Upon hearing Maroon 5’s Memories (not the song from CATS!!! the Musical) in the gym, and immediately loving it, I was excited to learn more about the band behind it. Much to my chagrin, I discovered multiple heated conversations on the Internet around the question, “does Maroon 5 suck?”

First, for those of you who don’t know Maroon 5, it is an American pop rock band from Los Angeles, CA. Bandmembers are lead vocalist/social media biggie/much tattooed Adam Levine; keyboardist and rhythm guitarist Jesse Carmichael; lead guitarist James Valentine; drummer Matt Flynn; keyboardist PJ Morton; and multi-instrumentalist and bassist Sam Farrar.

Among its many chart-topping albums are Songs About Jane, 2002; It Won’t Be Soon Before Long, 2007; and Overexposed, 2012. The band’s seventh album, Jordi, was released in 2021. Maroon 5 has sold more than 135 million records, making them one of the world’s best-selling music artists.

But, the question remains, “does Maroon 5 suck?

My Honest Opinion

Maroon 5 does not suck. Reason #1: The band wrote Memories. Reason #2: when I listened to this song after I posted The Long Goodbye…An Affair of the Heart, it made me cry and gave me comfort. It got me singing and moving. In other words, it made me sad and happy. Reason #3: Even though my mother’s Alzheimer’s illness was very painful, mostly for her family, we knew we were not alone. Memories reminded me of that.

Ergo, Maroon 5 does not suck.

Memories

Released in September 2019, Memories was inspired by the death of the band’s manager and Levine’s friend, Jordan Feldstein, in December 2017. Memories debuted at number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 and later peaked at number two behind Post Malone’s Circles to become the band’s 10th top-five track and 15th top-ten track.

This made Maroon 5 only the second band (the other is the Rolling Stones) to have a top-two hit on the Hot 100 in three decades (2000s, 2010s, 2020s). The song peaked at number one on the Adult Top 40 chart, giving the band its 14th number one there and at number one on the Adult Contemporary chart, where it remained for 20 weeks. At the end of 2020, Memories ranked at number eight on the Hot 100 year-end chart.

The music of Memories is based on the harmonic sequence and melody of Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel. As of July 2022, the official music video on YouTube has over 850 million views and 8.7 million likes.