Maroon 5

On their first studio album since the multi-platinum debut Songs About Jane, Maroon 5 does it again with their sticky brand of alternative pop. It Won't Be Soon delivers more retro synthesizer grooves, infectious guitar vamps and semi-sweet lyrics. Frontman Adam Levine's buttery falsetto sizzles in "Nothing Lasts Forever," a response to Kanye West's "Heard 'Em Say," while "Can't Stop" introduces flirty funk layered under electro synth riffs.

Released in 2002, Maroon 5's Songs About Jane didn't win its new-artist Grammy until 2005, a
lonely twenty-first-century monument of artist development. Descrying bankable hits in
Adam Levine's love for the funk and knack for the hook, private investors and then Clive
Davis worked it till it gushed oil. So the only surprising thing about It Won't Be Soon Before
Long is its complete avoidance of sophomore slump. Justin Timberlake is subtler... More >

Justin Timberlake is subtler, and will remain the hipster's popster--there's nothing as rhythmically profound as "My Love" here. But there's more meaty-beaty dynamite. The debut was a breakup album, brightly surfaced but sour underneath. This one's the diary of a top dog--a multiplatinum idol with a soulful falsetto who's dated Jessica, Lindsay, Kirsten, you name her. Now Adam Levine says he wants to have kids, but he also says the "Give me something to believe in" bit in the rather nasty Jam & Lewis-styled kissoff "Makes Me Wonder" has a political subtext. Figure that voicing such feelings helps his dogging, and hope he doesn't mean it. Levine is too good at catchy come-ons, catchy pleas, and catchy farewells to waste his sacred essence on social homilies others can do better. Instead of deep, he should work on nice, as in the good-guy kissoffs "Nothing Lasts Forever" and "Better That We Break" or the memorable "Won't Go Home Without You," which combines confidence with affection rather than macho. (Grade - *** 1/2)