10 Artists That Changed With One Song

Maroon 5 were never known as the most authentic rock band in the world. Even when they were releasing some of their more celebrated material in the ‘00s, they were the kind of pop rock band that used ‘rock’ very loosely, spending most of their time making pop music with guitars. Right after their third album Hands All Over though, things started to change when Adam Levine channeled his inner Rolling Stone.

While Moves Like Jagger is far from the worst song ever made, this was the sound of Maroon 5 starting to cater to the shallow pop fans of the world, with lyrics that don’t make too much sense and looking to find something that gets you moving without thinking too hard. Although the song still has the funk leanings that they were getting into on their last few records, the raw numbers of this song gave the band incentive to go even poppier on their next handful of albums, going for the sounds of stadium pop on Overexposed and taking pages out of the Coldplay playbook.

The rest of their career hasn’t fared much better either, with Adam Levine taking charge and the rest of the band falling into the background on albums like Red Pill Blues, most of which is the sound of 30-somethings trying to blend in with the teenagers of the world. While Maroon 5 might be the cash cow name these days, Moves Like Jagger may as well have been the first single for the Adam Levine Experience.