The American pop-rock band Maroon 5 released their sixth studio album “Red Pill blues” in November 2017 through 222 Records and Interscope Records. The title came up from the science fictional concept of red pill and the blue pill that originated from the 1999 film “The Matrix”. This was their first release where they featured their multi-instrumentalist band member Sam Farrar.
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The standard album has a total of ten tracks that runs for an overall approximate time length of forty two minutes. However, there are five bonus tracks, adding which the time length becomes approximately sixty one minutes. The album received mixed reviews from the music critics and listeners, with an overall average rating of 58 on Metacritic.
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AllMusic and Rolling Stone magazine rated the album 3.5 out of 5 stars, while Financial Times and The Guardian rated it 3 out of 5 stars. Other publications like Siant Magazine and The Times rated it 2 stars.
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EntertainmentWeekly described it as the“best and most cohesive set of the decade”. Taylor Weatherby of Billboard described the album as the most electronic production that the band has ever seen and they have managed to use that in their classic Maroon 5 fashion. Financial Times praised the smooth high vocals and the catchy tunes.
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Pitchfork provided an average rating of 4.8 out of 10, describing the album as “smooth, professional, antiseptic soft-rock, which somehow also features Kendrick Lamar, Future, and A$AP Rocky”.However, some internet sources say that Maroon 5 later regretted having the album title as “Red Pill Blues” which also happened to be the name of a very controversial Men’s rights activist movement.A significant number of guests were featured in this album within production, songwriting, instrumentals and vocals.
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The album received significant commercial success. It peaked at number two on the US Billboard 200 and Billboard Canadian albums, and at number one on Gaon music chart (South Korean International albums). Other than this, the album was featured in many music charts across the world and reached within the top ten positions in countries like Australia, Denmark, Czech Republic, Japan, New Zealand, Norway and Slovakia.
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The artwork concept of the album is also very interesting, which shows all the seven members of the band pictured on Polaroid photographs with Snapchat filters, which have become a mainstream social media culture. Overall, being a mainstream pop album, it can be said that it has already received significant success.
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“Best 4 U” is the first track of the album, which is a R&B influenced synth-funk song. A strong groovy synth-bass dominance can be observed in the song, along with Adam Levine’s distinctive vocals. The song was recorded in 2017 at the Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California.
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The songwriters include Adam Levine, Julian Bunetta, John Ryan, Jacob Kasher Hindlin, Alexander Izquierdo, Andrew Haas, and Ian Franzino.The groove in this track would prompt anyone to dance with it and makes it perfect for radio. Lyrically the song is quite average, however, its catchy tune, Levine’s vocals and the groovy bass makes it captivating to the listeners.
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“What Lovers do” is the second track of the album that was released as a single in August 2017, two months before the album’s official release. This song features the American R&B singer Solána Imani Rowe, professionally known as SZA.
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The song comes with a very catchy visual effects based music video that was released in September 2017 and was directed by the Korean-American film and music video director Joseph Kahn. This is a song that Maroon 5 have performed in many of their TV appearances since the album release. The catchy chorus and the versatile sound help it to stand out and that is extremely likeable to the Maroon 5 fans.
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The catchy tune that gets stuck in one’s ears makes it perfect for a radio and is playlist friendly. This song was featured in many music charts across the world, even reaching the top positions in the weekly charts in countries like Argentina, Canada, Hungary, Mexico and Venezuela.
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The song was also featured on an American comedy film “I Feel Pretty” and several other television shows including “Love Island” and “Siesta Key”. It also appeared in a video game “Just Dance 2018”. Overall, this is a captivating song with an awesome music video.
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“Help Me Out” is the sixth track of the album that was also released as a promotional single in October 2017, featuring the American musician Julia Michaels who was also one of the songwriters. We get to hear Adam Levine’s and Julia Michael’s voice separately as well as together, and both of these were fantastic.
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They experimented with some new instrumentation in this track which we don’t usually get to hear in their previous releases. The catchy tune, moderate tempo and the simple lyrics makes it extremely easy for the listeners to sing along with the song.
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The song comes with a lyric video, however, the lyrics are shown interestingly in the form of neon lights on brick walls. The unique flavour of this track both musically and lyrically makes it extremely appealing. This song was also featured in many music charts across the world.
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“Girls like you” is the ninth track of the album that features the American rapper Cardi B. This song also comes with a music video with an interesting concept. The band is shown in the background with Levine in the front singing on a microphone, and each time the camera rotates around him, a different lady is seen dancing and lip syncing around him that includes Camila Cabello, Phoebe Robinson, Levine’s wife Behati Prinsloo and her daughter among many others.
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Levine starts the song stating that he wants more time with his lover as they need to work out on some issues and establish an emotional connection as he occasionally rolls into the town. The video tries to portray some social messages like justice and identity movements through the clothing worn by the guests. However, it might not be very impactful.
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Cardi B tried to put down her own ideas and shows her fierceness as a woman. However, the lyrical theme of the song and what is being shown in the video cannot be linked at all, which creates confusion at times. The song received significant commercial success, featuring at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 Chart. It reached the number one position in eleven other countries, including Canada, Greece, New Zealand and France.
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