Payphone: Someone Needs to Veto Music Video Scripts

As is very clear this week at PopJudgment, we just love Adam Levine. He is unbelievably attractive, and as we’ve seen on The Voice, hilarious and super competitive. And when we love somebody, we support their career no matter what (i.e. actually paying $14 to see John Carter on behalf of Taylor Kitsch). And for us, supporting Adam Levine’s career has not been a very difficult thing to do. Maroon 5 (while kind of embarrassing to admit we like) actually makes pretty decent songs that we like to jam to in the car. When no one else is around. Obviously. But the music video to “Payphone” is just kind of difficult for us to get behind. Don’t get us wrong, we love the song! But, did anyone listen to the lyrics when they made the music video? Watch below to see what we mean.

Wait whaaa? Was that the right video for this song? Reading the YouTube comments we found that we were not alone in our confusion. YouTube user frankmic asked, “the very first why he run? Lol”. We don’t know frankmic. We just don’t know. And DiddiDsoljaxD echoed this sentiment saying, “I Dont Get it He Didnt Rob The Bank they Werent Going To kill him and the girl So Why did he run From The First Place o.O?? But I Like the Song”. Pretty much sums up our feelings on the subject dude. And lastly, our favorite comment from enzDC, who kept it succinct with a simple “f*ck the police”. Word. The police in this video are super confused about who actually robbed the bank and what they are doing in this music video in the first place. Maybe they are chasing him because they just wanted Adam Levine’s autograph? We don’t know.

While we can see how this might have started as a cool concept, it just did not transfer very well. If the song was called “I’m at a payphone because I just got confused for some bank robbers and no one believes me” we would be so behind this video. But, alas, it is not. It is difficult to pin down exactly when this video spiralled out of control, so we made a list of moments when we were just like “WTF?” Perhaps by reading through these we can all, collectively, decide just when the video went off the rails.

WTF Moments

• Adam Levine’s haircut. We recognize that this is his life-choice unrelated to the video. We still don’t have to like it.
• The opening where the payphone picks up and Adam Levine starts singing. Very musical theater.
• The bit at the office where Adam Levine and the love-interest in the video are both wearing glasses. This is the part where the music video director employs the old Hollywood trick of put-glasses-on-extremely-attractive-people-to-make-them-look- “normal”. They don’t. That girl is clearly a model and very hot and Adam Levine is the sexiest thing to ever happen to planet earth. YOU CAN’T FOOL US.
• The part where he grabs the gun and runs out with his girlfriend, and neither of them get hit by any bullets! Despite all of the ones that we see in the air! And then this starts the plot of the video where Adam Levine is being chased by cops for no apparent reason. Like what?
• This is not a WTF moment but it had to be mentioned. Wiz Khalifa is our favorite part because it’s like he knows this whole video is bizarre. His opening line is “Man, f*ck that sh*t” and from there the rest of his rap verse can be summed up as him saying, “Whatevvvss I’m rich and gonna go spend my money! Back off haters and suck it nameless ex-girlfriend!” We loved it. So random.
• The very end where Adam Levine escapes the cops only to have his car blow up for no apparent reason (a theme in this video) and his cell phone break. Which leads him to the payphone. Cue song.

This video is just strange and doesn’t really fit with the song at all. While we recognize that lots of music video directors take liberties, this is a pretty large stretch. We were expecting something completely different and were just really confused when we saw this. Please Maroon 5 go back to making music videos that make sense with your songs!

Related articles

• Maroon 5’s ‘Payphone’ Video – Watch Now! (justjared.com)
• Maroon 5 Debut ‘Payphone’ Music Video (997now.cbslocal.com)

The Voice: The Only Watchable Singing Competition

So The Voice crowned its second winner last night, but judging by the resounding (haha) success of its first winner Javier Colon, the actual winner doesn’t really matter that much. Let’s be real: while we’ve been obsessed with The Voice since last summer, the reasons don’t have much to do with the individual singers. Here are the real reasons that we love The Voice:

4. All of the other judges/coaches hate Christina. This is one of the funniest elements of the entire thing–Blake Shelton, Cee Lo Green and Adam Levine pretty clearly despise Xtina. Especially Adam. Xtina obviously has no idea and just keeps on keeping on being her diva self. Oh Xtina.

3. Cee Lo and that cat. Purrfect is the greatest thing about Season 2, no holds barred. That cat is hilarious and perfectly plays into Cee Lo’s desire to be seen as Dr. Evil… too funny. Also the fact that the show makes Carson talk about Purrfect and they even did a little retrospective on him during the finale. Ridic. This cat looks angry all the damn time and it is amazing. Blake can’t stand it, and Adam doesn’t like cats… We’re pretty sure that Cee Lo just got the cat to piss off the other judges. Cee Lo = maybe crazy but amazing.

2. How much Blake Shelton loves his team. Blake is pretty clearly the most supportive of all of the coaches. He has his teammates (the people he picked) come and perform with him all of the time. He’s having a bromance with Jermaine. He invites his wife to be one of the mentors on the show so that she can get to know his team. Basically Blake is probably going to invite all of these people over for Thanksgiving dinner, because he is that nice.

1. Adam Levine. Obviously everyone is already super aware of this, but Adam Levine is one of the most attractive people ever. See, look:

Mmmmm Adam Levine. So in addition to being crazy hot he screws with Xtina’s mind (that Team Xtina t-shirt was absolutely hilarious) and is overly competitive and super-invested in this competition. He might be a douchebag in real life but that sure doesn’t keep us from loving him on The Voice.

While we can’t sit through an episode of American Idol now that there’s no Simon and we’re boycotting The X Factor due to a lack of Cheryl Cole, we do love The Voice. At least they call their celebrities “coaches” instead of “judges” so we’re prepared for them not offering any real opinions!

Related articles

• Former backup singer wins ‘Voice’ honors (dawn.com)
• Adam Levine Is Cold To Javier Colon (perezhilton.com)