I just finished listening to Maroon 5′s new album, It Won’t Be Soon Before Long. I have to say, on the first listen, it’s not as good as their first effort, Songs About Jane, but perhaps it needs to grow on me.
Chen said it best when she described many of the new songs as “more poppy” than before. For example, the first single, Makes Me Wonder, is definitely a dance song – so much so, that it almost sounds like disco. However, after a few listens, I have begun to appreciate it a bit more; it can certainly get stuck in your head.
One of Adam Levine’s talents has always been picking the right words for the music and using the accents in those words to help progress the song, rather than just finding something with the right number of syllables. For example in She Will Be Loved, at one point, he sings, “It’s not always rainbows and butterflies, it’s compromise that moves us along.” If you even just try to say those words, they have rhythm. He continues to write surprisingly good lyrics occasionally through this CD.
One final comment on the CD before I list my favorite tracks – many of the songs have been heavily inspired by the band’s influences, so sometimes, they come across sounding like an older genre. I’ve already mentioned that Makes Me Wonder sounds like disco, but listen to Won’t Go Home Without You and Not Falling Apart alongside 80′s classics like Eye in the Sky, Missing You, and I Just Called to Say I Love You, and you’ll really see what I mean.
Overall, this is a pretty good second album. Most of the songs really are catchy and should do pretty well in clubs, on the radio, etc. I’d recommend people who like Maroon 5 listen to it.
So, I haven’t really had much time to form opinions, I but I think my favorite songs from this album are:
- Back At Your Door
- Makes Me Wonder (maybe because I’ve heard it the most)
- If I Never See Your Face Again
- Wake Up Call
