The only band that Adam Levine knows – more on that later — Maroon 5 continued its 2021 comeback on March 11. After teasing a green-screen demolition derby over the hills of Hollywood, the group – Adam, Jesse Carmichael, James Valentine, Matt Flynn, PJ Morton, and Sam Farrar – shared the video for “Beautiful Mistakes,” the group’s collaboration with Megan Thee Stallion. The video is a technicolor dream, one that sees Adam drive his car into the Southern California sky. It’s there that he meets Megan, looking as divine as ever, and the two chase each other. Donuts get involved (because, why not?) and it ends with the two singing about “laying in bed / making beautiful mistakes.”
Adam Levine spoke about the collaboration with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “I told her that when we finally met up, because obviously everything was done [separately],” he said. “And when we actually saw her in person, and we shot the video together, I told her. I was like the little break where you go to the melodic thing, to be honest, it actually shows this new kind of branch of what she does, and this new versatility that she’s going to show everybody right now. And I was so, I remember when I heard it, I was like, oh, that’s big. That’s a side of her I had never really heard yet.”
Well, it’s just, it’s one of those great songs that I think kind of continues to build,” he added. “And the way she built her part was just, it couldn’t have been a more epic kind of climax for the song. I mean, it really is absolutely perfect. So, I mean, what she did was just miraculous, and it brought the song to a whole new level.”
Adam recently came under fire for an odd comment during this interview, about how there “aren’t any bands anymore.” During the chat, the Maroon 5 frontman said, “It’s funny, when the first Maroon 5 album came out there were still other bands. I feel like there aren’t any bands anymore, you know? That’s the thing that makes me kind of sad, is that there were just bands. There’s no bands anymore, and I feel like they’re a dying breed. And so I kind of, in a weird way, as far as … I mean, there still are plenty of bands, and maybe they’re not in the limelight quite as much, or in the pop limelight, but I wish there could be more of those around.”
…black out like an empty street ⚡️🌑✨#BeautifulMistakes #NewMusicFriday @Spotify @theestallion pic.twitter.com/hFKrR8niFs
— Maroon 5 (@maroon5) March 5, 2021
Even if Adam’s comments were about how there were “no bands anymore” of mainstream note — as if rock, metal, punk, and all their subgenres were no longer commercially viable? – then that comment didn’t make much sense. As of March 10, AJR’s “Bang!” has spent eight weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, and while it has only peaked at 31 (so far), it is still on the top half of the chart. There’s also Florida Georgia Line, All Time Low and Glass Animals on the Hot 100. So, it’s kind of a puzzling thing to say – almost a “mistake.”