Maroon 5's Overexposed

Adam Levine of Maroon 5 said after their 2007 release It Won’t Be Soon Before Long that the band might make one more album before disbanding. Their subsequent release was the mediocre Hands All Over. I kind of had already expected them to be done when I was watching “The Voice” with my girlfriend and all of a sudden they were on stage premiering their new single, “Payphone,” off of their recently announced new album Overexposed. The song featured a verse by Wiz Khalifa... but I’ll get to that in my track-by-track review, which follows.

The album opens with the second single, “One More Night.” This song is stupid catchy. I hate it, but I find the “Yoouuuu-ooh-ooh-ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh...” part stuck in my head regularly after listening (or even thinking about) this album. The prechorus harmonies are awesome. This song, however, other than its inexplicable catchiness, is awful.

The second track is the lead single from the album, “Payphone.” I understand how this song got popular, but I can’t stand it.  The verse is great. Adam Levine’s vocals go so well with the drums it’s ridiculous. I’d be interested to hear this song slowed down with just a piano backing the vocals. Also, the lyrics are so dated it’s stupid. Kids today probably don’t even know what a payphone is. The rap verse with Wiz Khalifa is just a stupid gimmick to create crossover hit potential.

“Daylight,” the third track, is a beautiful song. The bridge is the best part. Unfortunately, Adam Levine has the kind of voice that seems not to be able to evoke emotion, so the performance doesn’t sound sincere at all. Usually, not evoking any emotion works to his advantage, but in a song like this, which requires a knockout, emotional performance, his method falls a little flat. I still love this song though.

For a guy they call the “One Take Wonder” in the recording studio, it’s an interesting choice to use auto-tune on Adam Levine in this song. “Lucky Strike” is the second track in a row with a great bridge, but unfortunately, in this case, the bridge doesn’t really fit with the rest of the song, and sounds like it should lead into a screaming guitar solo. I really don’t like the chorus of this song, as its focal point is a lyric-less melody of “Oh”s.

“The Man Who Never Lied” is a song that could easily have been improved by removing the disco beat from behind the vocals. The lyrics are stupid and the song is way too repetitive. I don’t like this song. I want to, but I don’t.

The next track, “Love Somebody,” can’t decide if it’s a dance club song or a slow dance. It’s very repetitive and uses synthesized sounds in an overbearing way. This song again fails in part because of Levine’s inability to sound sincere. This song would probably have worked as a power ballad, but the band tried way too hard to make it a slow jam instead.

“Ladykiller” is a fantastic song. This song accomplishes what Foster the People’s popular song “Pumped Up Kicks” fails to do. Levine bounces between full voice and falsetto with such effortless facility. Mickey Madden plays an awesome bass line that doesn’t change over the whole song, but it actually never gets boring. It doesn’t get boring because it meshes so well with everything the rest of the band is doing.

There’s not much to the following track, “Fortune Teller,” but it has a really cool sounding verse. The chorus falls flat though, thanks to its clichéd melody. The prechorus is a thing of beauty though, and I’d have been happier with this song if that were the chorus instead.

“Sad” is a nice break from the disco-pop feel of the rest of the album, as it features Adam Levine singing over an acoustic piano. However, like the Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” he sings the same note too much of the song. That technique only works when the rest of the band is playing something extremely interesting (see the aforementioned Killers song, “A Crow Left of the Murder” by Incubus, and almost anything by the Strokes). The lyrics, “I’m so sad,” are performed beautifully.

The next song, “Tickets,” starts out promising, with guitar backing Levine’s vocals, but quickly turns to power-synth drops. The vocals are almost addicting for most of the song, and the chorus has an awesome seventies funk groove to it. I’m seriously tired of the “La”s and “Ooh”s by this point on the album though, and the “La”s featured in this song are definitely annoying. At 2:33 the song stops for no reason, very awkwardly. The lyrics are also very strange. I don’t know what to think of this song on a whole.

The eleventh track, “Doin’ Dirt,” starts out with a stupid “She-Wolf” howl from Levine, but quickly moves to a brilliantly fantastic verse. The song continues its success into the chorus, wonderfully executed by the whole band. This song is definitely a highlight on the album.

“Beautiful Goodbye,” the final track on the album, lives up to its self-proclaimed beauty. The song is carefully reminiscent of “Sunday Morning,” from their first album (albeit without the awesome breakdown). This song is a little too repetitive, but it sounds so nice that it gets a pass. It starts off with a weird second of drums that don’t need to be there, but otherwise, this song closes the album very well.

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Overall, Maroon 5’s fourth album, Overexposed, is a letdown. The album on a whole would be better suited as a remix album. If the band had performed more of the songs on real instruments without as many digital effects or pop synthesizers, this would be a much better album. Levine too often substitutes “La” and “Ooh” for actual lyrics, and it gets very tiresome throughout the course of this album. Jesse Carmichael, who was very involved in the writing process of Maroon 5’s previous three albums, is currently on hiatus from the band, and they sorely miss his presence. The band clearly fell too hard on the success of their 2011 hit single, “Moves Like Jagger,” thinking that they could too easily extrapolate its success into an album of the same type of song. While there are highlights on this album (notably “Daylight,” “Ladykiller,” and “Doin’ Dirt”), this is not an album I would buy. Maybe the songs are better when not heard all in a row, but for now, that’s my stance on it. Please let me know how you feel in the comments below!

Overexposed is available in four formats.

Standard Edition: the 12 track album as a compact disc.

Digital Edition: the 12 track album as high-quality mp3 downloads on its street date.

Deluxe Edition: the 12 track album as either a compact disc or high quality mp3 downloads with the bonus tracks “Wipe Your Eyes,” “Wasted Years,” and “Kiss” (originally performed by Prince).

Deluxe Package: the 12 track album as a compact disc AND as high quality mp3 downloads with the bonus tracks “Wipe Your Eyes,” “Wasted Years,” and “Kiss” (originally performed by Prince), limited edition album-themed t-shirt, and twelve postcards featuring art for each song.

To buy Overexposed, visit http://maroon5.com/thelocker/

Motion City Soundtrack's Go

Okay, so the bad news about Motion City Soundtrack’s new album is that their best song is still “My Favorite Accident.” The good news is they’ve released their best album since Commit This to Memory. Too many times on Even If It Kills Me and My Dinosaur Life (though admittedly, much more frequently on Even If It Kills Me), the band had this sickness (and I listened through those two albums again to make sure I still felt this way about them) of coming up with an amazing sounding verse or a super catchy chorus and pairing it with a chorus that lacks punch or a verse I can’t bear to listen to because it’s so lame. That is gone on Go. And I’ll admit that several of the songs had the potential to be that way, but it seems as though they were able to get past that. What follows is my track-by-track analysis of Motion City Soundtrack’s Go:

The album’s opener, “Circuits and Wires,” was a song that almost didn’t make it onto the album. Written during the time of My Dinosaur Life, this song is better than nearly any song that actually made it onto that album. It has a great energy to it and already shows that it beats the curse from Even If It Kills Me [henceforth referred to as the “Kills-Me Curse”] of not being able to piece together a good chorus with a good verse. This song was the right choice for an opening track, as it gets the listener involved early in the excitement of the album.

The lead single from the album, “True Romance” starts off with the chorus, performed with just vocals and an acoustic guitar, before going into a verse reminiscent of the way “Everything is Alright” (off of Commit This to Memory) is constructed. “True Romance” is handled well instrumentally by the band. If the refrain’s vocals were performed over a less interesting and engaging arrangement, this song could have fallen prey to the Kills-Me Curse too. I do have to say that they should have gone with bigger instrumentation in the refrain following the bridge though. The bridge sets it up so well for it, but instead they go into the normal refrain.

The lyrics to the third track, “Son of a Gun,” are nothing special, but the band makes the song sound really good with the way the instrumentation blends with the vocals (melody and harmony). For a softer song, MCS nails this one. The opening really reminds me of Okkervil River.

I was so happy when I heard “Timelines,” the second single off of this album, because it was this track that made me feel like they’d broken the Kills-Me Curse. The layered vocals work again in their favor on this track. The song starts out with such great energy. I’m glad it was chosen as a single.

Track five, “Everyone Must Die,” is the ballad of the album. If you are an avid MCS fan who listened to this album from start to finish, you’d be surprised that “Son of a Gun” wasn’t the ballad of the album until you heard this song. It’s quite beautiful, and they use a real strings section, which the band members were particularly excited about.

“The Coma Kid” has an interesting idea in its lyrics. It’s a fairly simple song in structure (same chords throughout), but they put enough variance in the way they play it not to bore the listener, which is extremely important.

Motion City Soundtrack is experimenting with time signatures! The verse of track seven is in seven, and it works fantastically. The lyrics to the song are about this creature called a boxelder that, as a group, infest a tree because they need the tree to live, but in doing that, they kill the tree. Justin Pierre, the lead singer, likened this to a relationship, and that’s where he got the idea for the song. Interesting imagery. I don’t really need the “HEY, BOXELDER, TAKE ME WITH YOU” at the end, but oh well.

“The Worst Is Yet to Come” is a great song. The verse is so bare it just oozes emotion, and the chorus is executed so well instrumentally and vocally. One of the more up-tempo songs on the album, Motion City Sountrack succeeds in making a song that would be fun to drive to.

The next track, “Bad Idea,” was originally intended for Commit This to Memory, which is, as you know by now, the last album of theirs that I liked. They’ve said that they never felt like they could get this song right, but have revisited it for each album since. They finally reworked the instrumentation for it, and got it to work. I wish they’d only taken the time to do that with almost everything else they released between Commit and Go [end rant].

“Happy Anniversary” is probably my favorite song on the album right now, as it’s just a downright incredible performance. Justin Pierre has said that he kept breaking down every time he tried to sing it during recording, because it was so emotional for him. (Side note: I totally got goosebumps from it just now). I’d say that this song is a stronger, more grown up version of “Autographs and Apologies” from I Am the Movie.

Having been ready for “Happy Anniversary” to close the album (à la “Hold Me Down”), I was pleasantly surprised to hear “Floating Down the River.” This song rocks. “Caught beneath the weight of it all” is such a beautifully performed line, and the band made a good decision in letting that line happen nearly every time without any backing instrumentation.

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Overall, Motion City Soundtrack’s fifth album, Go, is a much softer album than that which fans of the band are used to. There is a lot of acoustic or non-distorted electric guitar on this album, and it works really well for the songs they’ve written, which are slower-paced anyway. Personally, I felt like most of the music of Even If It Kills Me sucked, and most of the lyrics of My Dinosaur Life sucked, so this album was a welcome effort from a band that I absolutely loved in the middle of the 2000s. Whether you agree or not, I’d love to hear from you! Just post a comment below.

Go is available in three formats.
Standard Edition: the 11 track album as a compact disc.
Digital Edition: a high-quality mp3 download with three bonus tracks (“Bottom Feeder,” “Give Up/Give In,” and “Alcohol Eyes”)
Vinyl Edition: the 11 track album on vinyl.

To buy Go, visit http://www.bluecollardistro.com/motioncitysoundtrack/

Metric's Synthetica

While most American audiences may know Metric as the band from the 2010 film Scott Pilgrim Versus the World¹, they’ve actually been releasing music steadily since 2003. Emily Haines of Metric has said that Synthetica “is about forcing yourself to confront what you see in the mirror when you finally stand still long enough to catch a reflection. Synthetica is about being able to identify the original in a long line of reproductions. It's about what is real vs. what is artificial." In the follow-up to 2009’s Fantasies, Haines and co. look deep within themselves while still expanding on the sound that made Fantasies a success. Read on for my track-by-track analysis of their new album, Synthetica, coming out Tuesday.

The album starts with a synthesizer behind Emily Haines’ haunting vocals, singing about how she’s “just as f---ed up as they say.” About two minutes in, the rest of the band starts playing. They managed to keep the song just haunting enough, while also making it kind of catchy. Overall, this song is the perfect choice to open the album, as it has the energy it needs to catch the attention of the listener, and it just plain sounds like the start of something big.

The next track is the first single from the album, “Youth Without Youth.” To be honest, when I first heard this song, I didn’t think it was anything special. To be fair, the first time I heard it, I was in a foul mood and I was listening on sub-par speakers. I really love this song. It has a dance-groove feel to the instrumentation, and Haines snarls the verse in such a way that you can’t help but bounce your head along with this song that, if it had to be described in one word, would be described as “cool.”

“Speed the Collapse” comes next. This song was the second song available to listen from the album. I can see this song used as the background of a chase scene on horses in like a modern western. I don’t know why, that’s just how it feels to me. It’s like Muse meets Paramore meets Metric's last album Fantasies.

“Breathing Underwater” is easily my favorite on the album. It starts off beautifully, as the bass and guitar mesh over a drum beat very cleverly constructed by Joules Scott-Key not to overpower the delicate sound. Every time Emily Haines sings, “Is this my life?” to start the chorus, I have to start bobbing my head, at least. James Shaw’s guitar riff to exit the chorus is, while repetitive, a perfect fit for the song—especially how it sounds over the crazy keyboard part that is difficult to hear without headphones. The song also builds really well, as some instrumental part gets added or expanded upon with each pass. I also love the imagery presented in the chorus: “Is this my life? Am I breathing underwater?”

The fifth track, “Dreams So Real,” is only two and a half minutes long, and the most of that is just a synth sawing single notes with Haines singing over it. It works, mainly because Metric has, as a band, worked on perfecting that style, but the song is not one of my favorites on the album.

The song that follows, however, I find very intriguing. The verse is so weird that I’ve heard the song like at least twenty times and I can’t decide whether or not I like it. But the chorus is so awesome. Emily’s falsetto is at its best in the chorus as she sings about how she’ll cover up all the things the subject seems to want to keep secret. It’s a fairly simple song that works mainly because none of them try to overdo it and turn it into something it’s not. I love at the end when they layer the bridge vocals with the chorus vocals.

“The Void” starts out with noises that make you think the song is going to be some sort of trance music. The noises are never heard again, which I think is weird, but it works for the beginning. The chorus vocals are done in a call and response style, and it’s great, mainly because it’s done over very strong instrumentation, including a straight up superb bass line by Joshua Winstead. I love the line in the chorus “All night, sing along with the band and you’re losing your voice”

The title track comes next, and it’s just an awesome alternative rock song. Haines snarls the verse here again over driving instrumentation. The transitions from verse to chorus and back are so simple, and so effective. This is a great song, and the album deserves to be named after it.

“Clone” sounds to me like a song No Doubt would have released that nobody ever heard on the radio. The lyrics sound like a memory of a theme park, perhaps something one of her parents told her once. It’s a slower song, and a strange choice to follow “Synthetica.” It’s an okay track that I might have left for a B-side.

The next track, “The Wanderlust,” features vocals from Lou Reed on the chorus. I was surprised when I heard it at first, as Metric is not known to have vocalists other than Emily Haines performing any lead vocals on their tracks. It almost sounds like a song by the band that did “Barbie Girl” (Aqua) or the band that did “Love Shack” (the B-52s), although with more talent.

“Nothing But Time” makes sure the album closes just as hauntingly as it starts. With a repetitive base synth part that is built upon as the song goes on, the song gets deeper into its trance. For such a simple song, it’s way too addictive to be written off with other songs of equal simplicity. This song closes the album right.

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To wrap it up, I love this album. Metric’s Synthetica is a work of art. It’s fantastic from start to finish. The “dull” moments can only be called dull in comparison to the standouts on the album. I was worried I wouldn’t like this album. I wasn’t crazy about anything of Metric’s before their breakout Fantasies, and I was worried they’d revert. But they just grew. This album is big for them. I can see Metric breaking out in a big way in the future. I’m seriously looking forward to their next album. Let me know what YOU think! Comment below.

¹ They did not perform the song in the movie, but they wrote it and it was re-recorded with the actress Brie Larson singing for the scene in the film.

Synthetica is available in three formats.

Standard Edition: the 11 track album as a compact disc + high quality digital download on release date, single “Youth Without Youth” immediately, and 5 bonus Reflections tracks.
[Note: this version has all of the booklet text printed backwards and includes a small mirror for reading it]

Digital Edition: the 11 track album as high quality mp3 files.

Vinyl Edition: the 11 track album on white vinyl discs + high quality digital download on release date, single “Youth Without Youth” immediately, and 5 bonus Reflections tracks.

To buy Synthetica, visit http://ilovemetric.com/store/