jayson greene of "pitchfork" affirmed the group's "shrewd and easy touch with soft rock" in "best 4 u", but felt that the album's "utter lack of libido" made it "so difficult to even finish" especially since "soft rock and sex have a tricky relationship, and so do sex and hot 100 pop". michael hann from "the guardian" noted maroon 5's continuation of producing "impeccably structured pop songs" with "help me out", but felt that "red pill blues" was not an r&b album "in any remotely experimental way". writing for "the times", will hodgkinson commented that despite the "vacuity of the music and the words" whose former was "made up of noises from maroon 5's pop machine" and the latter were "unconvincing expressions of love and sensuality delivered passionlessly by levine", the record was nevertheless "unpretentious and actually quite fun". "slant magazine"s zachary hoskins mentioned that maroon 5 has "rebranded themselves as daryl hall and six john oates—or at least a watered-down chromeo" with the record's release whose "retro sound suits them", yet felt that it still has its share of "bland, underachieving grist for suburban shopping centers and rhythmic pop radio" with levine's "digitally augmented vocal acrobatics" still likely to "irritate as ingratiate".