Updated October 2026: this article has been expanded into a full guide to Love Somebody, covering the album Overexposed, the writers and producers, the single's chart run, what the song is about, the video and where it sits in Maroon 5's catalogue. Music Reprise's original 2013 review is preserved in full further down the page.
Love Somebody is a song by Maroon 5 from their fourth studio album, Overexposed (2012). It was written by Adam Levine, Nathaniel Motte, Ryan Tedder and Noel Zancanella, produced by Tedder and Zancanella, and sent to US pop radio on 14 May 2013 as the album's fourth and final single. It peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the fourth top ten hit from Overexposed.
A small correction to our original 2013 review, which gave the song's peak as No. 9: Billboard's records show it debuted at No. 54 and topped out at No. 10 on the chart dated 17 August 2013.
Overexposed: the album behind Love Somebody
Overexposed was released in June 2012 on A&M Octone Records, with Max Martin as executive producer and a team of pop producers that included Shellback, Benny Blanco and Ryan Tedder. It reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and No. 2 in the UK. Keyboardist Jesse Carmichael sat this album out to take a break and study, and PJ Morton filled in.
The album followed the success of Moves Like Jagger (2011) and leaned fully into bright, radio-ready pop. All four of its singles reached the US top ten:
- Payphone (Overexposed, 2012): the lead single, featuring Wiz Khalifa. It peaked at No. 2 in the US and went to No. 1 in the UK.
Maroon 5 - Payphone ft. Wiz Khalifa - One More Night (Overexposed, 2012): the album's biggest hit, with nine consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Maroon 5 - One More Night - Daylight (Overexposed, 2012): the anthemic third single, which reached No. 7 in the US.
Maroon 5 - Daylight
Love Somebody, the fourth, completed the set in 2013.
Who wrote and produced Love Somebody
The four credited writers are Adam Levine, Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic, Nathaniel Motte of the duo 3OH!3, and Noel Zancanella, with Tedder and Zancanella producing. It is the same production partnership behind OneRepublic's Counting Stars, released as a single a month after Love Somebody went to radio, and the two songs share a taste for a quiet verse that bursts open into a big, layered chorus.
The track is usually filed as dance-pop and electropop. It is in D flat major and is built on piano and guitar under a pulsing electronic beat, with Levine singing high in his range for much of it. Critics were split. Several praised the songwriting and compared it to Coldplay, the same comparison our original review made, while others felt the glossy production and Levine's strained upper register held it back. That divide is almost exactly where our 2013 reviewer landed too.
Love Somebody chart performance
- Billboard Hot 100: debuted at No. 54 on the chart dated 8 June 2013 and peaked at No. 10 on the chart dated 17 August 2013.
- US radio charts: No. 1 on Adult Pop Airplay, No. 2 on Pop Airplay and No. 2 on Adult Contemporary, which shows how heavily US radio played it.
- Elsewhere: No. 10 on the Canadian Hot 100 and No. 8 on South Korea's Gaon chart. It did not chart in the UK.
- Certifications: double platinum from the RIAA in the US, and double platinum in Canada.
The band promoted it with performances on The Voice on 20 May 2013, on Today on 14 June 2013, and at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas that September.
What Love Somebody is about
The song is sung by someone who has kept love at a distance and is now ready to stop running. The verses are about the fear of falling for someone and never being the same again; the chorus is a straightforward declaration that he wants to love somebody, and to dance the night away.
That jump from vulnerability to the dance floor is what puzzled our original reviewer. One way to read it, as The New York Times critic Nate Chinen did, is that the dancing is not entirely literal: the lyric ties love closely to physical intimacy, and the dance floor stands in for something more private. Read that way, the chorus is less of a change of subject and more of the same plea, said louder.
The Love Somebody music video
The video was directed by Rich Lee and shot in January 2013. It premiered on NBC during The Voice, where Levine was a coach, on 20 May 2013, and went up on Vevo the next day. Emily Ratajkowski plays Levine's love interest. The concept is built around paint: the band members are covered in grey paint, and Levine paints himself against a white background before painting Ratajkowski. In the final scene the process is reversed and the paint comes away. It is the "abstract-like artsy" video our original review mentions, and it is embedded in that review below.
Where Love Somebody sits in Maroon 5's catalogue
Love Somebody is a hinge song. It has the pop polish of the Overexposed era, but its romantic, slightly anxious lyric looks back to the band's first album, Songs About Jane (2002), and our original reviewer heard it as a follow up to This Love. If you like it, these are the songs to play next, all from Maroon 5's official channel:
- This Love (Songs About Jane, 2004 single): the funk-tinged breakthrough that our original review compares Love Somebody to. It reached No. 5 in the US and No. 3 in the UK.
Maroon 5 - This Love - She Will Be Loved (Songs About Jane, 2004 single): the band's defining ballad, a No. 5 hit in the US and No. 4 in the UK.
Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved - Maps (V, 2014): the lead single from the next album, with the same urgent pop drive. It reached No. 6 in the US and No. 2 in the UK.
Maroon 5 - Maps - Sugar (V, 2015): a No. 2 hit in the US, best known for its video in which the band turns up unannounced to play at wedding receptions around Los Angeles.
Maroon 5 - Sugar
Frequently Asked Questions
What album is Love Somebody by Maroon 5 on?
It is on Overexposed, Maroon 5's fourth studio album, released in June 2012. Love Somebody was its fourth and final single, sent to US radio in May 2013.
Who wrote Love Somebody by Maroon 5?
Adam Levine, Ryan Tedder, Nathaniel Motte and Noel Zancanella. Tedder and Zancanella also produced it.
What did Love Somebody peak at on the Billboard Hot 100?
No. 10, reached on the chart dated 17 August 2013. It also hit No. 1 on Billboard's Adult Pop Airplay chart.
Who is the girl in the Love Somebody video?
The model and actress Emily Ratajkowski plays Adam Levine's love interest in the video, which was directed by Rich Lee.
Why does Love Somebody sound like Coldplay?
Several critics made the comparison when it came out, and our original review heard it too. The piano and guitar arrangement and the soaring chorus are the likeliest reasons, but the beat and production place it firmly in dance-pop.
Our Original Review (2013)
Music Reprise wrote this review in July 2013. It is preserved below as originally published.
When Maroon 5 came out with their first album Songs about Jane in 2002, I knew that this band would be bigger in the coming years. And I was right.
Their most recent offering is Overexposed, the album which also contains Payphone which reached #2 on Billboard and One More Night. Their fourth single is Love Somebody, the one which reached #9 on its release. Yes, it’s the one with the abstract-like artsy, music video.
And on that note, I would suppose that the video is a bit out of the ordinary and quite interesting. But everything else fell flat for me.
Maroon 5 - Love Somebody (Official Music Video)The lyrics may strike some chord because it talks about considering the idea of falling head over heels in love, finally, after years of being scared of commitment.
“But if I fall for you, I’ll never recover
If I fall for you, I’ll never be the same”
That part of the first verse is very romantic, I’m sure a lot of girls are swooning somewhere. The words are so straightforward, I thought it was brilliant. But it was completely ruined by:
“I really wanna love somebody
I really wanna dance the night away”
Dance? Where? That was something which, for me, did not jive with the rest of the lyrics. I realize, of course, that the background music used here is very techno which means that this song can actually be played and danced to in clubs. But I just didn’t get it.
Which brings me to my next point: Maroon 5 seems to be really having fun with techno. Yes, ‘Moves Like Jagger’ was fun and all but this song might have worked so well if it were simpler and more laid back. Now, Adam’s high range in singing just seems unnaturally high-pitched.
I’m not the only one who noticed that this sounds quite like the type of music that the British band Cold Play makes. But it is just so pop which somehow ruined it all.
But from someone like me who thinks ‘Sunday Morning’ was ingenious and ‘Sweetest Goodbye’ was the sexiest song ever, ‘Love Somebody’ is some follow up on their “This Love”. It just didn’t work quite as well.
