Love Somebody (Maroon 5 song)

Did You Know?

• The song debuted at number 54 on the Billboard Hot 100 before peaking at number 10.
• As of June 2014, the song had sold 1,694,000 copies in the US.
• The band performed the song on the fourth season of The Voice and on The Today Show in 2013.

Background and production

Maroon 5 began work on their fourth studio album in mid-2011. The album, titled Overexposed, was released on June 26, 2012. "Love Somebody" was co-written by Adam Levine with Nathaniel Motte, Noel Zancanella, and Ryan Tedder; Tedder and Zancanella also produced the track and provided programming and keys. The song was engineered by Smith Carlson at Patriot Studios in Denver and Noah "Mailbox" Passovoy at Conway Studios in Los Angeles, with Eric Eylands as engineering assistant. Mixing was handled by Serban Ghenea at Mixstar Studios in Virginia Beach, with John Hanes as engineer for mix and Phil Seaford as mixing assistant.

Composition

"Love Somebody" is a dance-pop song lasting three minutes and forty-nine seconds, set in the key of D major with instrumentation including piano and guitar. Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield described the synth hook as Sly Stone-meets-Eurythmics. Chris Payne of Billboard noted that Tedder and Zancanella's influence builds through the verses before the chorus. Lyrically, the song equates love and physical intimacy, with Levine singing about wanting to love and touch somebody. Nate Chinen of The New York Times characterized the theme as a plea for salvation on the dance floor or another horizontal surface.

Critical reception

Suzanne Byrne of RTÉ.ie listed "Love Somebody" as a potential single. Brittany Frederick of StarPulse called the song "earnest", while Cameron Adams of Herald Sun described it as Coldplay trying to be Katy Perry. PopMatters' Evan Sawdey called it the group's "sky-scraping Coldplay moment". Jeremy Thomas of 411 Mania labeled it one of the more emotional tracks on Overexposed, a rare moment where production tricks ease up for an honest song with emotion. Fraser McAlpine of BBC Music wrote that the band had moved from the "strutting cockerel heat" of "This Love" to the "saturated rave bliss" of "Love Somebody". Billboard's Chris Payne thought the song fades into the background of stronger tracks. Adam Markovitz of Entertainment Weekly criticized Levine's vocals as processed in a high disaffected whine, like a male Rihanna or an android castrato.

Music video

The music video for "Love Somebody" was shot in January 2013 and premiered on NBC on May 20, 2013, during The Voice, releasing on Vevo the following day. Directed by Rich Lee, the video features Levine and Emily Ratajkowski as his love interest, with all Maroon 5 members covered in grey paint. Levine initially paints himself out of a white background and then paints Ratajkowski in front of him. Later scenes show band members' instruments spraying paint, a girl dancing seductively, and Levine and his love interest embracing, all covered in grey paint. In the final scene, Levine reverses the process, removing all paint. Keyboardist PJ Morton noted that all band members and Ratajkowski were covered in blue paint, with only the paint visible during performance.