The Soul Train Awards was taped last night here in Atlanta.
It will be shown at the end of the month.

The list of no-shows was long: Beyonce, Kanye West, Maxwell, Mary Mary, Ne-Yo, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson and Drake 2 name a few.
[Edited 11/4/09 6:56am]

I think we all expected it to be that way again... I know both of the Mary Mary girls are pregnant again so it's cool for them to miss.

Graycap23 said:

basically....everybody who was nominated

Graycap23 said:

Beyonce = I'm too good for Soul Train now that I've crossed over and officially become Mrs. Jay Z


Kanye West = Ima go on sabbatical on account of me losing my gatdang mind yet again.


Maxwell = Nobody remembers me so Ima stay my no hit havin ass home.


Mary Mary = Jeebus told us not play with the dirty money


Ne-Yo = If Kanye and Bey aint comin' then I aint comin'


Jamie Foxx = I'm too good for Soul Train now that I've won an Oscar, had a #1 hit record and got a baby on the way by some random heffa


Jennifer Hudson = I just had a baby and no...Jamie is not the father.


Drake = If Kanye, Bey and Ne-Yo aint comin' then I aint comin'

I think it's sad for Beyonce not to show up being that it was the Soul Train awards that put that group on the map..I remeber Destiny's Child winning all those awards years back and i was like Destiny who ?

Didn't they just have that bullshit about a month or so ago?

vainandy said:

no.. they just announced that the show was coming back. It was just taped last night

Well, what was that when Kanye West showed his ass about a month ago?

vainandy said:

MTV... VMA's

Oh...OK. Two rediculous awards shows. One from a network that doesn't even play music videos anymore and another one from a show that doesn't exist anymore. That makes about as much sense as "American Bandstand" and "Solid Gold" having awards shows these days.

DesireeNevermind said:

phunkdaddy said:

Yeah really. You must be white and square if you never heard a Maxwell song. He had a huge comeback this year as well.

Seems the opposite to me. He fits in played in the middle of Bach or Beethoven a lot more than he would fit in played in the middle of The Barkays or Lakeside where he would sound totally out of place.

Nick715 said:

don't be fooled by that temporary chart topping success of his album, which took 8 years btw. he back down again. shit brian mcknight is topping him and he's not even as good an artist as maxwell.

It's a shame there wasn't another forum for these so called talented hacks to display their over hyped no talent asses. What ever will I watch now?
[Edited 11/5/09 10:48am]

DesireeNevermind said:

Don't YOU be fooled.

So being gone 8 years means he's a nobody? Jesse's been gone for how long, and how he's back and people are still paying attention. People on BET, and not on BET, love Maxwell. He wasn't there because he's on tour. He's been in Europe and the UK in the past week or two, and was finishing up the US leg of his tour around the time the awards were being filmed. He's in a different city every other night.

Maxwell is due to release 2 more albums in the next 2 years, making Blacksummer'snight a trilogy. So 3 albums in 3 years....even Prince isn't putting that sort of stuff out. He's went from a CD a year, to one every two years, if he's lucky.

ernestsewell said:

Yes i'm still confused by the notion that Maxwell isn't relevant.
The three radio stations that i listen to is wearing Maxwell out.
Dude's tour is one of the biggest going on now and selling out.

phunkdaddy said:

Biased. Somebody just don't like Maxwell.

ernestsewell said:

I said no one would remember him. Look at who makes up the majority of the record buying public particulary those that show up to these soul train award shows.. Folk are into weezy, chris, rihanna, souljaboy and all these wack artists or you got the older crowd who just want to pay homage to whatever old timer is getting a life achievement award.

Maxwell toured Europe yes and let's bare in mind that are more appreciative of the classic soul and R&B sound than Americans are. I'm not saying the dude has no talent I'm saying the dude is not as popular as he was nearly 10-15 years ago when music was much better substance and quality than it is today. Hence my sarcasm of "nobody will remember him". And if his lackluster sales are also an indication (last I checked he's barely broken the million dollar sales ceiling) then no wonder he's passing on the Soul Train music awards. His tour has nothing to do with it, many artists make award show appearances while on tour. This is business...it's not going to benefit him any by showing up to this juncture.

Desiree, Maxwell is having one of the best years of his career, you CAN'T be serious.

Timmy84 said:

I just expect more from him since he was once the end all be all of R&B. Come on...you know that dude once ruled the world.

ernestsewell said:

Is that a joke?
prince 2009: 3cds
prince 2008: 2 cds
prince 2007: 1 cd

DesireeNevermind said:

Yet the very fact that there have been multiple threads on the Org negates that no one would remember him. People have kept close to his side through those eight years, and waited, and waited for his next album. And now he's got 3 under his belt, ready to go, one being out already. Folks are into the nonsense that's out there because it's ALL that's out there.

So without defaulting to the "charts don't matter" mantra that Prince has been uttering since he failed to garner any interest on the charts (easy to dismiss what you fail at, ain't it Prince?), let's, just for the sake of it, look at those "lackluster" sales you mentioned, and let's examine who forgot who:

10 years ago 168,000 in sales would have seemed a failure, yet in 2009, Prince hit #2 with just over that many, barely edged out by Keith Urban's album, who only sold 3,000 copies more. (Those numbers alone are a sad state of music sales today, ain't it? haha) But really...let's go deeper.

Maxwell's album was released in July 2009. Prince had FOUR months release on him, letting Lotusflow3r out of the gate in mid-late March 2009. So he had four months of a head start on Maxwell. Maxwell's album has already went Gold less than 4 months (probably less than 3), selling well over 837,000 copies as of a recent figure. Prince's has not reached even 500,000 to reach Gold status, unless we missed the news. Let's say Prince has eeked out 250,000 sales. Maxwell has tripled that, plus some, in a shorter amount of time. Actually, to be fair, according to an August Soundscan report, Prince has sold about 373,000 albums.

Maxwell's album peaked at #1 on Billboard Top 200, Top R&B/Urban albums, and Top Internet Albums. Prince's peaked at #2 on the album charts (#1 on the French Download iTunes), and possibly somewhere else.

Maxwell's current single is #7, peaking and entering the charts at #6, and has been out since June 2009 (two singles released before the album came out, and they still charted in the top 10). It's the SECOND single from the record, not the first when all the initial excitement for a new album is in momentum. The first single peaked at #1.

Max's album is at #52 in Billboard's Top 200. Prince's isn't even in the top 200 at all.

Max wasn't around 15 years ago, and it took a bit for his first album to really take off, debuting in early 1996, but it eventually went platinum twice over.

In 1996, Prince released Chaos & Disorder - failed to chart; Emancipation - platinum once, but it was a 3 disk set, each DISK counting as a single unit, and he shipped just over 300,000, thereby shipping over a million "disks", but only 300,000+ ALBUMS. Trickery. He also released Girl 6 w/ 3 new songs. Didn't chart.

In 1998, Maxwell released his 2nd album, and it went platinum. Prince released a compilation album, which had a botched launch, and a new album, which failed to see any big success on the charts, but had a couple of videos.

While I'm not saying Maxwell is bigger than Prince, it seems that Maxwell has had a bigger success in sales in recent years than Prince, on SOME fronts, not all.

So have fans forgotten Maxwell? HELL NO. BET hasn't, TV|ONE hasn't, FANS haven't. The trilogy was due to be released in 08/09/10, but it was pushed back by him, because he was just recording more and more music. I think the 09/10/11 dates are perfect. Everything happens for a reason after all.

Graycap23 said:

2009: 1 album, 2 disks of his, 1 of some chick. Let's not go to that "disks not albums" thing he tried to pull with Emancipation, when he shipped only 300,000 albums, but it went platinum because each disk counted separately. Oddly, Lotusflow3r is supposed to be three different albums, and it still didn't get higher than Keith's single disk, and both were probably within a dollar of price. (Meaning, most CDs are ridiculously cheap the first week to help garner sales of course, especially at places like Target - it's where I go to get CDs the first week, too.)

2008: Besides a random CD in a book, what else did he release?

2007: Planet Earth.

BlaqueKnight said:

Yeah you're lucky you're here. The Fams would eat you up.

ernestsewell said:

Honey you will get no argument from me about Princey's lackluster album sales. I've been saying that till I blue in the face. Why you comparing the two anyway?

DesireeNevermind said:

To prove a point lol

BlaqueKnight said:

DesireeNevermind said:

You said people forgot about Maxwell. And since this is Prince.org, it was a fair comparison.

Maxwell is still, if not more, relevant to his fanbase than Prince is to his.