Bad Habits

Album: BLACKsummers'night (2009)
Charted: 71
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Songfacts®:

  • This was the second single taken from neo soul musician Maxwell's fourth studio album, BLACKsummers'night.
  • Maxwell described this regretful mid-tempo number with big horns to Billboard magazine as "the saltiest and most aggressive record I've ever done."
  • This number is about being addicted to a girl, who you know is not good for you. But it feels so good that it surely can't be wrong. MTV News asked Maxwell about the inspiration for the song. He replied: "It's the paradox, the dichotomy that propels me. I love the polar-opposite things. We live that every day. The double standards. We have that in our lives every day. One thing's good for one but not good for the other. Those are the things that inspire me and the records. At the same time, I don't like to tell people what it all means. I want you to find your own meaning in what I do. It makes it more special to me when I know that. For the many letters I've gotten, people telling me, 'Your song was at my wedding.' It doesn't matter what I thought at the point [of writing the song]. At that point, your bride was walking down the aisle, and I was singing. That, to me, is like, 'Wow.' "
  • This replaced another Maxwell song, "Pretty Wings" at the top of the Adult R&B chart. "Pretty Wings" remained one place below, meaning Maxwell became the first act in the history of the survey to have songs on the top two slots of the tally.

Comments: 1

  • Jay from Wheaton, MdI thought the boy Maxwell was done, but he proved me wrong I guess. And this song bangs too. And I love Kerri Washington and would like to impregnate her...over and over again
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