Here's a Quarter....

So what piece of pop culture pablum will we try to choke down today? Non other than everyone's favorite Jamoroquai tribute band, MAROON 5! Now...to be honest, I've always dug this band. Douchebaggery notwithstanding, Adam Levine is a fine singer. Harder to breathe, from their 1st major, was a great song; They had a great many on their first several albums. As time wore on thoughthe writing began to seem somewhat lazy, as if they just know what's expected of them so they just do that, like when you go to movie with Samuel L Jackson. Their songs just got lazier and lazier and the pinnacle of that downward spiral? Payphone. I wanted to like Payphone. Wiz Khalifa is from Pittsburgh, like me, so I'm predisposed to root for him. Couldn't do it. Why? No CENTER. Seriously, no four bars of this song seem to have anything to do with the others, from the stretch voweled chorus, to the Akon-esque verse four bars later. Another four bars of that, and then into a cadenc-ey pre-chorus that to me sounds like a yapping dog. Go ahead, listen again and tell me I'm wrong. Go on, do it now, I'll wait........see what I mean? Next up is an alternate chorus; a mid range take on the same melodic concept. Believe it or not, Payphone is almost as boring to listen to as this post is to read. Of course, these are all aesthetic things. Some people like Akon, some people like yapping. The real problem is that as far as I can tell, Payphone is just a collection of disjointed hooks and melodies. It might as well be four guys in four different rooms writing different words to the same track. Generally, bands have the opposite problem: they'll put out a new song that sounds just like the last one. In this case one song sounds like a dozen different songs. Songs about Jane proved in spades that these guys can put out a great album. Payphone is the first single from their new one Overexposed I’ve often said that it must be nice to be Like a U2, or a Bruce Springsteen, or another one of those acts that gets to a point where they could put out more or less anything at all and still have that certainty that their album WILL BE BOUGHT. The unfortunate side effect of this is songs like Payphone. With this song they literally phoned it in.