Re: Maxwell's New CD?'s WT...?!!

From: wesley (wesleyhongkong@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Jun 08 2001 - 22:46:54 CEST

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    "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

    --
    wesley
    

    tokyo|konnect is | Sound Lounge http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TK



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