I’ve been a fan of Maroon 5 for years. I guess roughly ten years, as the other day via Twitter I was informed it was ten years ago that Songs About Jane came out.
Ten years.
I’m so old.
In other news, the new Maroon 5 album came out this week. I’ve been listening to it nonstop since I bought it. Luckily, Basil doesn’t seem to be bothered by it in the least, so I guess it’s okay. It fails to induce barking outbursts. (There are certain songs *cough* *cough* “The Call” by Backstreet Boys *cough* that induce fits of barking.)
I tend to associate albums with certain aspects. Sometimes it’s general things, somethings it’s something so precise, there is no way anything else can be associated with it. I go on length here on how I’ll always associate Songs About Jane with Glasgow. (Yeah, evidently I bought the album over a year after it came out. I’m slow on the uptake.)
Their next two albums are kind of muddled together, as I bought them at the same time (on the same day) two summers ago. I associate both of them with 10p, which I began that summer. While I wrote the story, in the fall, Maroon 5 became pretty much the band for C and G, with a little Florence and the Machine thrown in.
So, since Tuesday, I've been listening to Overexposed and for some unknown reason I'm associating it with...Sherlock Holmes. Like David Tennent kind of took over my brain for over a year, I'm pretty sure Benedict Cumberbatch (oh, poor man...that name) has hijacked my brain. And like David Tennent, it's gone passed the thing that introduced him to me. I've been consuming anything BC has appeared in. I've laughed as he played a slightly sex obsessed male who seemed to get stepped on by his brother while his other brother never went to school and Hugh Laurie heard voices in his head and I couldn't stop laughing. I've heard him talk a total of maybe ten lines in an American accent while wearing a hat. I've seen him with various shades of hair, the slightly reddish blond he sported in Tinker Tailor Solider the most disturbing. I'm not sure why I found it disturbing, other than it was straight. I've seen him with a mustache and sounding weird riding a horse.
And I'm no where near done. There are like at least three things I haven't managed to watch online. I've only stopped because I think my head is going to explode.
And not from overload on an actor, but simply because he's never looks or sounds the same (he does walk the same in each thing I've seen so far, he's got this distinctive walk that is just...him. Does that make sense? I don't care. I don't need to make sense. I talk to my dog.) I finally watched Decoy Bride and kept thinking David Tennent's character was a hopelessly confused Doctor. It was like when I attempted to watch Hamlet and kept thinking Hamlet was...an insane, confused, mentally unbalanced Doctor. When I saw him (David Tennent) in Casanova, I never thought he was playing a... womanizing Doctor. But everything else I've ever seen him in (even his few scenes in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), he's still the freaking Doctor.
But, back to what I started this post to talk about (honestly, I didn't start it to begin to talk about BC. Honest). Maroon 5's new album. The songs.
"Pay Phone" is the single that came out before the album. I heard it on The Voice and kept thinking, "Do most of the people who watch this show even know what a pay phone is? When I first heard the song, I was working on a story I'd first written in high school, when pay phones were still part of everyday life for me, as I used them often-- even after I had a cellular device, as I wasn't supposed to "use" the cell phone except in emergencies. (This failed, if you can guess.) When I was rewriting this story (where the main character uses pay phones a lot, as he doesn't have a cell phone even though his mother works at a freaking cell phone store), I realized he needed to not be using pay phones all the time. He only uses one still, one he worries will vanish at any moment, located in the foyer of the school.
Though...
Do todays teenagers, the people who mostly consume popular music, know what pay phones are? Are there even any pay phones left in this country? (Yes, there are. I've seen a few. Some of them even say Ameritech or SBC, two defunct telecoms.)
My thoughts on "Pay Phone" (other than to thank Maroon 5 for reminding the world about pay phones and the need for change)...it's okay. I've got two favorite songs all ready. "Wipe Your Eyes" and "The Man Who Never Lied." "Wipe Your Eyes" is dead sweet, yet bittersweet at the same time (kind of classic Maroon 5 if I'm honest). The other songs have a kind of dance vibe to them and I'm distinctly reminded of the 1970s for some reason I can't really understand.
The one issue I have: "Wasted Years." The first time I heard it, I thought it sounded familiar. The second time I heard it, I knew it sounded familiar, so I looked at the songs I had all ready and found it'd been released on something called Live-Friday the 13th. The third time I heard it, I was like, "Okay, why do I not know the words to this song? I've been listening to it for six years (at least)."
They changed the lyrics. It finally hit me last night what was wrong with it. It really throws me. But, I guess it is their song, so they can do whatever they want.
All in all, I do like this album quite a bit. (I usually don't put something new on repeat for four days straight unless I like it.)
I just wish I'd associate it with something other than Sherlock Holmes, because it makes NO SENSE. Even I know it makes little sense and I've been trying to rationalize it for the past four days. I haven't even WATCHED SHERLOCK this week. (I don't think. I can't remember.) I did start reading Sherlock Holmes. Because my dad told me I ought to give it a shot. Seeing I made it through Jane Eyre, he seemed to think Sherlock Holmes would be easy. (I've "read" only one Sherlock Holmes story and I didn't actually read it, I listened to it and I really feel like I've put this story on the blog all ready. So, I'll just shut up all ready.)
