Daylight (Maroon 5 song)

Did You Know?

• Levine has stated numerous times that Daylight is his favorite track on the entire album.
• The song features additional vocals by actress Brie Larson, who had said that Maroon 5's Adam Levine was her main inspiration during her own music career.
• The band launched a website called The Daylight Project for fans to submit videos for the music video.

Critical reception

The song received mixed reviews from music critics. Cameron Adams of The Herald Sun noted that the intro matches the Backstreet Boys' 2005 single Just Want You to Know and described it as Max Martin trying to write a Coldplay song by recycling his Backstreet Boys work. Chris Payne of Billboard called it a bittersweet tale building momentum toward a more up-tempo track, with possible Chris Martin homage in Levine's whoa-ohs. Mesfin Fekadu of The Huffington Post likened it to a bad Coldplay cover, and Adam Markovitz of Entertainment Weekly agreed, calling it a Coldplay-ish song with thickly produced choruses where only Levine's larynx is reliably audible, his voice processed into a high, disaffected whine.

Helen Nowotnik of The Triangle felt it fused Never Gonna Leave This Bed and Must Get Out, representing a perfect blend of Maroon 5's old and new sounds. Evan Sawdey of PopMatters wrote that the anthem could have been bigger without relying on a thin drum palette during the chorus. Martyn Young of musicOMH criticized the overuse of a whoah vocal. Robert Copsey of Digital Spy found the song anonymous despite its stadium-sized chorus, and Grace Duncan of Under the Gun called it watery and uninteresting, walled in by clichéd optimistic meanderings.

Chart performance

Daylight debuted at number 70 on the ARIA Charts, becoming the band's thirteenth top 100 single following three consecutive number 2 hits. It climbed to number 37 on November 25, 2012, then re-entered on January 27, 2013 at number 19, its peak. In New Zealand, it debuted at number 32 on the RIANZ chart for the week of December 24, 2012, rose to number 23, then number 19, and peaked at number 11 in its fifth week. On the Billboard Hot 100, it debuted at number 77 for the week ending December 22, 2012, also entering the Adult Pop Songs chart at number 37.

It became the Greatest Gainer when climbing to number 58 the following week, then rose to number 46, number 17 in its eighth week, number 14 in its ninth, and jumped to number 7 in its tenth week after a Grammy performance, becoming their seventh Hot 100 top 10 single. As of June 2014, it had sold 2,169,000 copies in the US. In Canada, it debuted at number 95, climbed to number 54 as Greatest Gainer, and in its sixth week jumped to number 10, their eighth top-ten single there and the first time they had three top-ten singles from the same album.

Music videos

On September 18, 2012, the band announced they needed fan help for the next music video, asking people to record and share their stories for possible inclusion. Directed by Jonas Åkerlund, the video premiered through E! and Vevo on December 10, 2012, featuring fans expressing things they love and hate after submitting entries online. A second video, titled Daylight (Playing for Change), directed by Mark Johnson and released on the band's YouTube channel on January 17, 2013, includes artist Chelsea Williams and various street musicians from around the world singing and playing instruments alongside scenes of Maroon 5 performing live.

Live performances

Maroon 5 first performed Daylight on the Overexposed Tour in Monterrey, Mexico on August 14, 2012. They performed it on the third season of The Voice on November 8, 2012, on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on November 12, and on Saturday Night Live on November 17 alongside One More Night. At the 2013 Grammy Awards on February 10, 2013, they performed a mashup of Daylight with Girl on Fire alongside Alicia Keys, introduced by LL Cool J who claimed the performance would be literally on fire.

The performance was heavily criticized: Samantha Martin of Pop Dust gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars, calling it bland and criticizing the interplay between the songs. Melissa Locker of Time gave it a C rating, noting both songs are repetitive and light on hooks. Marc Hogan of Spin listed it among the worst, writing that Keys was below her usual standards and that her stint on drums felt like an effort to signal she could play an instrument.