Maroon 5, 2.0 (which makes them either 7 or 10, depending). Inspired, the group entered the studio with every studio wunderkid they could find (Shellback, Benny Blanco, Max Martin), intent on not making a casual pop album as they did before, but instead crafting the most colorful, maximalist take on pop music they could possibly fine.

The song was absolutely shameless with its Top 40 intentions, but fun and loose in a way that was nowhere to be seen on their last two albums. It was launched on The Voice, the show which turned Levine from Handsome Frontman to Actual Celebrity (and even though Aguilera guested on the track, the song succeeded in spite of her, not because of her). The song got overplayed like hell, but damn if it wasn’t expertly crafted, that whistled hook burrowing in your brain for hours on end. We all remember what inspired that freedom: “Moves Like Jagger”. And because of that freedom, we get the wild curiosity that is Overexposed: as fascinatingly flawed a pop album as any group has made in recent memory. Gauzy, disposable, Christina Aguilera-assisted freedom. Their easy everyman charm got lost in sleek pop productions, and despite the Rihanna collaborations and somehow thinking they had enough “undiscovered classics” to make an album of B-sides in 2007 (and a remix album the year after), Maroon 5 were beginning to lose their way, which the band blatantly acknowledged in interviews about the lack of sales for Hands All Over (that album’s second single, “Give a Little More”, toppped out at a downright embarrassing No. The band released two more albums - the long-delayed (and horridly-titled) 2007 effort It Won’t Be Soon Before Long and the limp 2010 disc Hands All Over - but it was obvious that despite scoring their first chart-topper with “Makes Me Wonder”, there was something missing with the group. Despite all the frustrations the group felt from the start, success was proving to be remarkably easy.

Once they were in the pop consciousness, they pretty much never left, as what followed was a non-stop series of charming yet inoffensive pop staples: “This Love”, “She Will Be Loved”, the surprisingly soulful “Sunday Morning”, etc.

Upset and angered, the group turned in “ Harder to Breathe“, the hardest-rocking song the band has ever done (to date), and lo’ and behold, it was not only their first single, but also their first Top 40 hit. However, that’s exactly what happened in 2002 when the young, Adam Levine-fronted band known as Maroon 5 turned in their first post-Kara’s Flowers album, Songs About Jane, to their label, who insisted that they didn’t hear a single in the batch. It’s truly amazing to think that there was a time when Maroon 5 were not considered pop enough.

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