a Million, which began her fruitful association with Timbaland and Missy Elliott, her impact on contemporary R&B - and therefore pop - has been enormous. Long before Britney scandalized a nation by winking at dirty old men everywhere, the teenage Aaliyah was romantically linked with the much older R. Kelly and singing the erotic, precocious lyrics he'd written for her.
One in a Million proved she wasn't a fluke by heightening the contradictions that made her resonate: She was the B-girl with supermodel looks, simultaneously distant and down-to-earth. That blend of the familiar and the exotic was reflected in her singing, which was both aloof and inviting. Her voice - small, often tinny - was rendered supple when couched in Timbaland's barrage of beats and off-kilter studio flourishes. She sang with an authority at odds with the fragility of her instrument.
On Aaliyah, a near-flawless declaration of strength and independence, she ups the ante for herself and her contemporaries - as well as for her musical heroes. Aaliyah is Control, Velvet Rope and Jagged Little Pill all rolled into one. It's the album Janet should have made with All for You, the manifesto that Beyonce thought she was penning with Survivor. Timbaland produced only a handful of the disc's fifteen tracks, but his Afro-sci-fi influence is everywhere: layered and oddly tweaked vocals, beats lovingly laced with techno-electro strokes that threaten to shatter your system, arrangements that harness sonic non sequiturs and give them a cohesion that's breathtaking. Missy Elliott's So Addictive or OutKast's Stankonia are the only recent hip-hop/R&B/pop records as overflowing with ideas and experimentation. An even more fitting comparison, though, would be to Sade's 2000 comeback, Lovers Rock. (Aaliyah has stated in interviews that Sade is her heroine.) Aaliyah has the familiar crisp production and staccato arrangements that we've come to associate with Sade; like Lovers Rock, Aaliyah tilts forward in its sound but also reaches back to old-school soul music to flesh out its slow jams.
The tone is set with the opening track and first single, "We Need a Resolution," which is driven by a stop-and-go drum pattern, hand claps and a male-vs.-female take on the dissolution of a love affair. Aaliyah's voice snakes through the intricately sparse arrangement with cool confidence. That assurance is the foundation for the entire album. "What If" is a Detroit-techno-meets-industrial-rock workout that nods to Trent Reznor (another Aaliyah hero). Where too many R&B artists who decide to rock out affect
