Maroon 5
The B-Side Collection
BONUS TRACK: "Until You're Over Me"
There are a lot of bonus tracks that would have been great here, like the more synth-ed out version of "It Won't Be Soon Before Long" with Rihanna, or any number of remixes off of Call and Response, but this one just felt like it fit. I'm all about letting go of your work and moving on to create new things, but I think with some more production work and a delay until Hands, this could have been a sleeper hit. |
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