Whatever happened to... Maxwell?

(on the new one)

I don't hugely care for Urban Hang Suite tbh. Embrya beats the shit out of it imo.

cant imagine not caring for 'if the cops come knocking' or 'ascension' or 'dance with me.' the album is a pinnacle of R&B

I could pretty much take "Ascension" and "Whenever Wherever Whatever" and leave the rest.

not liking dance with me shd be punishable by death fwiw

i do like embrya, but .. yeah theres nothing on it like 'dance with me' - the start-stop instrument explosions midway thru that song are just XD

gawdammit I want to make love to him

"I want to know why everyone's clothes still on."

whatever happened to...remy shand?

still think "Bad Habits" and "Pretty Wings" are far and away the best songs, but "Cold" and "Stop the World" and "Fistful of Tears" are emerging as really good second-tier songs

damnit, all the vids are getting taken down. Anyone have a fresh link?

nevermind, there's a bunch on youtube

"pretty wings" is easily the best thing on here (but then again it's probably my favorite song of the year), but "bad habits" and "love you" are excellent as well. the rest are really vanilla, but the best kind of vanilla, like gourmet vanilla ice cream

no

good essay on this from andy k btw guys -- check amg

this is a dope album, i don't know why people are underwhelmed. 'help somebody' is O_O

it's an amazing sounding record, and really dynamic (southall should be shitting himself).

such a great balance between looseness/arrangement too. whatever drum programming there is is really subtle and blends well with the live stuff. anyone else getting a sly-circa-'fresh' vibe?

oh shit, that's chris dave on drums

I need to stop being slack and get this thing.

yall should check deej's p4k review that went up today

i really dig the whole thing but pretty wings is head and shoulders above the rest, and above like 90% of songs ive heard this year

i like the final track and "cold" best i think, but the whole record is dope. going to see him live in pgh on saturday night, i saw him on his last tour in 01 and he was ridiculously awesome.

this is a dope album, i don't know why people are underwhelmed. 'help somebody' is O_O

― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Friday, July 10, 2009 11:10 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is my first introduction to Maxwell (sure i heard of him but never heard his albums)
starts rather weak (first 2 tracks) but Pretty Wings and Help Somebody are equally great, rest of it is ok.

He killed it in Pittsburgh this weekend, he had an awesome11 piece band and they played for 1.5 hours. Time flew by, I could have listened to them all night. Highlights were "Cold", "This Woman's Work", and " Acension" but there were really no duds. Go see him at any cost.

i've got a killer white label house remix of one of his songs. has a prince remix on the back. the song has the lyrics "you'll never now this, but there's no one quite like, quite like you/her?" "if i had to do it over, if i had to do it again, i woulda ....., this would have never began"

will swap the remix for the original

wow, if i had cared to google those lyrics years ago, this wouldn't have been such a mystery. song is called No One, this remix rules.

discogs says it could be the Roy Davis Jr. mix.

sorry for the mini-hijack but this track has been bugging me for a while. it's this 12" http://www.discogs.com/Prince-Maxwell-Sexy-If-I/release/1263990 but mine doesn't have the sticker, just a stamp that says maxwell on one side and prince on the other.

duh, of course it's on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4kXAmKibWs

ok this is awesome

had never heard of this guy before

the runtime of this album coincides to within seconds of my daily run

Newsweek interview from the other day.

You know, I heard "Pretty Wings" is being used as a wedding song....I'm not sure why a song about breaking up with someone would be used in someone's nuptials. But I'm happy to be of assistance. (Laughs)

Also:

The entire album went into mastering and it kinda was smoothed out. So we took away the brightness. We tried to make it feel like a lot of rock music right now. Like the Fleet Foxes and Bat for Lashes. Even Grizzly Bear has a vibe that I like a lot, too. This "in the room" feel where, it's like, "We don't really have that much money. The mics aren't really that expensive."

...you made that up. god please

just checked, nope

i dont really think thats a weird thing to say. hes just talking abt the quality/aesthetic of the engineering / mastering. i kind of found it a lil underwhelming at first personally, but it grew on me.

yeah i was being dramatic and i'm not trying to feign any distaste for indie music in general - i just don't like those bands - but i just thought it was a weird reference. the sort of minimal, "live" production put me off at first too and made it hard for me to care about one album cut over another, but i at least like every track on the album and "pretty wings" is still probably my favorite song of the year. i kinda hope he goes all out on the next one, though, production-wise

I finally picked up this album yesterday, I love it. The production won me over from the start, but then I like the production on the records he's referencing so maybe I should just STFU.

why have i not done this yet?!?!?!

i like the way he comes across in that interview personally:

After eight years away from the game, did you expect to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart?
It's a good feeling to know you're not irrelevant! Yeah, look, I'm always pleasantly surprised. I don't walk around drinking my Kool-Aid, thinking I'm the ish of all times. You just cross your fingers and hope. I'm just grateful people went out and bought the album. They could have gone online, found a torrent, and stolen it!

I read that you were unsure of your relevance after the rise of Auto-Tune. What do you think now?
I'm always careful with the way I answer on this. I don't want to be the guy who's like the older guy. (In a wheezy voice) When we were doing it we were doing it like this. (Laughs) Because when I was starting out, there were people saying the same old ish about me. Every generation has the right to graffiti-stamp the era the way they so desire. What some see as a gimmick is what they see as their calling card.

i guess it's important for us to still shit our pants every time a black person namedrops an indie rock band, though.

i liked that interview a lot too!

and we don't have to prolong this but like i said, i was just disappointed(?) that maxwell liked fleet foxes, not trying to enforce some kinda silly racial taste rules

he didnt even say he liked them, he said he wanted a live production sound like they had

alrighty

good interview.

"Kate Bush finally got hold of him for what he did to "This Woman's Work" and rightly slit his throat."

Sorry, but that's a beautiful version of a great song. He more than did it justice. New album's on the way apparently.

it's nice but it's a pointless version because it sounds almost note-for-note identical to the original. I wish he'd done something else with the arrangement.

he sounds like a really great guy in that interview

would love to smoke a bowl w/ him and listen to fleet foxes

xxp: I think the note-for-noteness is v. much the point. It's the fact that it's a dude singing it and giving it a great performance in her register that makes it. Btw he tore the fucking house down with it when I saw him.

he sounds like a really great guy in that interview

― max, Sunday, July 26, 2009 12:08 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

totally otm