Maroon 5 – Wake Up Call (Director’s Cut)

Here’s a first: a ‘Director’s Cut’ version of a video clip. Right, well, we’d best suspend voting on the Golden Globes then… ‘Director’s Cut’ indeed… how very grandiose. Personally, when I think Director’s Cut I think of the cut that started it all: Blade Runner. Since then ‘Director’s Cut’ has been synonymous with ‘Boring Cut’ or ‘Five Hour Cut’, and has opened the public’s eyes to the craft of the Editor.

Not sure if this applies to Maroon 5’s magnum opus. I get the feeling that it’s all bit of a stunt and ‘Director’s Cut’ is just some shtick. My bloodhound nose for BS was tipped off by the opening faux rating frame that stated: The following PREVIEW has NOT been approved for ANY AUDIENCE by the Music Video Association of America. Oh, I see… very clever. So Wake Up Call is meant to be like a movie trailer… I’m happy to buy into that.

Next thing we know, head Maroon, Adam Levine, is talking to his girlfriend who has bee-sting lips, eye lashes like giant venus flytraps and a bad wig. Apparently she’s lied to him… a lot. But not to worry, it could well be ‘all his fault’. The plot is thickening faster than quick-oats porridge, and not a single note has been played — I’m breathless with anticipation.

Cut to the band playing in a drain. Looks suspiciously like the not-so-majestic Rio Grande… or where the Terminators were chasing each other in T2 (or both), not sure, but without doubt it’s a cool place to rehearse — at least until the next thunderstorm.

The drama then unfolds like a Bladerunner origami unicorn. The girlfriend has another lover and Mr Maroon takes umbrage… with a pistol (“I had to shoot him dead”). For some reason this triggers a showreel of LA women with big boobies in various stages of restraint/undress/conflict. Girls tied up in the back of station wagons, girls belting other girls over the head with beer bottles, girls pole dancing, police girls chasing after Mr Maroon, girls in the back of speed boats, and one particularly busty blond girl bouncing around on a roof waving the Stars and Stripes. To get into the spirit of things a couple of the band members even dressed up as girls for the occasion, sporting ’60s-style dresses over their jeans and T-shirts. All very odd. I guess that’s why it’s the ‘Director’s Cut’.

Finally, fans of the Maroons will have the rare pleasure of seeing miscreant murdering Maroon, Adam, fried in ‘the chair’ by a police girl, flicking the Dr Frankenstein switch with about as much aplomb as one can with two-inch polyester nails.

I guess Maroon 5 should be applauded for dabbling in the rarest of American artforms — irony. But one wonders if it’s all a paper thin excuse to hang out with big-boobied girls and muck around in a big drain. We may never know. — CH.