My list of guilty pleasures:

1. Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas

2. “1985” by Bowling for Soup

3. Playing Roller Coaster Tycoon into the wee hours of the morning

4. Ben and Jerry’s low-fat chocolate fudge brownie ice cream

5. Maroon 5

Yes, I said Maroon 5. The five white boys who play a combination of funk, jazz and pop while intermixing sappy lyrics that appear in my friends’ AIM profiles and away messages, which, half the time, are used out of context.

Maroon 5. Red V. Crimson Cinco. Magenta 3+2. Fuchsia 15 divided by 3.

Just look at the name and you can tell that it’s wuss rock. Don’t expect blistering guitar solos and lyrics lamenting pain and loss. Instead, learn your bar chords and throw in cheesy lines like, “Is there anyone out there?/ Cause it’s getting harder and harder to breathe.”

Here’s the thing about Maroon 5. It’s catchy. You tap your feet even though you don’t want to. You know the lyrics to “This Love” or “She Will Be Loved” because the songs dominated the airwaves for weeks on end. You may not want to listen to them, but by the time the chorus hits, you’re singing along instead of changing the station or moving on to the next song on your playlist.

Maroon 5 has a vibe and sound to them that makes you want to listen to its music no matter how bad it sounds. Practically every song has a 4/4 beat. Lead singer Adam Levine’s voice is so perfectly clear that every word is audible and you’re able to memorize the lyrics, even if you don’t want to, by the third time you hear the song.

Take a failed relationship and write an entire album worth of heartbreak and crying and you have “Songs About Jane.” Levine penned the album after breaking up with a former flame named, obviously, Jane. The title went on to spark national interest and had everyone asking, “Who is this Jane girl?”

Before there was Maroon 5, there was Kara’s Flowers. In the days before guitarist James Valentine joined the group, the quartet recorded “The Fourth World” while still in high school. The album produced a faster, funkier sound than what the boys play today.

Songs such as “Soap Disco” and “Loving the Small Time” offer speedier tempos and faster vocals, but Levine more than likely still had the opportunity to jump around the stage, microphone in hand, with his energetic yet annoying stage presence.

Here’s the thing about Maroon 5 and its success. It owes everything, and I mean everything, to John Mayer. Mayer took the five boys out on tour for over two years and had them open up for him night after night and fans eventually caught on. The quartet went out on the Counting Crows/John Mayer co-headlining tour in 2003 and then had the honor of opening for Mayer on his 2004 tour as well, still playing the same 12 songs over and over again. Occasionally they would cover “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC, “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails or “Frontin’” by the Neptunes, but they never did the songs any justice.

So after three years of playing the same songs over and over, the question remains: do we really want, or even need, another Maroon 5 album?

Do we really want another album of funk by five white boys with the word “love” in about four titles? Do we need more catchy songs that will be overplayed and drilled into our memories and never escape?

I say yes, just so we can make fun of Maroon 5’s name some more and watch Levine jump around the stage like a 5-year-old kid on a sugar high. Maybe Maroon 5 will pull a Matchbox Twenty and make us spell out the number “5” on its sophomore release.

Then again, I say this with three Maroon 5 ring tones on my phone and the ability to play over half its songs on guitar.

I told you, it’s a guilty pleasure.