This Love~Maroon 5, February 4, 2021

Love them or hate them, it's still incredible how long of a career Maroon 5 has had. Today we're moving out of '80s and '90s vibes and replacing synthesizers with keys. We're traveling back 2004 to the first song I remember from Maroon 5, their second single "This Love." Is this song a love song or a breakup song? The verse says that Jane, the titular character in the album's title and mentioned in this song "got on a plane/ Never to return again," but in the chorus singer Adam Levine says that although "this love has taken a tole on [him, he] won't say goodbye anymore." Much of the focus of the song is on the relationship, so I'll justify it as a love song.

MEMORIES. In 2004 I was in high school. Maroon 5 debuted as a pop-rock band, which had only been a thing since the late '90s. Of course there had been rock bands that went pop, but they usually consider themselves rock bands. You could argue that the Beatles was a pop-rock band, but they came from a time that pop music was rock music. I remember hearing Matchbox 20's lead singer Rob Thomas talking about how he was proud to be known as a pop band. And while you might call Maroon 5's first album pop-rock, they strayed from that sound in their subsequent albums. I remember hearing this song in the car with my friends sitting in the parking lot of the liquor store as my friend's mom went to pick something up. My friend said, "What do you think the cops would think? My mom is buying alcohol and she's driving a car full of teenagers."

LOST STARS. I had hope for this band when I heard this album. I thought we could use a band that incorporates funk into pop and light rock. Indie rock at that time wasn't afraid of falsetto, why should the mainstream? But the band lead me through disappointment after disappointment throughout their musical career. With the exception of their last album which brings the band back into the studio and even includes a lengthy jam session, Maroon 5 stays pretty secure in the realm of music written to make money. When I saw the movie Begin Again, I thought about how Adam Levine's character was exactly how I felt about the band. I was a little charmed in the beginning. But after a while in the relationship, they started being unfaithful to my musical needs. They started sleeping around with other producers that warped their songs. The lyrics became drier and lacking the passion I needed in a band. The band says their trying hard to "feed [my] appetite," but I just see lazier musicianship. Run away Jane. Don't buy a return ticket.

RADIO EDIT. I saw the music video on MTV and Fuse. That was my first exposure to this song. It wasn't the most graphic video, but it was a little graphic for the time. It tries to focus on a then very skinny Adam Levine, shirtless, and in bed with the woman he's making love to. He sings into the camera the line: "I tried my best to feed her appetite/ Keep her coming every night." When the song hit the Top 40 stations I heard those lines. I didn't think too deeply about it. Yes, it sounded sexual. But I didn't think too deeply about it. They then played it on the light rock stations, you know the ones that they play when your mom goes to the hair saloon, between the Eagles and Enya. However, around this time the FCC was on a rampage against sex. We had seen Janet Jackson's breast in the super bowl earlier that year, so it was important to get rid of every notion of sex in the media period. So, some stations started censoring this song. "Keep her ---- every night." Others did not. I really hate when a song gets censored on the radio. I don't think that everything should go, but if a song is going to be a hit, there should be an alternate recording. By censoring this song, it sounded so much dirtier. Double entendres appear in Shakespeare, but a wise English teacher isn't blacking out the books before school. It just gives the "perversion" more power. The FCC certainly succeeded in making sex more enticing for society.