Maroon 5’s New Album Will Be “Slightly Darker,” Says Adam

Maroon 5's album Overexposed has been tremendously successful, spinning off huge hits like "Payphone," "Daylight" and "One More Night."  The group has started work on their next record, but Adam Levine says the band plans to go in a slightly different musical direction on this one.

Adam says, "We're still all about pop music. We will never not be about pop music.  But we want this to have a slightly darker shade, and not be quite as shimmery and shiny."

Adam admits to the magazine, "As much as I'd love to be a rock star, I'm a pop star," but he still resists categorizing Maroon 5's music as strictly pop.  "I don't know what kind of records we make," he says. "People say it's this or it's that. I don't know what it is, other than I like it."

In the Nylon Guys cover story, Adam also discusses the fact that his show The Voice has yet to produce a star on the level of a Kelly Clarkson, or even a Chris Daughtry or Adam Lambert.  He criticizes the powers-that-be for that, saying that he believes the show's winners need to put out music right away, rather than waiting.

"I don't think the post-Voice experience has been handled very well," he says. "When the artist is as hot as they've ever been and the iron is as hot as it could ever be,  that's when you need to unleash a song. But that's not my job."