Get to POLL Ya: The Maxwell Album Poll

i like Urban Hang Suite and the singles from the others but the '09 album is a fucking drug to me

Same here: my favorite album of 2009.

feel like i should revisit urban hang suite--every time i hear a random song off it i like it. also, dreamiest.

but I heard "Fortunate" driving home and thought, man, I'd underrated this one.

Urban Hang Suite, of course!

Confession: I haven't heard Now apart from a few tracks. Worth buying?

i don't know but i love "get to know ya"

more and more i feel like "Lifetime" might be his best single

He's yet to make anything below a mini-masterpiece.

Embrya is his supreme work, though.

Embrya, easily

and then Now

Now is a very underrated album.

'Silently', 'For Lovers Only' and 'No One' are excellent.

Signed up three new accounts so I could vote for all four.

#'s 1, 4, 3 and then the 2nd album is how I'd vote. But all 4 are great.

Embrya, easily

^^^

i fucking love embrya but

the '09 album is a fucking drug to me

rev and i were discussing on twitter recently how embrya is way underrated

"luxury:cococure" might be my favourite maxwell SONG

ooh, I feel like the competition is stiffer in that category

oh for sure

Agree with everyone saying how great all four albums are. I always thought Embrya was easily the weakest but after listening to it last night I may well vote for it.

Think my order would go,

Embrya
Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite
BLACKsummers'night
Now

"lifetime" is an amazing amazing single. i am not familiar with maxwell's albums other than BLACKsummers'night. for me it was a very nice vibey kinda album but most of it didn't really stick with me in the long run.

been listening to a lot of maxwell to inform my eventual vote in this poll; p sure I am in love

*shifts nervously* i've never heard embrya before. hooooly shit

"drowndeep:hula" is like a hymn sung by angels in atlantis

This is true of a lot of modern soul artists, but I feel like the masses aren't nearly aware enough of this guy and don't fully appreciate how great he is. He's a star, relatively, but he should be regarded as a living legend. He's one of the G.O.A.T.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

EMBRYA!

This is true of a lot of modern soul artists, but I feel like the masses aren't nearly aware enough of this guy and don't fully appreciate how great he is. He's a star, relatively, but he should be regarded as a living legend. He's one of the G.O.A.T.

Truth.

i'm not ready to vote yet!!!!

you have one more day!!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

the album I haven't heard got zero votes

Now is good and didn't deserve no votes but it is his weakest, I can see why it came last. Got to Know Ya, Lifetime and This Woman's Work are all great songs.

Kinda shocked; had no idea Now was so barely regarded. That whole album sounds like heaven to me, and it has some of his best songs. I would have proudly voted for it if BLACKSummer'snight didn't exist.

That whole album sounds like heaven to me, and it has some of his best songs. I would have proudly voted for it if BLACKSummer'snight Embrya didn't exist.

Damn, I got my work cut out for me on Embrya. I've listened to it a few times and taken nothing away from it (it sounded like Maxwell made a Joan or Arc album or something) but I need to spend some time with it b/c of all the recs here.

I may have to buy a copy if I'm gonna commit myself to cracking it; just streaming it when I can probably isn't going to be enough.

no question for me that "Luxury" is the gem.

i think embrya can seem totally insular at first but it really explores its specific mood in a way i can't really pin to another record

the cover art, with maxwell submerged in water, is kind of otm

The thing with Embrya is that it is a very cerebral album. It's got a lot of sneaky, nuanced parts going on in the arrangements and conceptual stuff in the lyrics. I mean, any album that has a zero track with completely esoteric narration over it, well, you know you're in for a heavy affair.

And, if the poll allowed for a #2 pick, mine would have been Now.

the cover art, with maxwell submerged in water, is kind of otm

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Saturday, August 18, 2012 7:07 PM (44 minutes ago)

yup

Embrya is amazing, I hadn't heard it before now. So deep, so dreamy, it rivals Love Deluxe.

"Know These Things: Shouldn't You"!!!

omg.... Tim!

I'm a Now and BLACKsummers'night >>> UHS and Embrya fan but the latter is idea doing-dishes-on-Sunday-morning music.

I know it's the latest late pass ever issued, the machine is demanding I insert more coins.

Never too late imo.

Also "Gravity: Pushing to Pull"!!!

all about "drowndeep" imo

Seriously so ridic that i have not had this album in my life until now.

I spent several years at the end of the 90s and beginnings of the 00s mostly thinking of neo-soul as something that needed to be resisted (the ~deep vibes~ of its era) and even though i got over that inane false binary ages ago I'm still coming across evidence of the damage it did to my tastes.

the music press was not kind to neo-soul: the praise for it made it sound so bland, dry and ~authentic~ (and usually compared it negatively to mainstream shiny r&b), the criticisms of it were so callow and ignorant

The thing is a lot of neo-soul was just as modernist as any of the shiny mainstream r&b (Embrya included), but the press acted as if it was retro when it was really about updating older styles, not recreating them.

Like, you couldn't mistake Embrya for a Maze record, as clearly as Max wears their influence, because it sounds like it was made circa 2000 and quite intentionally so.

I do not understand how Embrya is not a universally beloved cornerstone

had to write about maxwell last month and it was a nice excuse to listen to embrya for a few days in a row. very few records as immersive

lol look at me sort of expressing the same thought two years ago

"Luxury: Cococure" is dangerous: once listened, it takes permanent residence in your head.

Link plz Brad.

Embrya has become one of my very favourite records.

http://www.mauramagazine.com/article/53ee2e18c873d93509eb5c7b/swelter

technically a free issue but you have to sign in to read it

"drowndeep:hula" is like a hymn sung by angels in atlantis

― ticagrelor rotini (k3vin k.), Tuesday, August 14, 2012 11:47 PM (3 years ago)

ughhhhhh btw this song

Embrya has become one of my very favourite records.

― Tim F, Thursday, September 11, 2014 3:13 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Still ^^^^^

I feel like it's such a unique record. Weirdly I almost get a (late era) Leonard Cohen vibe from it, that sense of being super gentle and super heavy at the same time.

"drowndeep" is the shit