Artists & Bands

Maroon 5 | Tunes + Guitar Lessons

Maroon 5 perfected the art of the modern pop single—hook-heavy, radio-ready, and endlessly replayable. From soulful rock beginnings to slick chart anthems, their hits just don’t quit!

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Maroon 5: Riding the Charts with Every Single

Maroon 5 exploded onto the global music scene with their 2002 debut Songs About Jane. The singles Harder to Breathe, This Love, and She Will Be Loved became international hits, propelling album and single sales beyond 20 million copies. This early success kept them touring for several years, delaying their second album, It Won’t Be Soon Before Long, until 2007.

While the follow-up album charted well, its singles—Makes Me Wonder and Wake Up Call—failed to achieve the same enduring impact. Their third album, Hands All Over (2010), faced a similarly lukewarm reception. Even with big-name producer Mutt Lange on board and a Queen cover thrown in, it struggled to gain traction—until a game-changing reissue arrived.

In 2011, Moves Like Jagger featuring Christina Aguilera was added to the album, reigniting the band’s career. Produced by Shellback and Benny Blanco, and paired with a Jonas Åkerlund-directed video, the single became a global smash, selling 10 million copies in the U.S. alone and cementing its place as a pop culture staple.

Maroon 5 capitalised on this momentum with Overexposed (2012), working with Max Martin and other Swedish hitmakers. While album sales hovered around 2 million, singles like Payphone and One More Night soared, selling 8 and 6 million copies respectively. A deluxe version included a notable cover of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together.

Their fifth album, V (2014), featured an eye-popping 15 producers for just 12 tracks. Again, the album itself saw moderate success, but singles triumphed—especially Sugar, which sold 11 million copies in the U.S.

By now, Maroon 5 had earned a reputation for massive singles overshadowing album performance, prompting the release of Singles (2015), a greatest hits compilation. Sales were modest, likely because most fans already owned or streamed the hits.

Red Pill Blues (2017) continued the trend, with Girls Like You becoming another huge hit, matching Sugar‘s 11 million sales. Their seventh album, Jordi (2021), followed the same formula. Though Memories “only” sold 4 million in the U.S., it amassed over 1.5 billion streams in Japan and South Korea, shifting the band’s touring focus towards Asia.

From their chart-topping beginnings to their later streaming dominance, Maroon 5 have proven themselves to be true singles specialists—consistently delivering hits, even when album sales lag behind.