Lopez Blogs

Oh my sunny days. Despite the horrible occurrances in Burma, it's incredibly shiny and lovely in central England today which for me is like taking two mood elevators. I'm feeling quite jolly and felt like I could talk about Maroon 5 all day today. I'm in a Maroon state of mind. And really, I just wanted an excuse to post pics of Adam LeFine. Plus since D'Luv pointed out that they haven't really done that brilliantly with their second album, I thought i'd review some of the alternative versions of the singles that could have punched up the chart positions...

Makes Me Wonder ~ There really isn't anything I would change about this track. It just worked on so many levels and quite rightly rewarded them with a rather large hit all around the world. It fused brilliantly elements of that maroon5 sound with some lovely disco and just a hint of electro. Plus Adam wore a scarf rather suavely in the video and made me fall in love with him all over again. I like to think he was fingering it when he was talking to me on the phone...:P

Wake Up Call (MTV 45 at Night Version featuring Eve) ~ The rather jerky, hideously edited video may have put some people off, but this was their funkiest rocking single since Harder to Breathe. Full of malice and anger, there is something quite alluring about the seediness of the message the song brings, along with the harder edged guitars. There is the well known Mark Ronson remix with Mary J Blige that is utterly acceptable, but this live version really amps up the power of the song and strangely the rap cameo from Eve adds to the criminal element of the song...

Won't Go Home Without You (Acoustic version) ~ Stripping back this song to the bare minimum gives it a beautiful late night hotel lounge feel to it. The piano chords are rich and sumptuous with just a hint of gently strumming guitar working well together to set off the beautiful tone to Adam's voice. Far superior to the album version, which I happen to quite love anyway (shocker) so this is high praise indeed...oh! Check out the stunning piano work at 3m 07s ~ very twin peaks sounding...

If I Never Saw Your Face (Rihanna version) ~ At first Goodnight Goodnight was touted as the fourth single, and I raised my eyebrows a little bit but wasn't totally surprised. Maroon 5 did well picking the first three singles from Songs About Jane and then it all went a bit down hill (Sunday Morning over Sweetest Goodbye?! Madness!) and I just figured they were making the same mistakes with this album. GG has been ditched for a Rihanna remake of If I Never Saw Your Face and well, it's grown on me immensely. It's got the harder rocking sound of Wake Up Call, but the single has been given a tidy polish up to give it more of a dance feel (presumably so I don't have the horror of Rihanna pretending to rock out) and works quite well as a duet. Bravo failing album artists for teaming up for a surprise summer smash. Bravo!