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Girls Like You

Girls like you tits

Date Aired
October 1, 2018
Running Time
15:53
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Todd plays "Girls Like You" on the piano.

MAROON 5 ft. CARDI B - GIRLS LIKE YOU
A pop song review

Todd: Man, pop music has really gone downhill, right? Actually, hold up, let's stop. The other day, I got a comment about, "Hey, Todd, you're not gonna whine more about the decline of pop music, are you? [shot of Music Club article] You've been doing that for, like, two years now." Well, fair enough. [shrugs] But, here's a new thing I didn't realize until...until just, like, today. See, I think I misdiagnosed what's happening.

Video for Camila Cabello - "Never Be the Same"

Todd (VO): Yes, pop music as a genre is on the decline.

Todd: That's normal; it goes in and out of style.

Montage clips of Coolio ft. LV - "Gangsta's Paradise"; Smashing Pumpkins - "Bullet with Butterfly Wings"; Usher ft. Lil Jon & Ludacris - "Yeah!"; BlocBoy JB ft. Drake - "Look Alive"

Todd (VO): It wasn't big in the mid-'90s when gangsta rap and alternative rock ruled. It wasn't big in the early-mid 2000s when the big music was crunk and R&B. And it's not big now when hip-hop yet again rules everything. If you're not a rapper, you're either a niche artist or a has-been.

Todd: But pop music isn't just irrelevant. It was irrelevant last year, it's close to nonexistent this year.

Video for Alessia Cara - "A Little More"

Todd (VO): This past summer was almost barren in terms of big, summertime pop smashes [clip of J Cole - "ATM"] including rappers who are still really hot right now.

Todd: And that's what made me realize: Pop singles aren't hits anymore because pop is declining, it's because singles themselves are declining.

Clip of SoundCloud ad

Todd (VO): Everyone thought that streaming would kill albums. I think it's actually doing the opposite. [quick shots of...] Now radio, music videos, MP3s were all...

Todd: ...great formats for singles, but...

Same clip of ad which also features...

Todd (VO): Those are gone or forgotten in favor of Spotify, which is set up way easier for album listening. And...

Todd: ...I think because of that, more and more, the album is the only real measurement of hype and popularity.

Todd (VO): I think 'cause everything goes through Spotify now. And Spotify is way easier to listen to albums with. All the buzz comes from a big name who drops a new record or a mixtape, and...that'll be a big deal for a few weeks. [clip of Tyga ft. Offset - "Taste" from Billboard website] And meanwhile, singles have become a vestigial concept. An obsolete idea that no longer matters in the music industry, like [images of...] cassettes...or MTV...or Pitbull.

Todd: And that, I think, is the key factor in pop's lack of relevance. It's a singles-oriented genre, [shot of Business Report article: "Is Streaming Audio Making Radio Irrelevant?"] and there's almost no way to get singles into the popular consciousness anymore. [shot of another article: "Spotify will now let artists directly upload their music to the platform"] Now that Spotify has declared war on SoundCloud, there's gonna be none. And that's not a great development if you prefer singles to albums. To the point that you've built a career on YouTube around your particular listening habits.

Video for Cardi B, Bad Bunny, & J Balvin - "I Like It"

Todd (VO): I'm not saying singles have completely disappeared. But to have a hit song, and I-I don't mean radio play, but...

Todd: ...I mean something that actively sticks in people's minds, an actual memorable hit...

Video for Drake - "In My Feelings"

Todd (VO): ...you have to be one of the biggest names in music. You have...

Todd: ...to be Drake, or Cardi, or Ariana. [pause] Or Maroon 5.

Video for "Girls Like You"

Adam Levine: 24 hours

I need...

Todd (VO): The fact that Maroon 5 is so successful has been tragic at every point in the past decade. But for them to be able to do it in 2018, when the pipeline has [image of water pipe showing...] dwindled to a trickle, is a total systemic failure. If there is any act that should not be able to survive in these scarce times, it is Maroon 5, a band no one likes.

Todd: I avowed sometime in the past five years to never do another Maroon 5 episode again.

Video for Maroon 5 - "Sugar"

Todd (VO): Because there is absolutely nothing to say about them, and by them I mean him, 'cause they are not a band. Maroon 5 would shit out a shit that shit right up the charts and sound exactly like their last shits, and I'd save my rants for the year-end worst list where Maroon 5 showed up with clockwork regularity.

Todd: In fact, I'd already filmed their segment for this year. Here it is.

Static transition from Honorable Mentions segment of Todd's Top 10 Worst List

Clip of "Wait"

Adam: Wait, can you turn around

Todd (VO): Fuck you, Maroon 5!

Todd: You suck!

Back to piano

Todd: But, I actually thought maybe at long last, we were done with this shit.

Video for Maroon 5 ft. Kendrick Lamar - "Don't Wanna Know"

Todd (VO): With each successive Maroon 5 single being more easily ignorable than the last, I thought we were finally over the hump. "They're finally on their way out," I thought.

Todd: I was, as I always am, dead wrong, as Maroon 5 this week...

Clip of Fox News Super Bowl LIII report

Todd (VO): ...not only got announced to headline the Super Bowl halftime show, but also [shot of Billboard article: "Maroon 5 & Cardi B's 'Girls Like You' Hits No. 1 on Hot 100..."] dethrone Drake for yet another #1 hit...

Todd: ..."Girls Like You."

Adam: Girls like you

Love fun, yeah me too

What I want when I come through

I need a girl like you, yeah yeah

Todd: [beat; song plays in the background before fading out] "Girls Like You" is the worst song Maroon 5 has ever recorded.

Todd (VO): I'm not speaking lightly, and I'm not exaggerating. So, let me repeat it.

Todd: The worst. Song. Maroon 5 has ever recorded.

Montage clips of...

Todd (VO): Worse than "One More Night", worse than "Wake Up Call," worse than "Animals-mals," [and finally...] worse than their failed single, "Feelings," which...

Todd: ...ugh. That one's really something you just gotta listen to for yourself.

Adam: I got these feelings

Todd winces in pain listening to Levine's falsetto

Clip of "Girls Like You"

Todd (VO): Yes, I am saying that "Girls Like You" is worse than all of that. All those other songs are deeply annoying, but annoying is something you can work with. Annoying demonstrates some kind of flavor. "Girls Like You" is the most baffling hit of their career because it has absolutely nothing.

Todd: It is the most worthless song they have ever released in a long career of uninspired...

Todd (VO): ...disinterested, worthless singles.

Todd: In fact, Maroon 5 appeared to have become my other least favorite band of all time, Chicago.

Video for Chicago - "Hold Me Now"

Peter Cetera: Hold me now

Chicago: It's hard for me to say I'm sorry

Todd (VO): I can't believe I once called Chicago the Nickelback of the '80s, when they were clearly the Maroon 5 of the '80s.

Todd: It's all there.

Montage side-by side clips of "25 or 6 to 4" and "This Love"; "If You Leave Me Now" and "Payphone"; "You're the Inspiration and "What Lovers Do"

Todd (VO): They started out OK; they sold out hard about eight years into their career; they had a ceaseless decade-long string of soulless, insipid soft rock.

Todd: And their frontman has the worst voice in history.

Snippets of Levine and Cetera's falsetto notes followed by a clip of a beaker breaking

Todd: So why "Girls Like You?" [screenshot Hot 100 chart with "Girls Like You" at #1] Why is that the #1 hit? (NOTE: This is a recurring question that Todd asks throughout the review with the same accompanying Billboard screenshot.)

Clip of Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Todd (VO): Is it off the strength of the album, now that we're in album-listening public again?

Brief clip of Adam Levine singing in the studio

Todd: God no! They're not an album band.

Todd (VO): No one gets excited for a new Maroon 5 record.

Todd: Like, look at their latest album, [album cover for...] Red Pill Blues. Apparently, Levine was not aware that "red pill" had been [shot of article: "Inside Red Pill, The Weird New Cult For Men Who Don't Understand Women"] hijacked by a really nasty group of online shitheads. And I don't blame him for not knowing that for the record. Why would he? Why would he even want to know about that? I wish I didn't know about that.

Clip of live performance of "Wait"

Todd (VO): But, yeah. That's a self-inflicted wound that would matter more, except... Todd: ...again, they're not an album band.

Video for "Cold"

Todd (VO): They've had five singles from this album cycle, all of them mildly successful, but two of them didn't even make it onto the record.

Todd: And no one cared because the LP does not matter.

Todd (VO): So why "Girls Like You?"

Todd: Is it the lyrics? What are the lyrics?

Clip of "Girls Like You"

Adam: Spent 24 hours

I need more hours with you

Todd (VO): Oh, gee, yet another vaguely romantic song that hints at some kind of fun, but in a thoroughly nonspecific and non-erotic way. Todd: Levine doesn't even seem to know whether it's about a serious relationship...

Adam: We spent the late nights

Making things right, between us

Todd: ...or an on-and-off, friends with benefits situation.

Adam: When I come through

I need a girl like you

Todd: He doesn't know., he doesn't care. No one does. I don't even know what mood he's going for. Is it supposed to be sexy?

Todd (VO): I don't see how as...these days Adam Levine is...

Todd: ...basically just an animatronic Ken doll.

Todd (VO): So why "Girls Like You?"

Todd: Is it the chorus?

Adam: 'Cause girls like you

Run around with guys like me

'Til sundown, when I come through

I need a girl like you, yeah yeah

Todd (VO): I can't imagine how. This is some weak sauce shit. The lyrics convey nothing.

Todd: Girls like you, guys like me. What are "girls like you?"

Todd (VO): What makes "girls like you" like you? Are they hot? Fun? Smart?

Todd: Five hundred pounds? What?! There's nothing there!

Todd (VO): There's no hook in the hook! It never kicks...

Todd: ...in, it never starts!

Todd (VO): The song operates at a low, irritating mellow that doesn't ever end. In fact...

Todd: ...wait. Is that some familiar chords I hear?

Black screen with chords: I . V . vi. IV

Single bar of Nick Long's "Four Chord Song" over opening of Journey - "Don't Stop Believing"

Todd (VO): Pop song chords—The Comic Sans of musical structure. Of course songs don't necessarily need choruses anymore because it's all about the drop these days.

Todd: But..."Girls Like You" doesn't have a drop.

Todd (VO): It-it seems really out of step with current trends, 'cause Maroon 5 are still playing the same playbook they've done this entire decade. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, guest rapper. That's not really how pop songs work anymore.

Todd: At least that's what I thought, but then I realized, "Wait. It does have a drop."

Todd (VO): I mean, some kind of honking, unpleasant synth riff that's the focal point of the song.

Adam: Yeah yeah yeah

Yeah yeah yeah

Todd: [throws hands up] There it is!

Todd (VO): Levine's voice is the drop! I mean, it vaguely sounds like a human voice singing words, but it's clearly not. It's too smooth and artificial.

Todd: It's like the same vocal modulation [clip of "The Middle" by...] that Zedd uses on his choruses.

Maren Morris: Meet me in the middle

Todd (VO): Except by accident, and awful.

Todd: In fact, robotic and artificial is basically the entire aesthetic of Maroon 5 these days.

Todd (VO): I am fully convinced that Adam Levine [image of colorful graphic portrait] is a virtual singer. He's entirely CGI. He's not a person. He couldn't pass a [shot of...] CAPTCHA.

Todd: At least that's the impression I get from his music.

Clip of ET Canada interview with Levine

Todd (VO): In real life, Levine is apparently a very forceful personality. [clip of...] I don't watch The Voice, but apparently he's engaging enough to entertain people on a weekly show for seven years. And he has enough personality to turn [shot of article: "Adam Levine's 'I'm Not a Douce' Profile Proves He's a Major Douche"] a lot of people off. I've seen him get called human chlamydia. Todd: Well, if he's so supposedly arrogant and douchey, why doesn't it show up in his music?

Clip of "Girls Like You"

Adam: Maybe it's 6:45

Maybe I'm barely alive

Todd (VO): This is not douchebag music. Todd: I mean, if only.

Video for "Moves Like Jagger"

Todd (VO): Now, I first diagnosed this back in 2011 with "Moves Like Jagger," their big pop sellout. It sounds like a total prog jazz compared to their new stuff, but at the time it was the sellout.

Todd: And I don't like using that word, but...I can't think of a...

Todd (VO): ...better example than this, because Levine seemed really, really uncomfortable with relyign on other songwriters. He seems more comfortable with it now. But he also seems bored as hell. He decided being famous was more important to his ego than making interesting music.

Todd: So if his supposed arrogance shows up in his music anymore, it's the worst kind. The kind that craves attention more than it craves being good. Also called laziness.

Todd (VO): So why "Girls Like You?"

Todd: Is it the video?

Closing Tag Song: "The Super Bowl Shuffle" - Chicago Bears Shufflin' Crew

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