Maxwell: Now : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Is it his fervent singing, top-rate falsetto, C-plus songwriting or superbabeness that earned neo-soul pinup Maxwell two platinum records and a lock on the dorm-room poster market? With Now, Maxwell proves that he's better than he has to be. This third full-length album continues to mine past gold, integrate rock and jazz elements, and work Maxwell's beautifully supple vocals around old-school styles. He has dispensed with the quavering whine he displayed in the late Nineties; "Temporary Nite," "Changed" and, especially, the earnest "For Lovers Only" are classic Seventies loveman pleas. The mild-mannered dance tunes take more than just a page from Prince's smart, thrusting funk - particularly on "NoOne" and the first half of "Now/At the Party." But Maxwell knows when to speed up the fun with dirty-minded horn-driven funk Parliament would recognize (on the first single, "Get to Know Ya") and even tips an oversize cap to the Seventies by noting, on "Now/At the Party," that "Everything is dyno-mite." The most unusual cuts are bulked up at the record's end - "Silently," with its textured arrangement, and a passionate, complicated cover of Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work" - showing not just how adaptable Maxwell is to old-fashioned soul but how adaptable soul is to the modern heart.

ARION BERGER
(RS 876 - August 30, 2001)