Jordi (album)

Jordi (stylized in all caps) is the seventh studio album by American band Maroon 5. It was released on June 11, 2021, through 222, Interscope and Polydor Records. The album features guest appearances from Megan Thee Stallion, Blackbear, Stevie Nicks, Bantu, H.E.R., YG, and late rappers Juice Wrld and Nipsey Hussle. The deluxe edition of the album features additional guest appearances from Anuel AA, Tainy, and Jason Derulo.

It is the band's first album in four years since Red Pill Blues (2017), and also their first album without longtime bassist Mickey Madden following his arrest in 2020, due to domestic violence (though some of his contributions are heard on tracks 10 & 12).

The album is titled after a nickname of the band's late manager Jordan Feldstein, who died in 2017. The album received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics.

Background
One month after the release of  Red Pill Blues  in November 2017, the band's manager and Adam Levine's childhood friend Jordan Feldstein died of a pulmonary embolism aged 40. Feldstein was the older brother of actors Jonah Hill and Beanie Feldstein. Two years later, the band dedicated the song "Memories" to him. The song went on to become a worldwide success—it is the first single released from the album and it appears on the track listing in two versions (alongside the original version of the song, the album also includes a remix, featuring American rappers Nipsey Hussle & YG). The album was recorded between 2019 and 2021 (prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic).

On April 29, 2021, the band announced the album and was available for pre-order on the same day. The track listing for the deluxe edition was announced on May 24, 2021.

Singles
The album is promoted by five singles. The first single, "Memories", was released on September 20, 2019. The song debuted at number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100, later peaking at number 2 and becoming the band's tenth top-5 single, as well as their fifteenth top-10 single. The second single, "Nobody's Love", was released on July 24, 2020. The song was inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Floyd protests. It peaked at 41 and 119 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard Global 200, respectively.

The album's third single, "Lifestyle" (a Jason Derulo song featuring Adam Levine) was announced by Jason Derulo on January 17, 2021 on his social media accounts, and it was made available for pre-order. The song was expected to be released on an upcoming album from him, but was instead put as a bonus track on Jordi. The song would later be featured on Derulo's 2024 album Nu King.

The fourth single, "Beautiful Mistakes", a collaboration with American rapper Megan Thee Stallion, was released on March 3, 2021, also with a lyric video. The official music video was released on March 11, 2021, and was directed by Sophie Muller. The song peaked at 13 and 26 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and Global 200, respectively. The fifth and final single, "Lost", was released alongside the album on June 11, 2021, along with an official music video. The album's only promotional single, "Lovesick", was sent to Italian radio on January 7, 2022.

Musician Bantu released a remix version of the album's song "One Light" on August 5, 2022, with the band and featuring artists Yung Bleu and Latto.

Critical reception
Jordi received mixed to negative reviews from critics. Aggerator Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 48 out of 100, based on 9 reviews, it garned "mixed to average reviews"; this is the lowest score of any the 381 albums listed on Metacritic from 2021.

Writing for NME, El Hunt reported that, with Jordi, Maroon 5 were "more visible, and, at times, vulnerable", describing the two versions of "Memories" as "sharp pop songs with both substance and heart". Talking about the collaborations, Hunt detailed that Stevie Nicks' contribution to "Remedy" sounded like "a corrupted Siri singing country-western", and described Jason Derulo's collaboration with Levine, "Lifestyle," as "silly" and "slightly overdone". She remarked that the addition of Juice Wrld on "Can't Leave You Alone" "serves little purpose", and that his verse is "wedged into the middle of an otherwise unremarkable break-up song".

In a negative review, Kate Solomon of i described the songs on the album as "generic but hypnotic melodies over generic but danceable beats", saying that the songs were "banal" and "advertisement-friendly". While Solomon highlighted the inclusion of H.E.R. and Megan Thee Stallion, she described the posthumous appearances by Nipsey Hussle and Juice Wrld as "unmemorable". Solomon remarked that the album is "perfectly crafted to please crowds, to slip into your consciousness without you really realising [sic]". In a similar review, The Guardian Alexis Petridis described the album as "a plethora of well-worn 21st-century pop tropes – tropical house sounds, post-Tame Impala floaty synths – but nothing you would describe as novel in the music or lyrics". He likened Maroon 5 to a blank canvas, saying that the band was "reliant on guest artists to inject personality and songwriters and producers to come up with the goods". He highlighted Bantu and Thee Stallion's contributions, describing them as "fiery" and "a surprise", respectively, but described the rest of the album as a "mixed bag", and remarked that the songs felt "too calculated for their own good".

Commercial performance
In the United States, Jordi debuted at number eight on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 37,000 equivalent units, which consisted of 15,000 pure album sales, marking the group's lowest first week album sales. Despite this, it also marks the group's seventh top ten effort on the charts since their debut album Songs About Jane. As of June 22, 2021, the album has been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for moving 500,000 units in the country alone.

Personnel
Maroon 5
 * Adam Levine – vocals (all tracks), guitars (9)
 * Jesse Carmichael – guitars (5, 7–13), keyboards (7, 11–13)
 * James Valentine – guitars (1, 2, 4, 5, 7–13)
 * Matt Flynn – drums, percussion (5, 8, 10–13)
 * PJ Morton – organ (4), keyboards (5–13)
 * Sam Farrar – bass (5–7), additional vocals (5, 7), keyboards (11, 12)

Additional musicians
 * Megan Thee Stallion – vocals (1)
 * Matthew Musto – keyboards, programming (1); vocals (3)
 * Andrew Goldstein – guitars, keyboards (1, 4); programming (4)
 * Michael Pollack – backing vocals (2, 11), additional vocals (9), keyboards (11, 12)
 * Jon Bellion – backing vocals (2)
 * The Monsters & Strangerz – programming (2, 9, 11, 12), instruments (2, 9)
 * Cirkut – drum programming (3, 8), synthesizer (3)
 * Gabe Simon – guitars, keyboards, whistle (4)
 * Mikky Ekko – guitars, keyboards, programming (4)
 * John DeBold – drum programming, synthesizer programming, additional keyboards, additional guitar (5)
 * Noah "Mailbox" Passovoy – percussion (5, 8, 13), keyboards (5, 10), additional vocals (5)
 * Blake Slatkin – programming, guitar, drums, bass, additional vocals (6)
 * KBeazy – programming, drums, keyboards (6)
 * Bantu – vocals (7)
 * H.E.R. – vocals (8)
 * Jesse Perlman – guitars (8)
 * Kid Bloom – additional vocals (8)
 * Nija Charles – background vocals (9)
 * Ryan Ogren – programming, instruments (9)
 * German – programming, instruments (9)
 * Pierre-Luc Rioux – guitars (9)
 * Nija Charles – additional vocals (9)
 * Andrew Watt – guitars (10)
 * Louis Bell – programming, keyboards (10)
 * Mickey Madden – bass (10–13)
 * Rob Gueringer – guitars (13)
 * Jason Derulo – vocals (14)

Technical


 * Randy Merrill – mastering
 * Serban Ghenea – mixing
 * Noah "Mailbox" Passovoy – engineering (all tracks), vocal engineering (14)
 * Mikky Ekko – engineering (4)
 * Gabe Simon – engineering (4)
 * Reginald "ReggieNic" Nicholas – engineering (4)
 * John DeBold – engineering (5)
 * John Hanes – mix engineering
 * Jaycen Joshua – vocal engineering for Megan Thee Stallion (1)
 * Karen Johnston – vocal engineering for Stevie Nicks (5)
 * Luis Bordeaux – vocal engineering for H.E.R. (8)
 * Nick McMullen – vocal engineering for Kid Bloom (8)
 * Ben Hogarth – vocal engineering (14)
 * Sam Schamberg – engineering assistance (1–12, 14)
 * Ashley Jacobson – engineering assistance (2)
 * Eric Eylands – engineering assistance (5, 8)
 * Bo Bodnar – engineering assistance (11, 12)
 * Alejandro Baima – engineering assistance (13)
 * John Armstrong – engineering assistance (13)

Visuals
 * Travis Schneider – art direction, design, packaging layout
 * Sage Vaughn – art direction, design, cover art