A few years ago before the 2011 telecast of the VMA awards, Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine had some critical words for the annual Video Music Awards. Levine tweeted, “The VMA’s, One day a year when MTV pretends to still care about music. I’m drawing a line in the sand,” adding a punctuated kiss off. Levine has since reported that he deeply regrets the tweet, however his criticism echoes voices the network has shared for many years. This year however, Maroon 5 will take the VMA stage this Sunday for the first time.

“I was frustrated,” he said before rehearsals earlier this week, according to the Los Angeles Times. “But the reason for my frustration was very understandable considering the fact that I would say there aren’t very many days out of the year that there is music on MTV. But there’s still the VMAs, and if I’m looking at it with rose-colored glasses I think it’s nice that the VMAs are trying to revamp the original mentality of MTV.”

Levine was also interviewed about MTV’s latest campaigning for the award show, and their revival of the old 1980’s slogan, “I want my MTV.”  He admitted, “That vintage idea is something I’m a very big proponent of. I’ve been wanting to hear it for a long time.” Levine continued, “When I think about that tagline I think about discovering MTV for the first time and falling in love with it and having it be the eyes of music.

“The VMAs still have that weight to them. They champion a lot of new music,” he said. “I’ve paid a lot more attention to the promos this year and there are a lot of great bands that are emerging now that MTV has championed. I really endorse that, I think it’s amazing.”