"Sugar" is a song by the American rock band Maroon 5 from their fifth studio album V (2014). It was written by Mike Posner, Adam Levine, Dr. Luke, and Jacob Kasher Hindlin together with its producers Ammo and Cirkut. It was sent to contemporary hit radio in the United States, as the third single from the album on January 13, 2015. "Sugar" is a disco, funk-pop and soul song that features a wide range of instruments including percussion, keyboards and guitars. Commercially, the song peaked at number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 and became the band's third top 10 single from V, and eighth consecutive top 10 entry. "Sugar" is the 68th song in history to score at least 20 weeks in the top 10 of the Hot 100. The song was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2022, as Maroon 5's third certified single.
Film director David Dobkin shot the accompanying music video for the single in Los Angeles. Inspired by the 2005 romantic comedy Wedding Crashers, it features Maroon 5 crashing weddings that happened in the city. The video premiered on January 14, 2015, and received its television premiere on January 17. A reality television series based on the music video was released on YouTube in August 2018. The remix versions of the song were released, one featuring rapper Nicki Minaj on March 10, and the other by Matt Medved (also known as Sicarii) on November 9, 2015, respectively.
"Sugar" received a nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 58th Grammy Awards.
Background
Since the release of his debut studio album, 31 Minutes to Takeoff (2010), American singer and songwriter Mike Posner started writing material to be included in his follow-up record, titled Pages. One of the songs set to be included in the album was "Sugar", which Adam Levine heard and wanted to have it on the upcoming Maroon 5 album, but Posner declined. However, in 2014, he switched labels and announced that Pages would not be launched, and instead a new body of music would be released. In an interview with, Billboard, Posner elaborated: "Well, this is just gonna sit on my laptop' so I gave it to them and when they recorded the song Adam added his flavor to it and he wrote on it as well, lyrically and some melodic things, and he really sang it well. I'm a big fan, so I'm glad they did it". The final version of "Sugar" was written by Levine, Posner, Lukasz Gottwald, Jacob Kasher Hindlin, Joshua Coleman and Henry Walter. The production of the song was done by the latter two under their respective production names Ammo and Cirkut.
The lead vocals were sung by Levine, with backing vocals provided by Posner. "Sugar" was recorded at Conway Recording Studios in Hollywood, Dr. Luke in the Boo in Malibu and The Mothership in Sherman Oaks while it was mixed at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach. Doug McKean, Clint Gibbs, Noah Passovoy and Jonathan Sher all served as engineers of the song, while John Armstrong, Eric Eylands, Rachael Findlen and Cameron Montgomery helped them finish the engineering, serving as additional engineers. John Hanes was the mixing engineer while all the instrumentation and programming was provided by Maroon 5, Dr. Luke, Ammo and Cirkut. Artie Smith was the instrument technician. "Sugar" was announced to be the third single from V in November 2014. Interscope Records distributed the song to contemporary hit radio stations in the United States on January 13, 2015. The same day, the band unveiled the official artwork for the single that features red-colored lips holding a sugar cube; Mike Wass of Idolator called it "candy-colored".
Music and lyrics
"Sugar" is a disco, funk-pop, and soul song with a length of three minutes and fifty-six seconds. It features guitars provided by James Valentine, Jesse Carmichael and Dr. Luke, bass played by Mickey Madden, and synth bass provided by Dr. Luke. The drums were provided by Matt Flynn and Cirkut while PJ Morton, Jesse Carmichael, Dr. Luke, Ammo, and Cirkut contributed to the keyboards and synthesizers. One writer at Popmatters feels that musically, "Sugar" combines the grooves of the funk and "synth-driven" 1980s music. According to Kobalt Music Publishing's digital sheet music for the song, "Sugar" is composed in the key of D major and set in common time signature, and has a moderate groove of 120 beats per minute. Levine's vocals span from the low note of D3 to the high note of F5, over one octave higher.
Kyle Anderson of Entertainment Weekly noted the reminiscence of "Sugar" to the music of singer Bruno Mars. Brad Wete of Billboard magazine compared the song's production to that of Katy Perry's 2014 single "Birthday", which was also produced by Cirkut, together with Dr. Luke. Similarly, Rolling Stone'''s Jon Dolan compared the song to the works of Perry and wrote that the "funk-guitar licks zip across a spry, sun-drunk groove as Levine sings..." Lyrically, Levine sings the lines to his romantic interest, "I just wanna be there where you are/And I gotta get one little taste". The song uses the word "sugar" to describe both the love interest's sweet nature, and coitus. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times wrote that on the Levine sounds most lecherous while singing the lyrics "I want that red velvet, I want that sugar sweet". According to him "he croons so cleanly it's possible to imagine that he is truly singing about cake".
Critical reception "Sugar" received generally positive reviews from music critics. In a review of V, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote that the best moments on the album "are when Maroon 5 embrace the tuneful, slightly soulful adult contemporary pop band they've always been, as they do on 'Sugar'" among other songs. Alexa Tietjen of VH1 stated that the track is a "radio-friendly pop song". Mike Wass of Idolator labeled the song a "ridiculously catchy jam". Similarly, Saeed Saeed of The National called the song a "highlight" on V and further wrote that it "has a bullseye of a chorus that will have you singing along immediately". PopMatters' Annie Galvin praised the song and wrote that it "hits a sweet spot by layering a subtly funky guitar pulse over gossamer synths and multiple tracks of Levine's easy-on-the-ears upper range". On the negative side, Anderson of Entertainment Weekly called the song "simultaneously empty and cluttered". In 2022, Billboard and American Songwriter ranked the song number eight and number nine, respectively, on their lists of the 10 greatest Maroon 5 songs.
Chart performance Following the release of V, "Sugar" debuted and peaked at number 13 and number 77 on the South Korean International and South Korean Gaon Chart respectively. After the song and its accompanying video was released, it gathered attention at the digital media outlets. Billboard predicted that in its first week the song is set to debut in the top 25 with digital sales of over 150,000 copies. For the week dated January 31, 2015, "Sugar" debuted at number eight on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. It became Maroon 5's third song to debut in the top ten of the chart; their previous singles "Moves like Jagger" (2011) debuted same at number eight and "Payphone" (2012) debuted higher, at number three. Consequently, it became the band's 11th top ten hit and their eighth in row. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Twitter Top Tracks chart, their second number one after "Maps" (2014). "Sugar" peaked at number two on the chart for four consecutive weeks, behind "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. The song spent 21 weeks in the top ten of the chart before falling 10–12 on the chart issue dated June 27, 2015. This marks the longest time the band has spent in the top ten of the chart, along with "Moves Like Jagger" and "One More Night" (2012), which also spent 21 weeks in the top ten. They have since surpassed this feat with their "Girls Like You" single featuring Cardi B in 2018, which spent more than 30 weeks in the top ten. As of August 2015, it has sold 3.3 million copies in the United States.
Music video
Development and concept
In 2014, film director David Dobkin was in Rome, Italy, for the premiere of his film, The Judge. During his stay there, he received an e-mail from Levine asking him to direct the band's new music video: "I've known Adam for over a decade. I met him before the first Maroon 5 album came out. My wife's parents are best friends with his grandparents and I spend Christmas with him every year. So we've known each other for a long time and always talked about doing something together but were never able to get our schedules lined up". After he agreed to film the video for "Sugar", they started discussing ideas for its concept. Dobkin wanted the video to be about the band's connection with their audience and wanted elements of real people and Los Angeles, Levine's hometown. In an interview with VH1, the director revealed: "Then the idea came up of, what if they went to real weddings and showed up as the surprise wedding band?". When Levine heard the idea, he loved it.
In 2005, Dobkin directed the film Wedding Crashers in which Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn played the characters of John Beckwith and Jeremy Grey. They star as "two dashing rogues who sneak into nuptials in search of lovelorn bridesmaids". The film received positive reviews from movie critics and was a box office success earning over $285 million worldwide. Dobkin revealed: "For 10 years everyone asks me to do something related to that movie. I've never wanted to go back there, just because it's something that worked so well. But we locked in on this idea and thought it would be great. And then it was like, holy shit, how do we pull this off?" After the concept was decided on, they started preparing the wedding crashes. At the beginning, Dobkin thought that no one should know about the crash and filming. After some rethinking, however, he decided that at least one person should know about it. So they informed only the grooms and decided to keep the secret from the brides. The grooms were not, however, told the name of the band; they were only told that they are very popular and had won several Grammy Awards. The next step was deciding how, at the beginning of each performance, the band would hide. Dobkin designed and had built a drop-down tent, where a button was pressed, causing the curtains drop to the floor. After that, Dobkin visited many wedding planners in Los Angeles and visited a number of the locations where weddings would be happening, in order to decide which location at the site would be the best for setting up the tent.
Filming
The music video was filmed in Los Angeles, California. It was shot at several ballrooms, located at various locations around the city, where weddings were happening. One of the ballrooms was at the Park Plaza Hotel, a very popular location for celebrations and parties. A week before filming the video commenced, Dobkin went to see the band, who were rehearsing for the visual. During the meeting, Levine questioned the concept: "What if people don't like us? What happens if we ruin the bride's moment?" That was the first time they started wondering, "What if we're ruining someone's most special day?" In order to prevent that from happening, Levine got an idea: after performing "Sugar", he and the band's guitarist, James Valentine would perform an acoustic version of their 2004 single "She Will Be Loved" just for the bride and the groom. The dance floor would be cleared of everyone except for the newlyweds and the song would be another traditional "First Dance" for the newlyweds. According to Dobkin, that was a very good idea.