"Payphone"

Single by Precision Tunes
Released	April 17, 2012 (2012-04-17)
Format	Digital download
Recorded	2012
Genre	Pop
Length	3:51
Label	PT Records
Writer(s)	Adam Levine Ammar Malik Benjamin Levin Cameron Thomaz Dan Omelio Johan Schuster

"Payphone" is a song performed by American pop rock band Maroon 5 featuring American rapper Wiz Khalifa. The song was released on April 16, 2012, as the lead single from their fourth studio album, Overexposed (2012). The song was written by Adam Levine, Benny Blanco, Ammar Malik, Robopop, Shellback and Khalifa and produced by Blanco and Shellback. The song is a pop ballad and describes a romance that ended abruptly. It has received favorable reviews from music critics, who praised the catchy melody and named it "a radio success", but some others dismissed its title and Khalifa's appearance.

The official music video, directed by Samuel Bayer, finds Levine taking down some bank robbers and attempting to become the "hero" in a hail of bullets as he makes his escape, steals a gun from a robber and then gets mistaken for one. Because of this, he must escape from a fleet of policemen, which he does with ease. The video was positively received from critics, who considered it an enjoyable mini-action film.

On the Billboard Hot 100, the song debuted at the number three spot before peaking at number two. The song sold 493,000 copies in its first week, becoming the best sales week for a digital song by a group and also the eleventh-best sales week overall. It peaked at number one in Canada for eight consecutive weeks. It also topped the charts in the United Kingdom, making it the band's first ever single to do so. "Payphone" was the world's fifth best-selling single of 2012 with 9.5 million copies sold.

The song was written by Maroon 5's lead singer Adam Levine, along with Ammar Malik, Robopop, Benny Blanco, Shellback, and Wiz Khalifa, while production, programming, additional bass, keys, acoustic guitars and background vocals were provided by Shellback and Blanco. Levine, Blanco, Shellback, and Malik also wrote the band's previous single "Moves Like Jagger". The writing process started when Malik and Robopop constructed a piano line and demo track that Blanco compiled into a proper melody. They gave it to Levine, who wrote the lyrics. Blanco also wanted to throw a wrench into the Maroon 5 works by adding hip-hop flavor to the its sound, "I love when things don't make sense, like, 'Holy fuck!' You don't hear him on the song at all. I like when bands dip into a whole different genre." For this, he commissioned Wiz Khalifa (whose singles "Work Hard, Play Hard" and "No Sleep" Blanco has previously produced) to write and rap a verse on "Payphone". In an interview with Rolling Stone, Blanco told that five minutes before Khalifa arrived at the studio, he prepared "the sound beds for the finger snap-driven portion of the jam". However, producer Max Martin, who was the executive producer of Overexposed, adjusted the chorus, because he felt it should be a "little different".

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Wikipedia