Celebrate and imitate Maroon 5 so free…
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[3.46]
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Micha Cavaseno: #CAUCASITY — Only in the dreams of these two dregs of the boy-band floods of long past could they cook up the idea of taunting long-lost lovers who return seeking these folks as some sort of glorious comeback. I’m a little stressed out how the studio has sandblasted Nick Carter to sound more Timberlake-lite. I’m more stressed out at how bloodless this attempt at funk is (more and more, I regret Pharrell unleashing “Sing” on us). I’m VERY stressed out at the immaturity that these guys could bring, but are holding off or possibly outright abandoning to go for it ONE LAST TIME. One Direction are laughing at you, like they do, when they see clods like you blow it.
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David Sheffieck: If Maroon 5 wasn’t determined to chase trends into meaninglessness, this is the sort of song I could see them releasing in 2014. It’s a song of bouncy, feel-good sounds and embittered lyrics, delivered with the pinnacle of professional sheen. And in moments like the delivery of “The night you came home crying ’cause you crashed your car/Again,” it almost takes flight.
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Alfred Soto: Someone — probably Jordan — has been listening to Raphael Saadiq for the right filters and retro guitar sound. The vocals are more confident and show a broader range than when they didn’t have to beg for chicks, and that’s the trouble: I can’t imagine another pose these un-pretty boys can strike, not with funk so bloodless it’s like they drained a cow corpse (Adam Levine is a nip and tuck away from the problem himself). Wasn’t former collaborator Robin Thicke not returning Jordan’s phone calls?
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Megan Harrington: This is mostly dull pop from two aging pin-ups, but I haven’t forgotten what a complete creep Jordan Knight was on The Surreal Life, and has anyone else listened to “Give it to You” recently? Knight is wont to demand these experiences, in life and in song; so though the narrative might be easier swallowed as a cutesy story about two has-beens recoupling to reconquer middle America, the truth is that any sweet “oo-ooo” innocence either of these two had is long awash in darkness. Leave them on the plastic discs of the past.
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Patrick St. Michel: A nice reminder that everyone ages, and eventually faces the realization that their youth is gone regardless of how much they try to convince the world otherwise. Stupid-as-heck guitar, though.
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Anthony Easton: Kind of proves that boy band skill rests on producers and not manufacturers, doesn’t it? Also, there is something sad and perverse about how meta this is: they are seeking one more hit, one more billboard rocket. “Let me get it one more time” is obviously fame coded as fucking, which sometimes works, but here reeks of desperation.
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Dan MacRae: This sounds alarmingly like major label CanCon, which is bizarre considering neither Nick nor Knight is Canadian. “One More Time” has sort of a freezer burnt Maroon 5 quality to it that isn’t exactly my thing, but I suppose Nick & Knight (pop’s Franklin & Bash!) wasn’t designed for me in the first place.
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Thomas Inskeep: When did Maroon fucking 5 become the template for all male-sung pop music? I was hoping this would be fun, breezy pop, but instead it sounds like it was focus-grouped for soccer moms. Will likely be a big hit on Adult Top 40 radio, which is incredibly depressing.
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Brad Shoup: I love to think of these lions in winter, trying to combine the pop smarts they hung out with and the whatever corny shit they actually like listening to. “One More Time” has a touch of the everlasting “Faded,” a bit of JC Chasez’s melodic freedom, and a bunch of trad vocal moves cribbed from Tedder and Levine. That bridge is tiny, but the chording is nuts — it sounds like contempo worship music.
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Edward Okulicz: Oh, the line between hopeless, tragicomic delusion and abusiveness. Not sure if I’m referring to the meaning of the song itself (Come back! I’m the best you’ll ever have! Shut up!) or the mutton-as-lamb of the song from words to melody to production. The OOH-HOO! hook wants to cram fun down my throat as the rest of the song tries to handcuff me to a radiator.
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John Seroff: Perhaps my vision is clouded by never caring for either of these guys, but can I possibly be the only one interpreting “One More Time” as a jaunty anthem for the abusive boyfriend? Because, seriously: the story I’m hearing, rendered in pastel and khaki, is one of a troubled woman who gets violently drunk, crashes her car and desperately wants to break up with her partner but is told “I know that you’ve been thinking you’re better off leaving / but you’re never gonna find another me / you’re gonna feel so stupid when you realize what you did / no one can make you feel like me.” And the culmination of that line of thinking is that we’re gonna fuck one more time before you leave OO-HOO OO-HOO OHHH you’re not leaving until we fuck OO-HOO OO-HOO OHHH. This would’ve been Funny Games inappropriate back when these guys were tween idols but from men in their thirties and forties, it’s call for an intervention.
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Crystal Leww: If you try, “One More Time” can also pertain to both of these dudes’ careers. Unfortunately for them, the assertion that “it’ll never be this good” is just untrue: I have been listening to that 5SOS album for the last couple of weeks, and it’s pretty good.
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