Maroon 5 More Popular Than Ever As They Come Of Age After 21 Years
American pop-rock band Maroon 5 have been together for 21 years. Just think about that for a moment. Maroon 5 were formed in Los Angeles in 1994 in the year that One Direction’s Harry Styles was born. Maroon 5 were a band 10 years before Simon Cowell’s X-Factor started its first UK season. Admittedly, Maroon 5 were known as Kara’s Flowers in those days, and they split in 1997 after an album release bombed.
The band reformed and adopted the name Maroon 5 after guitarist James Valentine joined the original four members of Adam Levine, Jesse Carmichael, Mickey Madden, and Ryan Dusick. In 2014, Maroon 5 announced that they were to undertake a world tour in association with Live Nation, and they took a unique approach asking fans on Instagram where they would like the band to play.
The result is that the current Maroon 5 tour now stretches to around 60 dates and new dates are being added all the time. Tickets for Maroon 5 shows sell like hotcakes. As an example, Focus Taiwan reports today that Maroon 5 are to play a show in Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall on September 14. Tickets for the show went on sale at 5 p.m last evening and all 15,000 tickets, priced at around $60 each, were sold out in just 12 minutes. The show will be Maroon 5’s third performance in Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Headline Planet reports that Maroon 5’s latest single release, “Sugar,” now has sales in excess of two million copies after selling 150,000 copies in the week ending April 5. “Sugar” is the second straight Maroon 5 single to achieve that feat. Predecessor “Animals” currently boasts a cumulative U.S. sales total of 2.18 million.
Both singles are on Maroon 5’s fifth studio album, the imaginatively titled V. The album debuted at No 1 in the Billboard 200 after selling 165,000 copies in the week of release. The album has gone on to sell over one million copies and was a top 10 hit in no fewer than 26 countries.
The sales of V takes Maroon 5’s total worldwide sales to almost 30 million and suggests that the band continues to have a strong following even after 21 years in the music business.
Maroon 5 continue to be especially popular with young female pop fans. As reported in the Inquisitr earlier this month, a young fan crashed the stage during a Maroon 5 concert at Anaheim’s Honda Centre and caused a terrifying moment for frontman Adam Levine when she accidentally cut his ear with a fingernail.
“It’s just weird to be in the moment, you know? And you’re singing, and your eyes are closed, and you have this beautiful moment. And then the next thing you know someone’s f**king in your face. It’s super terrifying.”
Maroon 5’s popularity shows no sign of abating and as they come of age in 2015. With 21 years in the business, it seems that Maroon 5 could offer lessons on longevity to the many boy bands whose star has risen and fallen during that time.
[Photo by David Becker/Getty Images]
