Sept. 13, 2024
Maroon 5 - "Sugar"
This addictive narrative dissects how Maroon 5 orchestrated pop totalitarianism with their sinister 2015 smash "Sugar." Chronicling Adam Levine's band of mainstream chameleons seamlessly subverting trends into ubiquitous earworms, it explores the song's pillowy grooves and sleek melodies perverting pure saccharine into audio aphrodisiac.
Deconstructing lines like "I want that sugar rush" and the video's neon-laced hedonism, the episode celebrates Maroon 5's uncanny ability to render any genre pliable to their Teflon pop prowess. Their expert viral proliferation reducing the globe to delirious, fiending surrender affirms "Sugar" as their most potent, candied narcotic yet.
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Unlock an ad-free podcast experience with Caloroga Shark Media! Get all our shows on any player you love, hassle free! For Apple users, hit the banner on your Apple podcasts app. For Spotify or other players, visit caloroga.com/plus. No plug-ins needed!
Subscribe now for exclusive shows like 'Palace Intrigue,' and get bonus content from Deep Crown (our exclusive Palace Insider!) Or get 'Daily Comedy News,' and '5 Good News Stories’ with no commercials! Plans start at $4.99 per month, or save 20% with a yearly plan at $49.99. Join today and help support the show!
We now have Merch! FREE SHIPPING! Check out all the products like T-shirts, mugs, bags, jackets and more with logos and slogans from your favorite shows! Did we mention there’s free shipping? Get 10% off with code NewMerch10 Go to Caloroga.com
Get more info from Caloroga Shark Media and if you have any comments, suggestions, or just want to get in touch our email is info@caloroga.com
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In the ever shifting landscape of twenty first century pop music,
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few artists have displayed the chameleonic durability and mainstream wizardry
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of Maroon five. Over their decades spanning career, Adam Levine
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and his Los Angeles Bread Crew mastered the alchemy of
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shape shifting between genres while retaining a melodic core stickiness
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able to permeate every corner of mass consumption. Yet even
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by their own lofty standards of multi platinum ubiquity, the
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band's runaway twenty fifteen Smash Sugar represented a new zenith
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of masterfully calibrating their sound for the modern era. When
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those opening languid guitar notes and Lavine's signature molten vocals
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purred through radios worldwide, it instantly signaled Maroon Five's ascent
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to pop totalitarianism would only intensify. I'm hurting, baby, I'm
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broken down. He coups in those opening bars, But in
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that deceptively reserved opening salvo, a sly, slick, sonic aphrodisiac
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was already worming its way into our collective ear canals,
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preparing to hit pleasure centres with each syncopated thrust. In
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just a few potent opening seconds, Maroon five solidified their
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absolute authority in creating sonic candy equally suited for radio
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monoliths or strip club soundtracking. For what would ultimately become
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one of the biggest hit singles of the entire twenty tens.
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Wasn't just the encapsulation of Maroon Five's uncanny nack for
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so averting and co opting trends into their own zeitgeist
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dominating package. It was also a veritable pop esperanto, speaking
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to every sonic tribe, indie rock fans, adult contemporary lovers,
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nightclub bangers, and everyone in between, all gradually succumbing to
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Sugar's slow, intravenous drip of pleasure, conquering melodies and magnetic grooves.
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The tracks pillowy bounce and casually luxuriated flow radiated a
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supreme confidence bread from Maroon Five's previous multi platinum triumphs,
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reinventing their esthetic across eras yet what separated Sugar was
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its subversive perversion of pop's most effervescent and wholesome of
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sonic food groups into something slick, sinister, and borderline lascivious.
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As Levine cast his smoky eyed Pheromone clouds across lines
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like I'm Craving that Sugar Rush and teased his lusty
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sugar baby invitations, what emerged was a new zeitgeist capturing
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emblem for the sensual self indulgence lurking beneath most millennial
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hustle pawn appetites. Here was sleek aspirational consumption, couched in
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just enough coyishly carnal subversiveness to achieve Trojan horse ubiquity
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across suburban households and inner city back seats alike. At
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its core, the song's slinky verses and crescendoing dance floor
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combustion of hooks and ad libs exuded pure saccarin decadence.
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Sugar was the intravenous audio manifestation of vapid bachelorette party
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indulgences and unbridled late night fear of missing out. A
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confection born from sticky la hedonism, yet calibrated for seamless
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insertion into the global mainstream's ear cavity. But, as is
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always the case for Maroon five's most potent earworms and
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viral hits, the true witchcraft lay in the song's musical
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plasticity and malleable grooves. What begins lean and subdued gradually
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metastasizes into a robust, melodically generous vamp session oozing with
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just enough laser focused sleas to avoid outright cheesiness. Its
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pop science tailored for maxis earworm assimilation across all ages
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and cultural demos, The irresistible groove builds to a veritable
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dance floor smashing crescendo as funky clavenet squeals and Levin's
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layered vocal hooks crash over each other in augiastic melodic revelry.
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Deftly interspersed ad libs like I Want That Sugar Rush
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serve as the final gateway drug into full dork dancer potheosis,
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unshackled from any conventional pop wisdom or limitations. Sugar fully
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embodies the hedonistic ethos and platinum touch of a band
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unleashed to pillage mainstream consciousness with their slick, shallow ecstasy
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bombs at will. This is the Maroon five institution fully
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manifesting its stranglehold on the zeitgeist. Through sheer, groove proliferation
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and unassailable pop smarts. The melodies inundate, the sticky swagger
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persuades the hook's command total surrender. By the time its
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ultra gif able music video racked up hundreds of millions
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of views on a diet of flickering neon and Instagram
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fetish gremlin camp, it was clear the entire hire a
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planet was already under Sugar's potent, candid hypnosis. In true
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zeitgeist rattling fashion, Maroon five had mastered the art of
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turning something as wholesome as cane and saccharin into a
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controlled narcotic one strong enough to make the globe bounce
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and sweat in delirium for weeks, months, and quite possibly
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lifetimes to come. More in a moment. In the years
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since that particular strain of sonic crystal meth detonated, Maroon
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five stranglehold on mainstream hit making has only intensified, and
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with each new audacious reinvention, whether channeling the eighties on
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smashes like Moves like Jagger, or pivoting to full blown
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radio brassiness via Girls Like You and their latest LP Jordie,
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one thing has remained consistent. Maroon Five's potent pop alchemy
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and omnivorous facility to render any genre or trend pliable
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to their ferocious melodic hooks and groove science continues upending
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conventional wisdom about what is possible at music's commercial epicenter.
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Like a veteran drug syndicate, they simply identify society's cravings
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and create entirely new, highly addictive pharmaceutical variations ready for
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pandemic level viral dispersal. So turn your radios up, roll
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down the escalade windows, and let that gooey, infectious melancholy
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of sugar seep back into your auditory cortex and soul
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one more time? Can you feel that numbing, melted caramel
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sensation spreading that wistful serotonin detonation, overtaking your other senses
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and defenses. The candy is dangling before you, Still irresistible,
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in its blissfully vacuous splendor, manufactured for one simple purpose,
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total oral and libidinal capitulation. Once more, we're all invited
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to mainline another bottomless dose of sugar straight into our bloodstream,
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just like Maroon Five perfected so expertly the first time,
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and as always, the after effects will leave us dizzy, spent,
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yet ultimately powerless against surrendering completely to their teflon brand
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of pop supremacy and expert genre bending. As The Hit
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Maker Chronicles reminds us yet again, sometimes the ultimate potency
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of a mega hit is revealed in its ability to
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reduce listeners into slack jawed, deliriously blissed out zombies jonesing
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for that next confectionery smash. So lay back and feel
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that glucose drip inundate you all over again. Maroon Five
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have long since mastered how to keep the whole world
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fiending for their sugar. I'm Andrew Irons, and this has
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been another engaging episode of The hit Maker Chronicles. Join
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us next week as we continue to uncover the stories
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behind the songs and artists that have left an indelible
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mark on the world. The Hit Maker Chronicles is a
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production of Calarogus Shark Media Executive producers Mark Frantzis and
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John McDermott. Portions of this podcast may have been created
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with the assistance of AI
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