Whatever happened to... Maxwell?

http://www.rap-up.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/maxwell-bsn-cover.jpg

1. Bad Habits 5:52
2. Cold 4:01
3. Pretty Wings 5:09
4. Help Somebody 4:01
5. Stop The World 3:55
6. Love You 3:35
7. Fistful Of Tears 3:40
8. Playing Possum 4:22
9. Phoenix Rise 2:41

wow is that short

37 minsish? Trad LP length....

I am completely in love with this song.

otm

Like, single of the year.

^^ possibly yeah

basically the first time i heard it i was just getting home and i had to park and just sit and listen to it until it was over.

http://soulbounce.com/soul/blog_images/nas_maxwell_twitter.jpg
http://soulbounce.com/soul/blog_images/nas_maxwell_whiteparty.jpg
http://soulbounce.com/soul/blog_images/nas_maxwell_ladies.jpg

Wow.

We holdin up unopened bottles, empty glasses, unlit cigars and posin with clothed girls.

how many cliches in one picture.
this does indeed look very staged.

We holdin up unopened bottles, empty glasses, unlit cigars and posin with clothed girls.

i love those pictures. it's the potential in them.

the all-white wardrobery is killing me... it's like, are they getting ready for a diddy shindig?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifMLXQOoV7c

Well shit. This might be even better than "Pretty Wings".

oh my, this is just going to be the greatest album ever.

Love Maxwell. Love the new tracks, thx fr posting

Wow @ "Bad Habits."

dudes still got it

max! well...

just downloaded this...so excited

this is amazing but way too short!

Grabbing it now. I haven't even listened to Bad Habits or Pretty Wings yet, so I could experience it as a whole.

"love you" is a force

That's my favorite early on, too.

it's so good and it just...ends

this is still downloading so I'm listening to Embrya instead

After three listens, I like it, but I'm kinda disappointed all the same. I feel like none of the tracks I hadn't heard quite live up to the promise of "Pretty Wings" and "Bad Habits". Oddly enough, I think the instrumental outro might be my favorite thing other than those two songs. It's better than Urban Hang Suite, which devolves into smooth jazz a lot of the time, but I don't think I like it as much as Embrya. I know trying to rank it at this point (or maybe at any point) is stupid, but whatever. On the other hand, I've listened to it thrice in two days, so he's doing something right.

Looks like I'll be seeing him live tomorrow night if things go according to plan. Will report back.

same here i think. i like all the songs here, even really like or LOVE at least three of them, but its 37 minute runtime feels too slight to really knock me over. a few of the songs feel half-finished, and i think the album suffers on the whole as a result. i guess after hearing the first couple advance tracks i was expecting something erykah-level, but the rest just seems good right now. not necessarily a bad thing, and still one of the best r&b albums of the year so far

xpost sweeeet

It's better than Urban Hang Suite

uh

i like it a lot but no way -- that record is A+++++++ classic top ten of 90s material

instrumental outro is DOPE

(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

Let's just hope that blacksummersNIGHT becomes the consensus AOTY in 2023

― pumped up kicks and levels on repeat all night (2011nostalgia), Friday, December 9, 2016 10:23 PM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

we're almost there guys!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO-quWd4IP0

an absolute dream

i know he said (about a fucking decade ago) that the third one would be all slow jams, but i didn't think he'd actually go through with it! this is a damn fine tune and a promise of glorious things to come.

"creamy chocolate work of art" indeed. \m/

Going back to some of the more recent remixes that I missed. This one caught me off guard. Ooh, this is nice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsFBLvqttSk

"Shame (S508 Cassady Remix)" (2019)

Touring with Jazmin Sullivan

Serenade tour

Let's just hope that blacksummersNIGHT becomes the consensus AOTY in 2023

― pumped up kicks and levels on repeat all night (2011nostalgia), Saturday, 10 December 2016 06:23 (seven years ago) link

would've been a more interesting consensus AOTY than that SZA album tbh

is the album coming too or is he going to disappear for another 3 years after releasing a single again

― ufo, Monday, November 15, 2021 7:50 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol

anyway, Tiny Desk this Friday

it's been 8 years since the last album so he should be almost done with the new one by now, surely

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/22/g-s1-17026/maxwell-tiny-desk-concert

so good. the crowd interactions were fun

stellar. one of the best tiny desks i've spent time with. max ofc sounds great, such a great setlist, and i cannot even begin to express my exuberance at the fact that hod david is in the mother trucking house. holy shish, he's slimmed down and still doing the work of an absolute heavyweight. rewatching/listening like a new release.

just some extra curricular gushing to follow. tl;dr- i like hod david.hod david! the elusive other half of MUSZE! he needs to be left the entire fuck alone to make music forever and ever! everything he encounters jams! look at his stupod guitar guy faces! look at his stupid hair! even that's totally classic! OH HI I'M H-O-SUCK-MY-MOTHERTRUCKIN-D SURE LEMME JUST PICK UP THE ACOUSTIC AND PLAY SOME AL GREEN REAL QUICK. wouldn't even be surprised one bit if he's a total dick irl. please insult me, hod david. absolute fucking legend, according to me.

My wife and I saw Maxwell with openers Jazmine Sullivan and October London at Capital One Arena in DC . As good as Maxwell is, the gig was marred for us by poor audio in our nosebleed seats. I have sat in high up cheap seats for others and never had such muddy vocals. He and Sullivan still impressed . ( we were some of only a tiny handful of non-Black audience members. The crowd did vary in age range from teens through age 70s).