Not to be confused with the song "Maybe Man".
"The Maybe Man" is AJR’s fifth studio album, which released on November 10th, 2023, following up their 2021 album OK Orchestra.
Pre-Release[]
The first teaser for the album was released on November 12th, 2022, with the tagline "A NEW ERA HAS BEGUN. TMM". TMM was correctly assumed by fans to be the initials of the album name. At an earlier time, they had revealed on their story that the album's title would follow the structure of "*** ***** ***" (3 letters, 5 letters, 3 letters), so using these hints combined many fans began to guess as to what the album name could be. Some popular guesses were The Music Men, Ten Meter Men, The Manic Mob, and The Manly Men. In the same story post, the brothers also said that the album would contain 13 songs, because "it has to".
On August 28, 2023, AJR posted the official album announcement on YouTube (now deleted), confirming the title to be The Maybe Man.
The brothers initially confirmed the release date for The Maybe Man as November 3; however, it was later pushed back another week to November 10. According to social media posts and an interview with Zach Sang, AJR decided to postpone the album due to increasing opportunities. “I guess we’re slowly getting bigger so we got more opportunities,” Ryan said in an interview with Zach Sang. “like more TV [interviews] and stuff that, so we were just like ‘You know what? let’s just push it back to have this album heard by as many people as possible.’ ”
On September 8th, 2023, AJR posted a link to a website on their social media, with the caption "Maybe we release The Maybe Man tracklist...or maybe we do this instead." The website contained a blank tracklist, as well as every word from each song on the album at the bottom in a random order. Users could drag the words into the tracklist in any order in order to guess what the tracklist would be, and then post their guesses on social media. Using the names of the already released singles, as well as some leaked song names that were seen in Ryan's files in a livestream the previous year, fans were able to guess the names of all the songs fairly quickly. Fans noticed that the tracklist on the website only contained spaces for 12 songs, when they had previously stated that the album would contain 13 songs, and AJR later confirmed that the 13th track was cut from the album due to their father's passing and would be released on a later date.
The album art, as well as the official tracklist, was revealed on September 11. They continued to release teasers and behind-the-scenes content for the album, until it was finally released on November 10.
Theme[]
The Maybe Man is a reflection on the ambiguity and uncertainty that often characterizes our lives, revolving around the question, "Who the hell am I?". Through its lyrics and melodies, the album explores the concept of "maybe." It depicts the idea that nothing is certain, and everything is subject to change. In the closing track, "2085", the singer discovers his true self amidst the various people he's encountered, realizing that he will always be different around different people. This is echoed in the lyrics of the song where one line goes "Maybe I'm a stone, or big as my house" and another "Yeah maybe that's who the hell I am". The word “Maybe Man” also contributes to the album’s meaning. A Maybe Man is someone who is unsure about who they are supposed to be. This is the biggest contributing factor to the deeper meaning to the album.
AJR has confirmed that the opening track, "Maybe Man", acts as a "table of contents" for the album. Each verse in the song corresponds to a song in the album, and the album art also contains hidden references to each verse in the song. More information about this can be found on the page for "Maybe Man".
Tracklist[]
Five singles were released before the album, these being "I Won't", "The DJ Is Crying for Help", "The Dumb Song", "God Is Really Real", and "Yes I'm A Mess". Most of the other songs were teased on social media prior to the album's release, and "Touchy Feely Fool" was also played fully during an event in the game Rec Room.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Maybe Man" | 3:40 |
| 2 | "Touchy Feely Fool" | 3:35 |
| 3 | "Yes I'm A Mess" | 2:44 |
| 4 | "The Dumb Song" | 3:45 |
| 5 | "Inertia" | 3:40 |
| 6 | "Turning Out Pt. iii" | 3:50 |
| 7 | "Hole in the Bottom of My Brain" | 3:07 |
| 8 | "The DJ Is Crying For Help" | 3:39 |
| 9 | "I Won't" | 2:48 |
| 10 | "Steve's Going to London" | 4:47 |
| 11 | "God Is Really Real" | 2:59 |
| 12 | "2085" | 5:31 |
| Total Length | 44:05 |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- This is the second album to have 12 tracks, the first being Neotheater.
- This album has the most explicit songs of any AJR album, having 11 out of 12 explicit songs.
- "Hole in the Bottom of My Brain" is the album's only clean track. However, it does mention drug usage.
- Due to this, this is the second album to have a dedicated clean album.
- This is the second publicly available album to not have an overture, the other being Neotheater.
- This is the first AJR album to support Dolby Atmos in Apple Music.
- The only songs that were not teased prior to the album's release were "Inertia", "Turning Out Pt. iii" and "Hole in the Bottom of My Brain".
- A snippet of the instrumental of "Inertia" was used in the first teaser for the album, however it was never revealed that the snippet was part of "Inertia" until the album's release.
- The album's cover art was drawn by Aaron Jasinski.
- This was AJR's second album in the 2020s.
- During Ryan's masterclass on The Maybe Man Tour, a deluxe edition of the album was confirmed.
- Every album has had a song that inspired the next album. The song from OKO that inspired TMM is 3 O’clock Things.[1]