Maroon 5‘s Las Vegas residency kicks off March 24 at the Dolby Live theater at Park MGM. They’re currently trying to figure out how to fit their countless hits into one 90-minute show — and still “bring something unique to the experience.”
“That’s the challenge for us … just the singles fill up 90 minutes, which is a great problem for a band to have,” Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine laughs. But, he notes, “We want to bring something unique to this experience. So we have a couple ideas … some maybe unexpected song choices that we’re going to bring out.”
Two of the hit singles being considered might be “Animals” and “Moves Like Jagger”; both of them just hit 1 billion streams on Spotify. James says it’s hard to conceive of numbers like that, especially considering what the music business was like when they started 20 years ago.
“None of it existed,” he says of streaming services. “We released our first record in 2002 when people were still purchasing compact discs and before there was really a legal way to buy music online.”
He adds, “So to have gone through the inception of the iTunes Store and then Spotify, Apple Music … and then now to be coming into this new era of AI and what that’s going to do for music creation.”
Of what the music business will look like in another 20 years, James says, “I don’t think anyone has any idea!” But he suspects artists might be cut out of the equation entirely.
“The technology is already there for generative AI to come up with a Maroon 5 song,” he laughs. “So, y’know, we might not be needed in a few years.”
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
