Maroon 5 is an American pop-rock band from the United States, which has a very rich and complex success story. While still a schoolboy, Adam Levine and his friends formed their own band, called Kara’s Flowers.
Their first album called "We Like Digging?" released in 1995. This album was good for beginners without any professional musical experience, and some right people noticed it. Reprise Records agreed to give the contract to young artists, but after the failed album "The Fourth World" this contract was terminated. Although it was a failure to some extent, it was a useful lesson for Kara’s Flowers at the time. They realized what was wrong with them and began to improve their own sound.
Later in 2001, the band tried again with a new name ‘’Maroon 5’’ and picked up a new guitarist Valentine. The band has now, through the years, released eight albums. Three of those albums were released while they were still known as Kara’s Flowers and the other five under Maroon 5.
The first-ever album they released as Maroon 5 “Songs About Jane” was an incredible success that helped out the band quite a lot. This period was really special for them, because they finally had the money and freedom of action, thanks to which they were able to further concentrate on the music they always wanted to release. At some point, the album peaked at the Billboard 200 chart and later got quadruple platinum in 2005. And after that year the band was nominated for a Grammy award in the category ‘’Best New Artist’’ which it won.
Later in May of 2007, Maroon 5 had released their 2nd album called ‘’It Won’t Be Soon Before Long’’ which was received remarkably.
One of its songs called ‘’Makes Me Wonder’’ ended up being the №1 selling record and even broke iTunes sales records in the week, selling over 101,000 copies. Overall the band has been experiencing major success with two of their first albums doing exceptionally well!
In 2009, the band performed in the Washington Hotel to honor Barack Obama’s inauguration. They later made a cover version for the ‘’The way you look tonight’’ which appeared on the Frank Sinatra tribute album.
Eventually came 2011 where they have re-released their 3rd album ‘’Hands all Over’’ to include ‘’Moves like Jagger’’, which became another hit and peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100. During these years (2009-2011), Levine stated that the band was reaching its peak and might only release only one more album before disbanding. But he later dispersed any rumors about disbandment. He has repeatedly pointed out that he likes working in a team of people you can trust. They all had similar musical tastes, so it was easy for them to agree on something.
During 2012-2013 as the band continued working on their 4th album ‘’Overexposed’’ which was the most experimental in their careers. The songs in this album sound more like pop music, albeit with elements of other genres. The song that really led this album to success was "Payphone" in which Wiz Khalifa participated. In an extremely short time, this song was able to reach the top of various music charts and remained there for a long time. The same can be said about songs like "One More Night" and "Daylight". Despite the fact that critics did not appreciate this album, its success could not be disputed. Overexposed entered the top ten best-selling albums in 2012.
In 2013, James Valentine announced that the band was working on their next, fifth studio album, which would sound similar to their first album. On the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the legendary The Beatles in the United States, Marron 5 performed 2 songs of this group, namely "Ticket to Ride" and "All My Loving". Later in 2014, Jesse Carmichael confirmed that he was going to get together with the group and for some time the group had 6 members.
Their 5th album "V", released in 2014 was a huge success, as were their previous albums. Songs like "Sugar", "Maps" and "Animals" are still gaining a lot of listens on various streaming platforms. This is especially true for the song "Sugar" which is the second most popular song of the band on Spotify (after "Memories"). The band's sixth album called "Red Pill Blues" was released in 2017 and contained 10 major singles. The most notable song on this album is "Girls Like You", a music video for which has already gained more than 3 billion views on YouTube.
The latest to date is the album "Jordi", released in 2021. Songs such as "Memories" and "Beautiful Mistakes" (ft. Megan Thee Stallion) stood out the most. For example, on the Spotify platform, the song "Memories" has the largest number of listens among all of the Maroon 5 songs.
Looking at all this success, it is safe to say that Maroon 5 can be included in the list of the best performers of the decade. They have nominations or victories at Grammy Awards, Billboard Music Awards, American Music Awards, World Music Awards, and others. Their songs collect millions, and sometimes billions of plays, and fans are waiting for a new album from year to year because they are sure that it will not disappoint them.