As a solo artist, Levine achieved concurrent commercial success with his guest appearance on Gym Class Heroes' 2011 single "Stereo Hearts", which peaked within the top five of the Billboard Hot 100.

"[15] He also attributes his mother's idols – Simon & Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac, and The Beatles – to shaping his musical style, calling them "a huge part of my upbringing".

"[14] In February 1994, Levine, along with friends Jesse Carmichael, Mickey Madden, and Ryan Dusick formed garage band Kara's Flowers.

[26] After the break up of Kara's Flowers, Levine, along with Carmichael, left Los Angeles to pursue higher studies at Five Towns College in New York.

"[19] The band put together a demo that was rejected by several labels, before it caught the attention of Octone Records executives James Diener, Ben Berkman, and David Boxenbaum.

[22] Around this time, Levine had been working as a writer's assistant on the CBS television show Judging Amy; the program's producer Barbara Hall was his family friend.

[34] To support the album, the band performed on a ten-date club tour which visited small venues in Europe and the United States from April to June 2007.

In an interview with Los Angeles Times, Levine explained that the album suffered from being "all these disparate ideas and songs that didn't make any sense together".

[40] After the moderate success of the album's first three singles, the band released "Moves like Jagger" (featuring Christina Aguilera) which Levine classified as "one of those songs that was definitely a risk; it's a bold statement".

[52] The same year, he appeared on Kanye West's album Late Registration, on the third single "Heard 'Em Say",[53] a collaboration Levine called "very pure and very easy".

Levine also worked with hip-hop artist 50 Cent on his song "My Life", recording the vocals almost two years before it was released as a single in 2012, which included rapper Eminem.

During 2007, he appeared in the 33rd-season premiere of Saturday Night Live in an SNL Digital Short called Iran So Far, performing with Andy Samberg, Fred Armisen and Jake Gyllenhaal.

He has also been described as the "breakout" star of the series, with #TeamAdam and @AdamLevine scoring a respective 203,000 and 2.14 million Twitter mentions in the show's third season, higher than all the other coaches.

[82] In November 2013, Levine was named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive, becoming the first singer and the second non-actor (after John F. Kennedy, Jr.) to claim the title.

It was reported that he was negotiating further with potential distributors, as well as organizing staff, to operate as a full-fledged record company with departments such as marketing, radio and publicity.

[100] In January 2013, Levine announced he would be enter a partnership with Sears Holdings to launch a multi-department lifestyle brand of apparel and accessories collections.

[102] In an official statement, Levine said: "Partnering with ShopYourWay to develop this line was an exciting opportunity for me and I am really looking forward to diving into the process of designing an apparel and accessory collection".

[4][114] Throughout his childhood, he had a wide range of musical influences, including The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, The Who, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Nirvana, and, in high school, Bob Marley, Bill Withers, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye,[115] Phish[116] and Michael Jackson.

[118] In an interview with Billboard, he explained the diversity of his influences: "I love every single kind of music ... even the most saccharine, sugary pop song can be the greatest thing ever.

[118] Subsequently, Songs About Jane was released, deemed "bluesy funk"[120] and similar to the sound of English pop rock band Busted.

[122] While earlier work was deemed "vaguely funky white-soul"[122] and "rock", recent ones have been judged to have a more reggae, anthemic pop sound,[123] evoking comparisons to Coldplay.

"[21] He also claims he does not like mincing words, stating in a Rolling Stone interview: "I was so sick of typical lyrics like 'Ooh, baby' and 'I love you' and all this vague shit.

[127] Salon wrote: "When he's crooning come-ons, his voice lends the music a satisfying lewdness, a sense of sticky physicality that gives his snaky hooks a pheromonal urgency.

"[128] In a review of It Won't Be Soon Before Long, Entertainment Weekly described his vocals as "smug, R&B-slick deadpan ... there's a twisted logic to his dispassionate delivery".

[129] In another review, Allmusic wrote "he knows that he's a pop guy, somewhat in the tradition of Hall & Oates, but he isn't trying to be retro, he's ... making records that are melodic, stylish, and soulful".

[130] In a review of the 2013 Honda Civic Tour, The Boston Globe also commented positively on his on-stage presence, which "exude[s] a sense of up-for-anything playfulness ... combined with a rock solid work ethic and a clear love for their audiences and performing".

[134] Conversely, others opine that Levine's fame has been a boost to the band, with Paper writing: "Maroon 5 has managed to ebb and flow with the times ... thanks in no small part to their frontman's uncanny ability to be extremely entertaining".

[136] He claims that the image was consciously cultivated, explaining: "We talked about it a long time ago and decided I would step out, for us, not for me or my own ego ... We wanted there to be a frontman.

In January 2012, he announced that Maroon 5 had changed the location of their post-Grammy Awards show because of the "unnamed Los Angeles restaurant's backing of Proposition 8".

[149] In 2013, Levine was mentioned in a hostile work environment lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by an unnamed security guard who claimed that Universal Music Publishing Group's Santa Monica location was "infiltrated with pervasive drug use where you could smell marijuana seeping from various offices and openly used in common areas, and lounges".