Maroon 5 – or rather Adam Levine,
since the band’s frontman has stepped so far out front that there is no
distinction between them anymore – has just released a controversial new single
and video
that may have done more than just stir the social media pot. It may actually
drive fans away.
“Animal” is an urgent pop-rock track
that tells the story of a stalker and his pretty prey, played in the video by
Levine and his actual wife Behati Prinsloo. It’s reminiscent of The Police’s
gargantuan 1983 hit “Every Breath You Take,” often mistakenly considered a
romantic ballad (which still never ceases to perplex and amuse its songwriter
Sting) – except that the stalker in “Every Breath” is never more than a
yearning watcher; the stalker in “Animal” is on the hunt.
In his video, Levine is a scuzzy butcher
who shadows Prinsloo, snaps photos of the object of his predatory obsession and
pins them in his developing room, and even stands over her while she sleeps
unaware. Almost as an erotic release, he smears himself with blood and hangs
grinning alongside slabs of beef in a meat locker.
“Baby, I'm preying on you tonight,”
he sings. “Hunt you down, eat you alive/Just like animals.” Sure, he’s talking
about sex, and who doesn’t like passionately animalistic sex? But there’s a
cannibalistic overtone here, and since there is no indication that his desire
is reciprocated – indeed, Prinsloo rejects him when he approaches her in a bar
– then this is clearly predatory and not consensual (and these days, one
practically needs a notarized legal agreement of consensuality in order to
proceed with sex): “Maybe you think that you can hide/I can smell your scent
from miles.” This isn’t sexy but creepy and potentially violent, and many
listeners seem
to agree.
In the stalker Levine’s head, the
couple has sex while awash in blood. I don’t know who would find this sexy
except perhaps fans of True Blood or,
in this case, a predator with a fetish for hacking meat. “I get so high when
I'm inside you,” the unsubtle lyrics go, but apparently he soars even higher
envisioning her as bloody prey he has tracked and killed. As Acculturated’s own
Abby W. Schachter points
out, the fact that the couple are real-life husband and wife adds an
“astoundingly ugly” layer to this already unpleasant video.
It’s hard to follow Levine’s and/or
his record company Interscope’s line of thinking here. Perhaps the man who has
his own celebrity fragrance, who launched a line of clothing at Kmart, and who
sits on the panel of judges on a TV talent competition felt he needed more than
just sleeve tattoos to seem edgy. Perhaps he’s trying to reach the
sadistic/voyeuristic demographic that enjoys torture porn movies such as the
successful Saw and Hostel franchises. Perhaps the music biz
demands envelope-pushing videos in order to keep artists relevant. In any case,
the result is nothing short of repulsive.
The stalker element aside, “Animal”
unabashedly celebrates the purely animalistic side of sex divorced (pun
intentional) from any emotional or spiritual connection with your partner. This
is hardly uncommon in rock music, which doesn’t deal often enough in the
spiritual (but when it does, as with the best of U2, the results are
spectacular). “Don't deny the animal that comes alive when I’m inside you,”
Levine falsettos. “You can't deny that beast inside.”
But denying the beast inside, or at
least maintaining a guarded coexistence with it, is what makes us fully human. The
young Renaissance humanist Pico della Mirandella noted, in his Oration on the Dignity of Man, that
mankind hangs between heaven and earth, and by our own actions we either allow
ourselves to sink to the level of beasts or ascend among the angels. The tragic
quality of human nature is our never-ending struggle to overcome that beast inside, not surrender to it, and to ascend,
even – or perhaps especially – during sex. How much more compelling and less off-putting
“Animal” might have been if Adam Levine had explored that direction.
(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 10/2/14)
