| Just yesterday
I was surprised to hear my girlfriend ask if I
knew about the band Maroon 5. My immediate
thought, when the heck did my girlfriend hear
about Kara's flowers, was followed by the
shock of that Maroon 5 had become something
popular. Apparently these guys are on the radio
now and everything. My only gripe about this? I
miss the band they started off as. Long ago, in
my days as a sixth grader, I do believe, I was
hooked on a fun band very much unlike those I
heard on the radio. Kara's Flowers (a band
started when the members were only 14 years old)
had slow, stylish songs with vocals that most
people compared to those of the great Paul Simon.
This characteristic of their lead singer, Adam
Levine, was most obvious in their wonderful song
called Secret. (I wish the best of luck
to anyone trying to find it online, as it is hard
to find, but still one of the best songs these
guys will ever produce under any name.)
When the band quit making music and their
website redirected me to a page for Maroon 5 I
was sorely disappointed. Simple Kind of
Lovely and Everyday Goodbyes were
the kinds of songs I needed more of. My only hope
was that Maroon 5 would get in gear and produce
something quickly. They did, though I somehow
missed out on the news until a year after Songs
About Jane was released. Thank goodness.
While Maroon 5 isn't bad at all, it lacks
something that Kara's Flowers had. The band has
stated that they've changed directions with their
music, and R&B is a lot more of their new
style than a dorky kind of pop similar to the fun
stuff Weezer puts out. In an amusing interview
with VH1, Adam says,
"Then I started listening to Stevie
Wonder, and everything changed. We started
listening to music that was much more
manufactured, like hip-hop and R&B."
I really can't argue with him on this. It really does sound more
manufactured. I just want someone to point out to me when that became a quality to look for in music. When my girlfriend put Songs About
Jane on for me today, I would listen to enough of each
song to get the jist of it, and then quickly move
to the next. Every song starts off sounding
pretty much the same as the one before it. This is the kind of thing a person expects from the likes of Brittney Spears and others in the music industry whose sounds are, unarguably, manufactured. Much
to my dismay, Kara's Flowers really has died. Worse, Maroon 5's sound really isn't to die for.
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