Maroon 5 Album: “It Won't Be Soon Before Long”

Normally (although not deliberately), I tend to ignore bands like Maroon 5. A bluntly commercial band with this much corporate support does not need my backing, so I usually leave it alone and let the marketplace decide for itself. The world at large seems to understand Avril Lavigne, Nickelback and Fall Out Boy a lot better than I do anyway, so voicing my opinion about the musical value of these acts would feel like screaming at the wall. Usually, I simply look the other way, but I've been listening to "It Won't Be Soon Before Long" for a few weeks now, and it has me believing that Maroon 5 can justify the hype.

Maroon 5's last album, "Songs About Jane," may have been released in 2002, but I didn't hear a note of it until two years later, when the relentless push from the band's backers finally ignited the jet fuel that lifted the band to stardom. Apparently, I wasn't alone in this regard, since the band took home a Grammy award for best new artist three years later, in 2005. Naturally, that brought them a lot of attention, but I figured they would suffer the same fate as many previous `Best New Artist' winners and vanish into the night sky. "It Won't Be Soon Before Long" renders my prediction obsolete. The production is damn near perfect, but in a mid-`80s, Quincy Jones kind of way that often gets in the way of allowing the band to establish its own identity. There is a slick, funky sheen to the best songs, and vocalist Adam Levine dishes out melodies that are flawlessly polished to a full luster. Imagine Maxwell covering a Michael Jackson hit with an ace rock band for support, and you'll get close to the essence of this song collection.

The subject matter is also intriguing. There are lots of cheating songs on the disk, and lots of lyrics that will break the hearts of hormone-addled romantics. If his words are remotely autobiographical, then Levine could be the poster boy for the lovelorn, even when his sentiments are shopworn and clichéd; on "Won't Go Home Without You," he knows the girl was right to ditch him, but swears that he needs "one more chance to make it right." On "Nothing Lasts Forever," he sings "I love you but I'm letting go" while "Can't Stop (Thinking About You)" is self-explanatory. "Wake Up Call" is a bit more blatant - "Caught you in the morning with another one in my bed. Don't you care about me anymore?" Umm, I don't think so, dude, but don't worry about it, because there are millions of fans to help to ease your pain. This'll sell zillions, and I can understand why it will. B+ Tom Ryan

2.5 (Man I wish Amazon.com would invest in decimals.)

When Maroon 5 hit the scene in 2002, heads turned and mothers were throwing babies from the bleachers as this Jazz/Funk/Rock band tore up the charts with "Songs about Jane" and it's first single, "Harder to Breathe." Now, in 2007, they've decided to expand themselves, and, in case you read to deeply into that statement, I'm using it as loosely as I can.

It is, in all honesty, a typical sophomore effort. You've got throwback tracks (Wake Up Call), you've got expansion tracks (If I Never See Your Face Again) , you've got influence tracks (Makes Me Wonder), and you've got covers (Kiwi), but, in the case of Maroon 5, what you don't have is mood. Gone is the moody, catchy Maroon 5 we heard during "The Sun" or "Sunday Morning." Gone is the emergence and aggression that were "Harder to Breathe" and "Shiver". What we are left with is Maroon 5 ala Disco-Pop. Jazzy Pop worked with SAJ and, especially if you're a fan, a majority of the songs stuck with you because of distinction and precision. "It Won't Be Soon Before Long" features the band WAY out on a limb, attempting something new, and coming up repetitive, entirely over-produced, and way too poppy for it's own good, lacking mood in place of sonic differentiality. For example, it's hard to emote and relate to Levine's lyrics when the tempo is 135 bpm, and Outkast is wondering if they copyrighted "Hey Ya" or not. It's a clash between emotive lyrics (sometimes humorous even) and up-tempo, disco-heavy, synth-laden noise as filler.

I'm not saying to avoid this record because it DOES have it's highlights ("Wake Up Call", "Better if we Break"), but DO NOT buy it expecting "Songs about Jane". It IS artistic progression, and I applaud that on every level in every forum, but, in my opinion, it's certainly in a difficult direction, too north-east to south-westerly admire.

I love all their songs, I hope this isn't the last we hear from them.

This is a great album. My girlfriend bought it on iTunes and it rocks. I was considering buying it here since it has no DRM and 256 bit rate, but the iTunes album has 13 tracks and the Amazon album only has 12 ("Figure It Out" is missing).

It Won't Be Soon seems to me to be an over-produced album with little of the original flair that attracted so many of us to Maroon 5. It is percussion driven, and many songs would do well to be included on the latest Justin Timberlake album. As a long time Maroon 5 and Kara's Flowers fan, I was disappointed by this latest work. Not Falling Apart does not compare to the band's first song by that name, and the single Makes Me Wonder is so far from the band's past work that it was only recognizable to me because of Adam's unmistakable vocals. However, though the album has definite flaws it is still entertaining, and I don't regret purchasing it. Let's just hope Maroon 5 gets back on track the next time around.