Maxinquaye

best album ever deserves a poll, right?

So why'd you post this one instead?

OH SNAP.

But seriously, folks. Good album.

lolz

Black Steel

Black Steel seconded.

Black Steel or Hell Is Round the Corner, either would be acceptable

hell

Staggering album -- impossible to pick just one. I was going to go for "Ponderosa," but I'm going to take the unpopular tack and pick "You Don't," which some people seem to hate.

Overall, this is one of those albums that acts as one complete work, I think.

Good choice - "You Don't" is a fricking great track.

"Abbaon Fat Tracks." I sing the chorus aloud once in a while, just for a laugh.

I think this is the only hugely-praised record in existence that I just don't get the appeal of.

do you like it in the ass?

i still don't know what i am going to pick... "strugglin" i guess... but this is one of those records for me where the favorite changes constantly. i might have to pick "suffocated love" or "hell is round the corner"

i wish i could explain the appeal of this to you, hoos, but all i can say is there's some really weird magic going on that i just can't place. (also it helps if you've ever been on the verge of losing your mind). someday it will all make sense, i suppose. actually, this may be a loaded statement, but maxinquaye basically makes me think of end times/judgement day/etc...

if there were one song i would remove, it would be "pumpkin" by i've even warmed up to that, especially "mtv moves to fast, i refuse to understand"

I like the album because it's sexy!

it's kind of dirty, though, like fucking in a dumpster

Feed Me with Strugglin' and Suffocated Love close behind but i could easily pick 3 or 4 others for the top spot and would only remove one (You Don't).

I mean I love Massive Attack, I even tend to think Tricky is the best part of Blue Lines & Mezzanine, but this just never did it for me.

But that's me. I'm not the type to go "no really guys, believe me, it's terrible." This one just doesn't do it for me.

chunwun123 (3 weeks ago)

good song, but the title is very depressing. i mean hell is round the corner, i dont want to go to hell

Ilisity (1 week ago)

i think he means it metaphorically , but it all is isn't it

weak shit, HOOS. this album is immense.

I want to say "Feed Me" but suspect I'm only doing so because the second half of the album is less heralded than the first. The first six songs from the album were all released as singles! Different times.

frontloading.

i love this whole album, but the best one is definitely "Suffocated Love". great lyrics, a little acidy synth, what is not to love?

strugglin'

love the feel, the vocals fit it well, to me this song represents the album more than the others

I voted for "Brand New You're Retro" why because it tru

no wai

i like it but it's one of two tracks (with 'abbaon') i cd nt vt 4.

haha i thought hard about voting for "abbaon"

i have to do these things drive-by otherwise i'd go all nutz

i like 'suffocated love'

"i like 'suffocated love'

-- sam500"

i'm kind of surprised at how little love this one has received here, i thought it and "hell is round the corner" might clean house but i guess i was wrong!

i totally expected more aftermath love

Totally, "Aftermath" is one of my favourites.

What's the connection between "Suffocated Love" and "Hell Is Around The Corner" pipecock? More rapping by Tricky?

"Aftermath" since it is my third favourite single of all time, behind "Everything's Gone Green" and "O Superman."

What's the connection between "Suffocated Love" and "Hell Is Around The Corner" pipecock?

big soul samples oh noes?

I gotta admit that the Hanna Barbera version of this album (Whale's We Care has held up much better. But praise be to Soto for noting Maxinquaye's practically unspoken of sexiness. This is real Zalman King kind of stuff which I intend very much as a compliment (and check out Women of the Night for an apt visual counterpart). So to that end, I'm voting for "Overcome," too often unnoticed due to its intro-ness. But a slinky, sexy bit of radiator hum it is.

that should be "(Whale's We Care)"

Didn't realize there was hate for "You Don't." It sounds of a piece with the rest of the album, no? Is it because the vocals move to close to diva for (dis)comfort that people hate it?

praise be to Soto for noting Maxinquaye's practically unspoken of sexiness

uh.jpg

strugglin is the sparest and creepiest

Kenan on Maxinquaye's sexiness - http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/on_second_thought/tricky-maxinquaye.htm

Right okay. Still, it's spoken of more in terms of non-specific dread and the requisite pre-millennial tension than anything else.

Didn't realize there was hate for "You Don't." It sounds of a piece with the rest of the album, no? Is it because the vocals move to close to diva for (dis)comfort that people hate it?

Maybe there isn't hate for it, but I seem to remember championing it on another thread and being figuratively pelted with rocks and garbage (this happens a lot) for picking what some perceive to be the album's only clunker. Whatever, they can all get fucked. I think the vocals are fuckin' swoonworthy.

Love "You Don't". I wish Tricky had done some outside production work for divas at around this time (I mean, apart from a track or two each for Neneh Cherry and Bjork). Ragga's housier vocal is amazing on this tune.

I'm somewhat boring and conservative in that "Strugglin" is my least favourite.

I went for "Overcome", just ahead of "Black Steel" and "Brand New You're Retro". I can totally see how this wouldn't appeal to people who wanted to like it: some of the songs drag, and if you don't want to accept that this is the point, you're going to pass on this thing.

eh? i think 'strugglin' drags a bit, but compared w. most trip-hop records this one zips by.

I'll definitely take "Strugglin" over "Ghetto Youth".

Tim F: totally on "Strugglin" over "Ghetto Youth"

When I say some songs drag, I mean that the beats are pretty scattered on some of the tracks. You can dance to this record between the sheets, but it's hard to imagine this being huge in clubs without remixes (though live these songs were so loud that you could dance by falling down and letting the bass notes knock you back up again).

yeah... it wasn't really meant for the clubs!

i think i like 'suffocated love' for its languid sensual qualities. and i don't have to listen to it within the context of the album to enjoy. great strings too of course.

from the goodfellas soundtrack. or, a song on it.

Well, Black Steel got played at indie nights. In fact, I played whatever mix has all the guitars at indie nights myself.

I agree with Tim about the second side - it's easy to ignore it because all the hits were on the first side, but it's all fantastic. I love You Don't, but I will probably vote for Suffocated Love. There's a certain lightness in his tone in that one that I love, especially since you normally go to Tricky for heaviness.

Aftermath is amazing, too. It was years later that I got that "Just when i thought that I could not be stopped" was a quote from Ghosts. That's great that backwards sample (or quote) recognition frission that you get.

Brand New You're Retro, after much deliberation.

such an awesome bassline

isn't it off 'bad'?

god You Don't is so HUGE

"Hell Is Round the Corner." "Black Steel..." is the only track I don't love. It's my favorite album of the 90s.

"What's the connection between "Suffocated Love" and "Hell Is Around The Corner" pipecock? More rapping by Tricky?

-- Tim F"

nah, they just seem to stand out the most. theyre both kind of epic sounding in a way that other tracks on there arent. they seem to be the ones people i have talked about the album with like (i do, too, obviously!).

i do love the whole album though. even the ones that kinda bug me ("black steel", "strugglin") are pretty dope in the context of the whole record. unfortunately, i never liked anything else tricky did outside of Nearly God. i saw him live in 98 with Martina Topely-Bird on vocals, that shit was sexy as hell. she is fucking bomb. that said, i LOVE her solo album, ive been banging on that one for a while, too.

get it on
fucking bomb
bang on

EVERY song is huge except pumpkin which sounds like bad first-person shooter computer game music

I like Kevin's calling Whale's We Care a cartoon version of Maxinquaye, but only if you ignore how cartoonish Maxinquaye's depiction of sex is. Zalman King may be sex, but it looks heated and silly the older you get.

on Tricky + sex: today I googled the lyrics to Abbawtf Fat Tracks and was like wow! after 10+ years of loving that record I realized I'd never actually paid attention to any of the lyrics; it was good stuff!

"Ponderosa," though some days I like Björk's "Enjoy" better than anything on this album.

"Enjoy" was the first Tricky song I heard!

probably same here, though I can't really remember now.

wow, u young

only if you ignore how cartoonish Maxinquaye's depiction of sex is. Zalman King may be sex, but it looks heated and silly the older you get.

I hear ya. But there's a lot else going on making it easy to ignore that, i.e. Maxinquaye isn't cartoonish overall. At least to my ears.

Actually, the Tricky-Zalman King comparison may be a bit too superficial. That Whale album is actually closer to Zalman King in spirit. Do check out Women of the Night. Like We Care, it's so transcendently silly that it reduces you to a grinning idiot for most of its running time.

not so much young as really slow, in those days, to pick up on music

really tuff - this album is the shit - but i go with 'overcome'

possible xpost on that joint with list all the rave tracks with synth bamboo flute

from the goodfellas soundtrack. or, a song on it.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, January 29, 2008 10:02 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

the chantels - look in my eyes

anybody ever noticed before that "pumpkin" sounds exactly like "i'm gonna crawl" by l. zeppelin??

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

anybody ever noticed before that "pumpkin" sounds exactly like "i'm gonna crawl" by l. zeppelin??

Kinda.

Wow! It does...a lot! Sounds even more like Smashing Pumpkins' "Suffer." ;)

"Strugglin'" fans should definitely check out "Ambient Pumpkin" (aka "Symphony for Sleeping Lion and Far-Off Machine Gun Fire") from Macro Dub Infection Volume One (thank you, Ioannis, for replacing my stolen copy).

I loved 'overcome' and 'ponderosa', hated 'black steel', loved 'hell is round the corner', 'pumpkin' and 'aftermath', but always found the album a bit boring after that. I think someone else said it was frontloaded, I'd go along with that.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

gah!

figured every track would get at least one vote

I love "Black Steel" but it was the bullshit choice.

that is one of the two weakest tracks on the album in my opinion, i can't believe it won. i was right in thinking "hell is round the corner" would be high up there, though.

Okay I've changed my mind.

I don't like this album very much.

SEIZE HIM!

Sorry - I guess it might have seemed like cool mood music at the time, but it just seems so dated now.

that's the advantage of not listening to any current fashionable music. maxinquaye does not sound dated to my ears. i would have voted aftermath myself, i guess. timelessly cool relaxing music. btw i think i like this album nowadays more than 13 years ago.

The dated references on both this and the Björk thread would have me down, but I'm pretty sure most of them are coming from people older than me.

"but it just seems so dated now"

Really? It seems very of the moment even today to me.

I think the reason it has dated poorly is that so much of it depends on the interesting sonics to get over. The songwriting is really not that interesting. Now that that heavily-sampled sound has become old news, there's not much left to catch the ear. It doesn't even work that well as mood music, because there are too many mood-breakers.

the lovely emma b said the other day when i was listening to this -- "i don't like this too much, it sounds like cafe del mar or something" and i was like !!!! and then was like "i thought you LIKED cafe del mar anyway!" and she's like "not any more"

she said the swooning strings are too obviously angsty and dramatic, and i can sympathize with that criticism

"I think the reason it has dated poorly is that so much of it depends on the interesting sonics to get over. The songwriting is really not that interesting. Now that that heavily-sampled sound has become old news, there's not much left to catch the ear. It doesn't even work that well as mood music, because there are too many mood-breakers.

-- o. nate"

the sampling on this album is superb, everything has a coat of grit over it that gives it a very cohesive feeling throughout. it doesnt feel like the chopped up and mangled mess that it is, it feels like something whole. basically, i think your feelings on this album are worthless.

*****

the sampling on this album is superb, everything has a coat of grit over it that gives it a very cohesive feeling throughout. it doesnt feel like the chopped up and mangled mess that it is, it feels like something whole

This is a great description... of Endtroducing.

"This is a great description... of Endtroducing.

-- o. nate"

endtroducing does that pretty well too, thats why i still play both of them to death.

# What is dated at this particular moment? [Started by Eric H., last updated 14 seconds ago] 61 new answers
# Maxinquaye [Started by winston, last updated 46 seconds ago] 65 new answers [POLL results]

What is dated at this particular moment? [Started by Eric H., last updated 1 minute ago] 63 new answers
Rolling Metal Thread 2008 [Started by fukasaku tollbooth, last updated 1 minute ago] 65 new answers

name one fucking 90s album that doesn't sound "dated"

I-F "Fucking Consumer"

The songwriting is really not that interesting.

so so RONG it hurts

Now that that heavily-sampled sound has become old news, there's not much left to catch the ear.

Waht?? So we should throw out all our hip hop records??

the sampling on this album is superb, everything has a coat of grit over it that gives it a very cohesive feeling throughout. it doesnt feel like the chopped up and mangled mess that it is, it feels like something whole. basically, i think your feelings on this album are worthless.

i agree with the last sentence, but i always thought this album did sound pretty messy and unhinged (to its advantage of course)

It's been 7 years since whoever made the 'this sounds dated' comment upthread and 20 years since Maxinquaye got released and it still sounds great to me. Does this actually sound dated? I can't tell... some of it does sound slightly like "the 90's" but Maxinquaye for me is way too subtle, midtempo and so different to anything else - even in the trip-hop genre - to sound dated. Dated compared to what? How can a certain sound that was never truly replaced sound dated? Evolution and copies of a sound is what makes them sound dated. Not even Tricky could reproduce, let alone evolve it in his subsequent albums.

Anyhoo write-in pity vote for Pumpkin because it's one of my favorite songs of the album (Alison Goldfrapp + Gish sample) and it deserves better than the last place in this poll.

Live taped performance. Makes it sound like something off a Lynch soundtrack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6tTqE-71H0

I'm also sad that Pumpkin got nothing.

I've never much got into Tricky beyond Maxinquaye and the Massive Attack stuff, I'd be interested to hear a 'best of' from his later albums.

"Pumpkin" is great and I never realized until this moment that Alison Goldfrapp was the vocalist. Huh.

Maxinquaye isn't dated in the slightest. Neither is Nearly God. Pre-Millennium Tension sounds like it was recorded in the future.

No offense, Moka, but we need to retire "dated" as a pejorative. REcords, no matter how radical the inteintions and results, cant help but sound like products of their time, and why not?

Why would Moka be offended since she is also disputing the usefulness of the term "dated"?

I think "dated" is maybe just about useful if you're talking about a particular fashionable sound that nobody uses anymore, like an "ah yeah!" sample in early 90s dance music but it's not intrinsically a bad thing - it may be a reason to like it.

But anyway, I agree with Moka: Tricky had such a unique way of hearing and making music that I don't hear the 90s in Maxinquaye like I do in generic trip hop.

No offense, Moka, but we need to retire "dated" as a pejorative. REcords, no matter how radical the inteintions and results, cant help but sound like products of their time, and why not?

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 4, 2015 7:26 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for someone who reads so much, you sure are a bad reader.

I read it too fast on my phone. My apologies, Moka!

but "dated" – yeah, bad.

Sorry - I guess it might have seemed like cool mood music at the time, but it just seems so dated now.

― o. nate, Friday, February 1, 2008

I was talking about this comment by o nate upthread. So, yes I'm not offended at all, I'm actually questioning 'what is dated?' It's completely ok for something to sound like their particular decade and I agree with you Alfred, dated shouldn't be used as a pejorative. O Nate was dismissing Maxinquaye because it 'sounds dated' as if something sounding old was bad. How can you expect and demand a 1995 to sound like a 2008 record? Enjoy it for what it is.

More specifically, my question was: is Maxinquaye outdated and does this makes it obsolete? For a product other than music to become obsolete consumers either stop using it or something better comes to replace it. I don't think any album really challenged the particular sonic world of Maxinquaye so in that regard it is definitely not obsolete. Is Maxinquaye being used? How can we even measure that? Album sales nowadays? Influence over modern music? Maxinquaye wasn't really imposing nor following any trends back in 1995 so I don't think it ever became that influential.

On a somewhat related note: I might be alone on this one but I recall hearing this record maybe from 97 onwards. Even if it's dated as a 1995 record I have trouble connecting it to the 90's, but then, it doesn't sound like the 00's either, there's nothing in my mind to connect it to. Let's take Dummy as a comparison point. Dummy does sound like the 90's for me, at least it's decidedly closer to the sonic trends of the time. Dummy is very reliant on samples, just as Maxinquaye is, but where Dummy sounds like 90's by going for a full on hip hop beat sound, scratch and all, Maxinquaye uses it's samples in a much more organic, live sounding form. There are a couple of tracks that do sound like they're following on trends from the 90's (Aftermath, Brand New come to mind) but for the most part it sounds very insular.

Happy 30th birthday!

"Pumpkin" robbed. One of my favorite tracks.

The best!