Maroon 5 – Red Pill Blues

Red Pill Blues – Maroon 5

By: James Kallianis & Kyle Gambla

Red Pill Blues is the sixth album from Maroon 5 that was released on November 3, 2017. It has features from some big artists including Kendrick Lamar, Future, A$AP Rocky, and more. The album has a very modern pop sound that comes with some new sounds for Maroon 5. Looking right at the album cover, the band is pictured with Snapchat filters. This gives you a good look into the album as it is as bad as the cover looks. It’s also worth noting the seven members listed on the cover, which is interesting because it seems the more members added to Maroon 5, the more the band sounds like an Adam Levine solo project.

Starting right off with “Best 4 U”, you get an 80s vibe with the production off the bat, with Adam’s falsetto littered throughout the song, but it comes off sort of flat in different parts of the song. The overall production and catchiness of the track saves the track as it starts on a good note. Considerably the most popular song off the album, “What Lovers Do” featuring SZA is a very good pop song as the beat and the vocals flow together very well. “Wait” is a catchy pop number that is able to hook you in and keep you intrigued throughout the track.

The album starts off on a high note with the first three tracks, and after that begins to veer off into less interesting territories. Most of the songs after that fall between bad and worse. Multiple of the middle tracks including “Lips on You”, “Bet My Heart”, and “Girls Like You” have similar sounds, and none of them are very appealing to a listener. The collaborations with Julia Michaels (“Help Me Out”) and A$AP Rocky (“Whiskey”) fall flat despite the big features. “Help Me Out” is a complete mess, while “Whiskey” drags on as the slowest song on the record which makes having A$AP’s feature on it unnecessary.

The album ends on a higher note with the groovy track “Closure”, which actually highlights the band for once. The track flashes back to their older albums, which is a breath of fresh air on this pure pop album. It’s an eleven-minute track that is around three minutes of actual song, with a seven-minute jam session at the end that could have been realistically cut down six minutes in.

Overall, we would rate this album a 4/10 based on the quality of the music and the general appeal we got from listening to it. Not much stuck out to us, and neither of us enjoyed that much of it.

Tracks agreed on: “What Lovers Do” & “Cold”

James’ favorite tracks: “Wait” & “Closure”

Kyle’s favorite tracks: “Don’t Wanna Know” & “Whiskey”