Maxwell – Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite (1996/2021) [FLAC 24bit/44,1kHz]

Maxwell – Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite (1996/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 58:30 minutes | 672 MB | Genre: Soul
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia

The 25th anniversary digital edition of Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite has been remastered for the first time at 24bit Hi-Res Audio with 2021 engineering by Mark Wilder.

An atmospheric concept album first released by Columbia Records on April 2, 1996, Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite presented a deeply romantic-spiritual song cycle of classic soul-inspired grooves that flowed in contrast to the hip-hop-influenced contemporary R&B of the era. Maxwell’s debut heralded the arrival of a major new musical talent and sensibility while Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite would become widely-recognized as a cornerstone of the neo-soul sound.

Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite generated four hit singles: “…Til the Cops Come Knockin’,” “Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder),” “Sumthin’ Sumthin’” and “Suitelady (The Proposal Jam)” with different versions of the album’s songs appearing on a series of EPs. “Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder)” has achieved RIAA platinum status while “Sumthin’ Sumthin’” has been certified RIAA gold.

Slow-but-steady in climbing the charts and making its impact, Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite became one of the most ubiquitously played albums of the year, eventually spending 78 weeks on the Billboard 200 and achieving RIAA double platinum status. Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite made the year-end Top 10 Best Albums lists in Time, Rolling Stone, USA Today and others while earning Grammy nomination for Best R&B Album. With his debut album, Maxwell, an iconic singer-songwriter-performer, was redefining classic soul music for a new generation.

As Senior Vice President of A&R and Columbia Records, music industry veteran Mitchell Cohen signed Maxwell to the label in 1994 and remembers the first time he heard this music on an embryonic demo tape: “….it got under my skin; I heard echoes of music that I’d grown up with and loved, early Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye, some of the great R&B and doo wop singers like Clyde McPhatter, Pookie Hudson and Lee Andrews. And the music was slinky and sexy. It made unexpected twists, had a seductive pulse. The tape said ‘Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite,’ and I had no idea who this Maxwell was, but I thought I should find out…. He aimed for the platonic ideal of the record. And it came out as brilliantly as he’d hoped, an album that spoke to a new romanticism that had been missing in so much synthetic, inorganic R&B.”

R&B scholar, music/culture critic, journalist and filmmaker Nelson George called Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite, “a musical landmark that began the career of one of pop music’s finest voices” while Q magazine called Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite “one of the very best R&B records of the ’90s.” Stephen Cook, from AllMusic, predicted the album was “destined to become a classic contemporary R&B album.”

Tracklist

1. Maxwell – The Urban Theme (Remastered 2021) (Album Version)
2. Maxwell – Welcome (Remastered 2021) (Album Version)
3. Maxwell – Sumthin’ Sumthin’ (Remastered 2021) (Album Version)
4. Maxwell – Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder) (Remastered 2021) (Album Version)
5. Maxwell – Dancewitme (Remastered 2021) (Album Version)
6. Maxwell – …Til The Cops Come Knockin’ (Album Version)
7. Maxwell – Whenever Wherever Whatever (Remastered 2021) (Album Version)
8. Maxwell – Lonely’S The Only Company (i&ii) (Album Version)
9. Maxwell – Reunion (Remastered 2021) (Album Version)
10. Maxwell – Suitelady (The Proposal Jam) (Remastered 2021) (Album Version)
11. Maxwell – The Suite Theme (Remastered 2021) (Album Version)
12. Maxwell – …Til The Cops Come Knockin’ (Remastered 2021) (Album Version)

Download:

mqs.link_MaxwellMaxwellsUrbanHangSuite1996202124441.rar