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Nov 2, 2017Everything comes to a head on "Closure," an extended 11-minute smooth-funk jam that throws all the album's strict structure out the window. Its presence not only draws attention to how Maroon 5 can vamp, it also highlights the discipline behind the rest of Red Pill Blues.
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Nov 3, 2017The R&B- and funk-laden Blues, their best and most cohesive set of the decade, is actually worth some appointment listening.
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Nov 8, 2017Levine’s voice murmurs and glints in the corners of the arrangement, and the total effect is exactly as pleasingly immaculate and numbing as all soft rock should be.
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Nov 6, 2017Whether skating over house beats on "Plastic Rose" or cruising through a ballad like "Denim Jacket," Levine proves himself a pliant star of Jacksonian ease and Stingly self-assurance.
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Nov 3, 2017Listening to Red Pill Blues makes one yearn for an era when there at least seemed to be more room for genuinely ambitious, artful Top 40 pop. In other words, I'll take the blue pill.
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Nov 2, 2017Singer Adam Levine has said this is the group’s R&B album, and so it is, though not in any remotely experimental way: superstar rap guest spots can’t disrupt the torpor that too often becomes a default setting.
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Nov 2, 2017Moments after hearing “Best 4 You”, with its slimline groove and sleek falsetto chorus, I can’t remember a trace of its melody or theme: it was just there, and then not there. It’s an experience repeated throughout Red Pill Blues.
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Nov 6, 2017With Red Pill Blues Levine and co have managed to produce an album that is uninteresting and unexciting; at best this is background music, to be listened to on very, very low volume, or even better, not at all.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 57 out of 159
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Mixed: 35 out of 159
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Negative: 67 out of 159
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Nov 3, 2017
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Nov 4, 2017
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Nov 4, 2017