Why "Girls Like You" from Maroon 5 and Cardi B is No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100.

The Beatles. Led Zeppelin. Shock. Talking heads. The police. Nirvana.

All of these world-famous rock bands have together recorded fewer years than Maroon 5, which now releases hit albums and, in particular, singles for 16 years. The longevity of the group that started in the mid 90's as Kara's Flowers and is still played by falsetto songs, The voice– Judge Adam Levine – If you can name a member of Maroon 5, I'll give you a cookie – it's not only remarkable, it's staggering.

Of course, classifying Levine's happy companions group next to the list above of legendary rock combos is a crock, or a nudge for the rock'n'roll concept. Does Maroon 5 show up, at least on stage and in video, as a guitar-bass-drums-drums combo? Of course that they do it. But a more honest list of Maroon 5's musical peers, in terms of longevity and musical approach, would look more like this:

Britney Spears. Bailiff. Pink. Kelly Clarkson. Rihanna. Pitbull.

Maroon 5 has, and I say it almost with admiration, done more than just any act to undermine the idea of ​​the rock band in the 21st century.

These are acts whose output has dominated or dominated the charts since 2000, and not only do they write their material, but they are almost indifferent to gender in their embrace of pop. This is not a value judgment. I really like the material of these acts (especially those of Clarkson and a lot of Rihanna) and, for decades, the song factories have produced many of our best songs. Motown was a song factory, working just like Max Martin, based in Stockholm. sångfabrik"The source of many of these acts" is today.

But what makes Maroon 5 so exceptional – and helps explain why he marks his fourth No. 1 career on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, six years after his last and 15 years after scoring his first success in the Top 40 they have done to arrive here. Maroon 5 has, and I say it almost with admiration, done more than just any act to undermine the idea of ​​the rock band in the 21^st century. I hesitate to call them at all a group. They are more like a scientific experiment, a deconstruction exercise.

The song that brings Maroon 5 back to first place is "Girls Like You," a piece of their album almost a year Blues with red pill. When she appeared last fall, "Girls Like You" was not just a big cut hidden in the back of the album; his future guest rapper, Cardi B, had just won his first hit, "Bodak Yellow". Less than 12 months later, with her role in "Girls Like You", rapper Belcalis Almánzar marks her third top-flight record – and her second in 2018, after her summer hit "I Like It" – with her drive-by performance the most virile. As the featured rapper featured Bobby Brown on the 1990 Glenn Medeiros hit-parade "She's Not Worth It," Cardi needed only 30 seconds and 16 steps to embark on the show. Billboard story: the first woman to score three Hot 100 No 1s. (She was already the first to score two points.)

The song was also boosted by her video, which features a group of famous women from Lazy Susan, from Gal Gadot to Sarah Silverman, to Ellen DeGeneres. song. Curiously, it's the second time this year that a male pop actor has hoisted a title in the first place by featuring famous ladies in a video, after Drake has managed to awaken your daughter's performance. Nice for What ". is that the giant card Maroon 5 had to pass to reach the No. 1: "Girls Like You" spent 16 weeks in the Top 5 and for the last 11 weeks he was stuck behind "Nice" or viral singing of Drake. the winner of the summer "In My Feelings". Billboard reports that the broadcast was key to the final success of Maroon 5, but the video did its bit: barely a billion views, the "Girls" video gave the song push in the year of # MeToo, even though until Cardi B shows up, cameo women largely function as rescue dancers.

Cardi B is the first rapper to have scored three Hot 100 No. 1s.

Even with Cardi's special sauce, which was added to the song last May, and this entire radio play, "Girls Like You" is an indescribable pop hit. It's nice, if not successful: a midtempo love song with an 80s rock seasoning, built around a syncopated guitar line that was broadcast by the EDM throwing machine. In the video, the guitarist James Valentine (there, it's a member of more Maroon 5 – no biscuit for you) tears off the hook at first, but if he played more than two bars in the studio before the loop, I would be shocked. On the chorus, Levine adds his own rhythm, carving out an exuberant rhythm of insipid words: "Because girls … like … you / run with guys … like … me / until sunset, when I … come … / I need a girl … like … you / yeah, yeah, y-yeah. The song momentarily animates in the game, just after Cardi's rap, with a last verse that seems to go back to a story: "Maybe it's 6:45 / Maybe I I'm barely alive / Maybe you've taken my shit for the last time / Maybe I know I'm drunk / Maybe I know you're / if you drive. That's not really a story at all, just a sign of Levine's mark, living the adorable asshole character that he spent 15 years on red carpets.

This character, like almost everything Maroon 5 has done in the last decade, is itself outsourced. Song doctors who have traveled extensively are largely responsible for the release of "Girls Like You", including Henry "Cirkut" Walter, the Canadian producer affiliated to Max Martin behind the No. 1 Wrecking Ball of Miley Cyrus and Starrah. Just eight months ago, Camila Cabello played the role of songwriter who dominated the Hot 100. But this is the case with most of the four Hot 100s in Maroon 5, scattered throughout their careers. Before "Girls", their last episode was "One More Night" in 2012, a little white pop in the Ace of the Base that was written and produced by Max Martin (a man who proved himself with the other Swedes) . 90's) and Martin's partner, Shellback. A year earlier, in 2011, Maroon was leading the Hot 100 with "Moves Like Jagger", a collaboration with Voice Judge Christina Aguilera. This infused whistle worm, now playing in the ninth circle of hell, was again designed by Shellback with fellow countryman über pop producer – slash-oddball Benny Blanco. On all these topics, Levine takes a writing credit and has certainly played a role in how the lyrics, the attitude and the overall brand have turned out, but if you know anything about it, it's a good idea. 21-year-old Swedish-American school.^stThe pop brand of these Svengalis factories is throughout the 2010 edition of Maroon 5.

Curiously, this is the second time this year that a male pop actor has propelled a title to the top spot by featuring famous women in a video.

I say 2010, however, because Maroon 5 has been a big hit since the 2000s and that attentive listening can detect a difference: they were more like an independent rock band in their first decade. Not always better, and certainly not more "pure" – their success in radio consumption was due to their share of success for the 2000s – but the "00s Maroon 5" is the sound of a rock band. a product born in the machine. I've noticed that they have scored four # 1 hits but have not yet mentioned the first of these four: "Makes Me Wonder", a tasty slice of 70's disco rock with the harmonics of Earth, Wind & Fire. who was at the top of the standings in the spring of 2007. It was written by three people, all members of Maroon 5: Levine, keyboardist / rhythm guitarist Jesse Carmichael and bassist Mickey Madden. All their successes have been this kind of collaboration and, as far as songwriting is concerned, Levine shared the richness: "This Love" (No. 5, 2004) was his work and that of Carmichael, "She Will Be Loved. " .5, 2004) The work of Levine and guitarist Valentine.

It is not difficult to know when the change has arrived. Just study the history of the cards. Between "Makes Me Wonder" of 2007 and "Moves Like Jagger" in 2011, Maroon 5 had begun drifting into the wilderness, while the Gaga era EDM pop was beginning to take control of the Hot 100. Their Top 10 singles or even the top 40. Work with the legendary rock-arena brain Robert John "Mutt" Lange on the 2010 album Hands everywhere I could not get the single single "Misery" higher than No. 14, and the rest of the singles on the album – all co-written by band members – were completely stiff.

Over the last decade, they have spent 42 weeks at the top of Billboard's Radio Songs rankings, placing third in radio dominance, behind Rihanna and Bruno. March.

That's when Adam Levine launched his solo image restart: he agreed to coach singing hopes on The voiceTaking a swivel chair that he occupied for the duration of the series of seven years and fifteen seasons, a dozen other famous coaches-judges made their entry and exit. (Only country star Blake Shelton has, like Levine, been an all-season rendezvous.) In addition to his blind audition gimmick, The voice differentiates itself from its predecessor reality-competition American idol in an obvious (and depressing) way: from the beginning, this has been done more commercially for judges than for competitors. Levine and his co-coach Aguilera have created "Moves Like Jagger" during an episode of June 2011. The voice, and two months later, they were each back on the Hot 100 for the first time in years. Although Maroon 5, the band, supported Levine on both the song Voice the debut and in the video, it was difficult to detect a lot of group members' involvement, and apart from Levine, he took a credit writing along with Blanco, Shellback and another doctor from the song, Ammar Malik.

Since then, these are all the hits of Maroon 5, whose members of the non-Levine group rely mainly on song composition functions. Staff included not only Max Martin / Shellback, but everyone from singer-songwriter Sia to collaborator Justin Bieber to singer and songwriter OneRepublic Ryan Tedder. Even Maroon 5 hits that look more like the retro pop-rock of their early years, like the hit number 2 of 2015, "Sugar," are factory products (in this case, the work of Cirkut, writer-producer Ammo, producer-artist) Mike Posner, the relative newcomer Jacob Kasher and the pact's king-taker, Dr. Luke). It must be said that this approach has made M5 manufacturers of success larger and more consistent in their second decade, by far. In the eight years leading up to the pivotal success "Moves Like Jagger", the group has only been in the Billboard Top 10 three times. After "Jagger", the Maroon 5 reached the winner's circle 10 times, largely because of their popularity with radio programmers. This decade, they spent 42 weeks, through six singles, at the top of Billboard's Radio Songs ranking, ranking third among the dominant radio, behind Rihanna and Bruno Mars.

But it is hard to feel indignant at the idea that this group is ultra-commercialized. After all, Maroon 5 has been personified from the beginning. The day I heard their success "Harder to Breathe" (No. 18, 2003 – still my favorite M5 song) coming out of my radio 15 years ago, I swear a first time, two years after bands second wave like NSYNC was dead, was: "Ah, pop-band on rock instruments. Clever. Levine and co. seeing that the game was rigged and figured out how to rig it in their favor.

There is one last detail in Billboard's summary of the rise of "Girls Like You" to No. 1 that raises eyebrows, related to the genre. For the industry, "Girls" is classified as a pop song, which, according to Billboard, means it ends a record-breaking 34-week series of rap songs, since Cabello's "Havana" in January. topper this year was marked with the kind rap. I find it rather suspicious; This series of rap songs includes "nostalgic" songs such as "Sad!" By XXXTentacion, a mix of melodic hip-hop and vintage indie; The "Psycho" radio transponder from Post Malone, which I still call electro electro acoustic rock; and "This Is America," a Childish Gambino controversy with as much Afrobeat as hip-hop. More ironically, this series of alleged rappers ended with a Maroon 5 song with … a rap featured; The 16 measures of Cardi B are more refined than those of "Psycho" Post Malone. It reminds me of the long-standing debate of music critics about whether Rock Era started with Bill Haley. Rock Around the Clock ", in 1955, which ended three decades ago," Walk This Way ", and we live since in a time of rap. Although, in the rock era, even the craziest pop had a compositional or presentation relationship to rock, the successes of the post-1980 period revolve around the sun of hip-hop. If this theorem is finally accepted as a fact, Maroon 5 is a major planet orbiting this sun: an act with the presentation of rock but the values ​​centered on the production of hip-hop. I'm sure Adam Levine would do well to consider himself a heavenly body of Rap Era.