Whatever happened to... Maxwell?

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

Bad Habits is really really dope.

^^^

My favorite is "Help Somebody," whose intro sounds like Portishead.

the ending of bad habits is >>>

is it just me or have his lyrics gotten a bit cornier?

i love whatever instrument it is thats used at the start of pretty wings.

Buying this on way home from work, Quite Stoked. His Twitter is a wonder of capitalisation:

MASHANTUCKET.. sacred INDIAN grounds in CT.. thank u for coming to the SHOW u were AMAZING to US at FOXWOODS. i pray we did u half as RIGHT
11:51 AM Jul 26th from web

this song playing possum is amazing.

^^^ Am very tempted to compare it to food. Am not sure what food. But it would taste tremendous.

possum, perhaps?

pretty wings
is
so
fucking
good.

blared it so many times in the shop today, like just kept replaying it, i'm pretty sure customers were confused

shame about the rest of the album, amirite?

Well, no.

maybe when i'm in the mood for BORING...

Listened to this album about 10 times the last few days. "help somebody" is my fav right now but the first 4 tracks might be his strongest consecutive tracks out of all his albums. Them plus the UR sounding last track are worth the price of admission, the other 4 songs are good too, though!

interesting reading him talk about radiohead; the single totally starts out like one of the clanky quiet bits on kid a (or mmm amnesiac), like treefingers?, maybe?

just had my first listen and am into this

see, i don't like help somebody! I think the whole album might be a slow burner with different tracks clicking for different folks.

it's a Good Song but idk why there's such a fuss about it one way or another, especially considering the track it immediately follows

'help somebody' is dope, u dudes just havent come around to it yet

the only one i skip is 'stop the world'

maybe i havent come around to it yet either, but it feels undercomposed

I think it's my favorite album track as of now.

the dj quik album had this same effect to iirc

i dunno i dont think its the same thing though. with maxwell its just that there are so many details & compositional crevices for u to discover
which is why 'stop the world' kinda doesnt work for me -- i dont feel like there's anything composed about it, its just so loose & unmoored

quik on the other hand was more pushing further & further your tolerance for weird

I kinda meant more that different people drastically gravitate to and away from different songs; no general consensus as to THE BEST or THE WORST

yah agreed w that

usually a sign of a good album

this albums grown on me but it doesnt seem quite as well written/developed as his stuff usually is.

ha, i just had the listen of 'Help Somebody' that opened it up to me. Itunes informs me it was #6 that did the trick.

i'm not as high on "pretty wings" as the rest of yall but it sounds SO GOOD on the radio. it's so different than anything being played, even with stuff like keyshia cole. i'm as big a backer of autotune & shit like "every girl" but i think we're gonna be alright if something like "pretty wings" can break to the top still.

"pretty wings" is really good but when he goes into his slurry soul-man vamps it sounds like "pret-ty WANGS" and i laugh every time...