Song: ‘One More Night’
Artist: Maroon 5
US chart peak: 1
Release date: June 19, 2012
Writers: Adam Levine, Shellback, Max Martin, Savan Kotecha
Producers: Shellback, Max Martin
Quintessential Max moment: The fact the verses are packed with more hooks than most choruses
Video synopsis: Adam Levine tries to keep his family together by taking his top off a lot

Maroon 5’s route into the world of Max Martin is a familiar one. Having scored a couple of massive hits from their first two albums, the band hit a commercial brick wall with 2010’s Mutt Lange-produced ‘Hands All Over’. The sales were so muted compared to previous albums that guitarist James Valentine told Billboard the band would likely start work on a follow-up straight away. In the end they recorded ‘Moves Like Jagger’ – produced by Shellback and Benny Blanco – which went on to sell a frankly insane 6.7m copies in America alone (it stayed at Number One for four weeks). The song was hastily chucked on a re-release of the album and sales eventually crept over a million.

The success of ‘Moves Like Jagger’ lead to the band calling their follow-up album ‘Overexposed’, a title that they were obviously keen to continue to live up to because musically it took very few chances ‘vis-a-vis’ radio and chart domination. For example, alongside Max and Shellback, the album includes production and songwriting from quite successful hitmakers Ryan Tedder, Benny Blanco, Robopop and Jason Derulo enabler JR Rotem.

From an interview Levine gave to VH1, the mastermind behind the reggae-tinged ‘One More Night’ was Shellback, who by this point had obviously got a handle on Maroon 5’s appeal. “‘One More Night’ was one of the songs that was more far along when we heard it,” he mused. “Shellback, who did ‘Moves Like Jagger’ with us, it was one of those things that the instant we heard it as a group, we thought, ‘Wow’.” Wow indeed.

Lyrically ‘One More Night’ inverts the Phil Collins song of the same name – while Phil wanted just one more night of sweet sweet lovemaking because his lady friend was leaving him, Adam plays the slightly less believable role of a man saying ‘I hope I only get to sleep with you once more because actually this relationship is quite toxic’. There’s a funny bit where he sings “there you go again making me love you” and I guess the listener’s meant to feel sorry for him. Poor helpless Adam. Later he’ll mew “try to tell you ‘No’ but my body keeps on telling you ’Yes’”.

Musically the song is odd in the way it doesn’t really signpost its chorus, with the verses loaded with just as many hooks (a very Max trait). In fact, the chorus is sort of just an extended pre-chorus that doesn’t really change key or leap out on the first few listens. Most of the song is a chorus, which is quite a feat to pull off isn’t it.

Whatever dark arts the song utilises clearly worked because it topped the Billboard chart for NINE weeks, which is batshit really.