In the future, when music supervisors need to evoke the year 2012, they’ll probably reach for “Gangnam Style,” “Call Me Maybe,” or any of a dozen other songs before the one that held the top spot on the Hot 100 this year longer than any other. That’s because “Gangnam Style” and “Call Me Maybe” have crossed all sorts of demographic barriers to become global pop phenomena and woven themselves as deeply into the 2012 zeitgeist as any other cultural product, while Maroon 5’s “One More Night” just sort of sits there occupying the number-one slot, but not our hearts.
Much like Train, Maroon 5 is massively popular but not particularly beloved. Although statistically there have to be more than a few die-hard Maroon 5 fans out there memorizing every word on their albums and getting Maroon 5-inspired tattoos (for some reason I love this image), they’re not a particularly compelling band, even when they’re doing creative things like working with rappers and underground electronic musicians. They’ve planted their feet firmly in the middle of the road and won’t let the siren call of making interesting art lure them away from it. “One More Night” entering its tenth week on top of the charts speaks to that approach’s commercial effectiveness.