"Wm. ERROL PACE" wrote:
> What tha Hell is going on with Maxwell? He CD was suppose to be released
> back in March and then was moved. Give me a holler.
hey,
an excerpt from a post on my ml.
wesley
tokyo|konnect is | Sound Lounge
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TK
_____________________________________________________________
Music GROOVE | Maxwell Returns
********
So after months of waiting and postponing, the 3rd studio album which
was
initially slated for a March release, then pushed to next
month and so forth, will finally arrive on JULY 24th. I'm talkin bout
nu-soul
singer/songwriter Maxwell, and his new album 'NOW.'
wesley
********
MAXIMUM MAXWELL
A Reluctant Sex symbol Gets His Groove Back
If contemporary r&b had eyes, they'd be leering ones, peeking down the
shirts, rubbernecking butt cheeks before inspecting the
contents of the back pocket. And before you can get the license plate of
whoever ass-swiped you, the eyes have wandered to another
victim.
It's a shame Maxwell's expressive, literate, romantic soul gets lumped
in
with the thongs and t-backs. Maxwell wants the woman to
come first but not just in the sexual way. As he says in the opening
couplet
of his new single "Get to Know Ya": "Brothers were trying
to get into your trousers, I was just trying to get into you."
"It's gotten more carnal," Maxwell says of the increasingly ribald r&b
songs
that bookend his on the radio. "When you get put into a
situation where you do music, it's a great opportunity to be a 'ho. I'm
27
now and that style doesn't work for me. The example that you
present will mean a lot in the end in how long you hang around. I can't
wait
for more substantive energies to come to the fore."
Maxwell placed women on a pedestal on his debut Urban Hang Suite. He
entered
a woman's heart through the brain via Embrya. His
winsome smile parenthesized by sideburns made him poster boy of the
neo-soul
movement, whatever that is. Three years in the
making, Maxwell's new album Now (Columbia, out July 24) is his official
re-entry into public as a person in love with creating and taking
chances.
But first, some history. Maxwell grew up in Brooklyn, son of a Puerto
Rican
mother and West Indian father, a self-described geek with
no game. While his mother sheltered him from the rough neighborhood, his
love
affair with music began: Nick Drake, Led Zeppelin, Kate
Bush, Boogie Down Productions and De La Soul had equal cachet. He tapped
out
songs on a Casio keyboard, the one with the orange
drum pads, before laying down his first tracks.
Today, Maxwell's become one of the world's most-wanted r&b vocalists.
His
songs aren't the garden-variety crotch rot. His
buttercup-smooth falsetto would make Smokey and Prince proud. He's
achingly
modest. He hangs imaginary quotation marks around
the words "sex symbol" and poo-poos all that yadda-yadda-yadda about his
"sexy" image. "It's so weird," he says. "Coming from the
experience of being nerdy in school, I don't connect with the attention.
I
just have fun with it." On tour, he included a hilarious sequence
where he broke down the kind of guy he was: the kind that'll paint your
toenails, scrub your back and then go to the store and buy you
tampons. The girls were instantly locked and whatever guy that wasn't
until
then was right next to him the rest of the trip.
Maxwell stresses that for the past two years he lived as normal a life
as any
other N.Y.C. apartment dweller. His success allowed him
to travel back and forth to Puerto Rico, but mostly he commandeered a
typical
existence. He read a lot of books, threw out the garbage
and lumped his dirty drawers to the Laundromat. His trophy case might
have
more platinum records and Soul Train Award statuettes
than Hummels or Lladro figures, but both need dusting. "Fame distorts
the
experience," he says, his voice raising a hair. "I don't know
when you talk to other celebrities but some of them I meet and they only
relate to who they are. I can't be that kind of person. I have to
be able to relate to people, read books. It's not like 'I'm Maxwell and
this
is what I've done for the past five years, don't you know me?'"
Here's a news flash: Maxwell is human, though his fans might beg to
differ.
He would have differed with you, too, when he got caught in
the hype machine as Urban Hang Suite blew up. Maxwell checked himself
into
the boards hard enough to warrant a game misconduct.
"I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't think those things," he says.
"You
see your face all big and your name all huge and see all these
people coming to watch you. Your ego wants to go 'Yeah, I'm the shit,
I'm the
shit.' You have to check yourself as best you can. This is
a moment. Everyone has their time. Keep it in perspective. Try to do
what you
can in the time you're in it. With that attitude you can be
around for a long time." The Urban Hang Suite tour built up Maxwell's
reputation with crepe suits, choreographed routines, lit staircases
and a front-stage fan to keep his blow-out afro in motion. Sobered by
the
experience, Maxwell entered the studio and learned how much
follow-up records are wrapped up in expectation. In 1998, Embrya
confounded
the critics and fans with its difficult-to-read song titles and
surreal lyricism. This was definitely not Urban Hang Suite Part II, it
was
more A Love Supreme but it could have just as been Metal
Machine Music to some fans expecting "Sumthin' Sumthin'." He canceled
the
supporting tour to sort out some family problems. "It was
definitely for personal reasons, family stuff," he says. "I had to be
honorable to that. I love my career, I love what my career stands for,
but my family and loved ones are my unit. They are the foundation that
I'm
built on. Luckily, I had enough people who were respectful
and patient enough to let me be a human being for a time."
Though Embrya went on to sell buckets of records, you wouldn't have
known it
gauging video and radio airplay. Maxwell was gratified to
learn that he could operate from the heart and the fans will be there. A
single on the Life soundtrack, "Fortunate," gave him added
courage. "I needed to know it wasn't about an afro and an old soul
sound," he
says. "I needed to know it was about what I like to do
musically. The fear of not being liked is hard for some artists. I
needed to
go through that, just the risk of it was important. You can't
please the world.
"It's important for me not to operate out of fear," he adds. "I'm a lot
more
comfortable with who I am. I know that if I wanted to go all the
way left I'd still be able to survive. The outlets of radio or press
don't
govern or keep my career going. And that's a good thing to know,
especially before you're 30."
Maxwell's firmly locked on the task at hand. Now's songs emerged from
the
heart, not manufactured by contemporary r&b's narrow
specifications. The joy of letting go can be felt throughout.
"It was a good lesson for me," he explains. "A lot of times I had the
song a
certain way and was teetering. There was a conflict. Should I
change it? Should I not? Then I'd kind of wait and let it sit with me. I
just
said, 'This is who I am.' It's like a kid who has one blue eye and
one green eye who says 'this is me.'"
"David Bowie being the kid," he adds with a laugh.
Now opens with a propulsive jam built around the guitar play of Wah Wah
Watson. The legendary soul-funk guitarist of Marvin Gaye and
Barry White brings his own brand of hot sauce to the party.
The upbeat moments are ratcheted up. Memphis-style horns add crunch to
"Get
to Know Ya" and the title track. Tribal bass,
synthesized drums and guitar add a Cameo quality to "Temporary Night."
"Lifetime" could be Maxwell's finest moment yet, a reflection on times
past
with a third eye toward the future. "Lifetime" incites
goosebumps in the way "Diamonds and Pearls" does. A luscious studio
remake of
Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work" closes out the
set.
"It's funny that the third album sums up, for me, this era of how I make
music," Maxwell says. "I'm thinking very differently now. At the
tail end of the album I have songs created in a whole 'nother approach.
It
ends this era for me. If Urban Hang was past, Embrya
somewhat the future, Now is the eternal moment that encompasses that."
By Todd Inoue
-- wesleytokyo|konnect is | Sound Lounge http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TK
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