Maroon 5 has spent two decades moving from funk-rock grooves to pop superstardom, but Love Is Like feels different. This isn’t about chasing charts or clinging to nostalgia—it’s about finding their heartbeat again. Recorded between Los Angeles and Montecito, the album pulls every member into the room and opens the door to bold voices like BLACKPINK’s Lisa, Lil Wayne, and Sexyy Red. Together, they shape a record that doesn’t reinvent for show but reconnects with the band’s essence: groove sharpened by confession, rhythm tangled with memory. It plays like both a celebration and a diary, reminding us that Maroon 5’s greatest trick has always been turning love into music you can move—and break—to.
A Band That Grew Up With Us
Maroon 5 isn’t just another pop act, they’re a soundtrack for multiple generations. From the guitar-driven angst of Songs About Jane to the glossy sheen of Overexposed and the electronic sheen of Red Pill Blues, the band has followed pop’s every turn without losing its signature between Adam Levine’s elastic falsetto and the band’s slick musicianship. But there’s a difference with Love Is Like —this time, it feels less about chart supremacy and more about connection. You hear it in the restraint of the production—less cluttered than recent efforts, the lyrics… leaning into sincerity instead of spectacle. There’s groove, yes, but there’s also a reflective maturity. Looking as though, the band finally decided to stop competing with their younger imitators and lean into their own scars and soul, instead.
Love as Groove, Love as Confession
At its heart, Love Is Like is a meditation on love’s contradictions. It’s about the thrill and ache of intimacy, the tension between revelation and rhythm. Each track feels like snapshots of romance, caught …. in movement. Maroon 5 has always flirted with this duality, but on this project, they fully “embody” it — the funk makes you move, while the lyrics make you pause. The title itself frames the whole album: Love Is Like—an unfinished sentence, inviting listeners to complete it with their own story. Love is like what? A groove, a wound, a night out, a quiet morning after? Maroon 5 never pins it down. Instead, they sketch the outlines, letting the beats and confessions fill the gaps.
Where Stories and Beats Collide
Priceless is a statement piece featuring BLACKPINK’s Lisa, which sets you on a journey of warmth. Levine wrote it for his wife, Behati Prinsloo—an open-hearted ode that sidesteps the cheesy tropes of marital devotion by leaning into playful groove. “It instantly hit me,” Levine confessed in an interview, “fun, summery, feel-good. It felt right.” The track works precisely because it resists grandeur. Lisa’s verse isn’t just a guest feature—it’s woven into the song’s DNA, balancing Levine’s croon with breezy charm. Critics called it a “major pop crossover moment,” and it shot into the Top 10 of Hot AC charts. However, what lingers isn’t the numbers, it’s the intimacy. A band that once made global blockbusters with Rihanna now delivers something more precious: a love song that feels lived-in.
Then comes All Night arguably the album’s most playful yet slyly subversive cut. The groove is sticky, propelled by basslines that nod to funk while staying squarely in Maroon 5’s pop wheelhouse. Lyrically, it paints love as obsession—“can’t leave, won’t leave”—a tension between passion and poison. The real twist on this track, lies in its visual. In the music video, Behati Prinsloo takes center stage, lip-syncing the lyrics while Levine lurks in the background with a saxophone. The swap isn’t just cheeky—it reframes the narrative. Suddenly, love’s obsession looks like performance, like play-acting. Levine admitted with a grin that it was “the most she’s ever listened to my music.” The moment crystallizes the album’s spirit: a willingness to laugh at itself, to blur the line between art and life.
The title track lands mid-album like a thunderclap. Featuring Lil Wayne, Love Is Like is sharp, dynamic, and confessional. Its lyrics toy with love as an intoxicant, a force that blurs reason—Levine even admitted they almost called it “Drugs.” Wayne’s verse cuts in with trademark wit, grounding Levine’s ethereal falsetto in streetwise grit. The accompanying video, directed by Aerin Moreno in New York, matches the energy: fast cuts, neon blur and urban urgency. It’s a late-night confessional set to rhythm, where vulnerability and swagger collide. Instead of forcing grandeur, it lets spontaneity and collaboration carry the song.
The B-Side Heartbeats
The strength of Love Is Like doesn’t rest only in its big singles. It runs deeper, in the tracks that linger when the spotlight fades.
Hideaway slides in with intimacy, wrapping Maroon 5’s pop instincts in a soft ache of longing. Then Yes I Did flips the mood, bursting with cheeky confidence and a rhythm that dares you not to move. By the time I Like It lands—featuring Sexyy Red—the album swerves into hip-hop swagger. It could have sounded like a gimmick, but instead it feels like a playful left turn that works. The fire crackles hottest on Burn Burn Burn where urgency blazes through every note, already begging for a live crowd to shout it back. The close hits softer as My Love folds into bittersweet reflection, while California signs off with warmth—sun-drenched, wistful, a goodbye disguised as a love letter.
Noteworthy are samples from Valerie Simpson and Loleatta Holloway which Maroon 5 laced the record with. These does not just nod to the past—they dance with it—showing that beneath the polish, the band still treats groove like a teacher.
The Sound of a Band Still Listening
What makes Love Is Like work isn’t just the songs themselves, but their sequencing. Maroon 5 resists the urge to frontload the hits and instead builds a narrative shift: joy, confession, resilience, heartbreak, renewal. The band has learned that albums, in the age of playlists, can still be cohesive stories if you pay attention. Production-wise, this sonic project finds a sweet spot. There’s enough polish to satisfy pop radio, but enough room for emotions to… breathe in the arrangements to let emotion breathe. The grooves aren’t overproduced; they’re lived-in, with imperfections that make them feel human.
Maroon 5’s Place in Pop Today
To release an album like this in 2025 is to acknowledge the musical trend or landscape—TikTok-driven hits, hyperpop, Afrobeats, indie revivals—and choose not to chase any of them. Maroon 5 isn’t trying to out-youth the youth anymore, they’re forging on, on their lane —pop grounded in groove, confession, and love— and that feels timeless. This is a smart move, for a band that has spent years being both adored and critiqued, Love Is Like is a reminder of why they’ve lasted —they write songs that get under your skin, whether you want them to or not. The hooks, the honesty, the rhythm—you… just can’t dismiss them.
A Heartbeat Reclaimed
At its best, Love Is Like feels like a return—not to the past, but to the essence of what made Maroon 5 matter in the first place. They are not about chart dominance; they’re all for the connection. It’s not about chasing trends; it’s about telling stories and saying truths while at it.
Love, as the album insists, is never just one thing. It’s groove, it’s confession, it’s heartbreak, it’s glow. It collides and colludes, it heals and it haunts. Two decades in and Maroon 5, still knows how to turn that complexity into music that moves both body and heart.
In the end, this is more than an album. It’s a heartbeat recalibrated, a reminder that pop, when done with sincerity and groove, still has the power to hold us.
When the Album Comes Alive
Maroon 5 doesn’t let Love Is Like live only on streaming platforms. They take it to the streets this fall, kicking off October 6 in Phoenix and carrying the groove across Los Angeles, New York, Boston, before closing the run November 25 in Detroit. Along the way, Claire Rosinkranz steps in as opener—her fresh, sunlit voice sparking a contrast that makes every night feel new.
If this record taught us anything, it’s that Maroon 5 sounds best when shared, sung back, and lived in real time. So, don’t wait until the clips flood social media—grab your ticket now and step inside the pulse.
Listen & Feel the Groove
🎧 Dive into Love Is Like on Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube
📸 Follow Maroon 5’s world on Instagram for behind-the-scenes, tour updates, and glimpses into the band’s heartbeat.
✨ Share your favorite track in the comments below—because love, after all, is only real when it’s echoed.
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