FEATURE:
More Than a Woman
IN THIS PHOTO: Aaliyah in 2000
Looking Back at Aaliyah’s Eponymous Album – and the Hope It Will Appear on Streaming Sites Soon
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IT is hard to believe that the iconic…
Aaliyah died almost twenty years ago. On 25th August, 2001, she died in a plane crash having finished the filming for her final single, Rock the Boat. It was such a tragic accident and huge loss for the music industry. Aged only twenty-two, there is no telling how far she could have gone and what she would have achieved in the intervening years! In terms of her influence, I want to take from Wikipedia – as we discover just how far and wide her legacy and brilliance has spread:
“Aaliyah has been credited for helping redefine R&B, pop and hip hop in the 1990s, "leaving an indelible imprint on the music industry as a whole." According to Billboard, she revolutionized R&B with her sultry mix of pop, soul and hip hop. In a 2001 review of her eponymous album, Rolling Stone professed that Aaliyah's impact on R&B and pop has been enormous. Steve Huey of AllMusic wrote Aaliyah ranks among the "elite" artists of the R&B genre, as she "played a major role in popularizing the stuttering, futuristic production style that consumed hip-hop and urban soul in the late 1990s." Critic Bruce Britt stated that by combining "schoolgirl charm with urban grit, Aaliyah helped define the teen-oriented sound that has resulted in contemporary pop phenom's like Brandy, Christina Aguilera and Destiny's Child".
Described as one of "R&B's most important artists" during the 1990s, her second studio album, One in a Million, became one of the most influential R&B albums of the decade. Music critic Simon Reynolds cited "Are You That Somebody?" as "the most radical pop single" of 1998. Kelefah Sanneh of The New York Times wrote that rather than being the song's focal point, Aaliyah "knew how to disappear into the music, how to match her voice to the bass line", and consequently "helped change the way popular music sounds; the twitchy, beat-driven songs of Destiny's Child owe a clear debt to 'Are You That Somebody'.” Sanneh asserted that by the time of her death in 2001, Aaliyah "had recorded some of the most innovative and influential pop songs of the last five years.” Music publication Popdust called Aaliyah an unlikely queen of the underground for her influence on the underground alternative music scene; the publication also mentioned that the forward-thinking music Aaliyah did with Timbaland and the experimental music being made by many underground alternative artists are somewhat cut from the same cloth. While compiling a list of artists that take cues from Aaliyah, MTV Hive mentioned that it's easy to spot her influence on underground movements like dubstep, strains of indie pop, and lo-fi R&B movements. Erika Ramirez, an associate editor of Billboard, said at the time of Aaliyah's career "there weren't many artists using the kind of soft vocals the ways she was using it, and now you see a lot of artists doing that and finding success," her reasoning for Aaliyah's continued influence on current artists. She argued that Aaliyah's second album One in a Million was "very much ahead of its time, with the bass and electro kind of R&B sounds that they produced", referring to collaborators Timbaland and Missy Elliott and that the sound, which "really stood out" at its time, was being replicated. With sales of 8.1 million albums in the United States and an estimated 24 to 32 million albums worldwide, Aaliyah earned the nicknames "Princess of R&B" and "Queen of Urban Pop", as she "proved she was a muse in her own right". Ernest Hardy of Rolling Stone dubbed her as the "undisputed queen of the midtempo come-on". She has also been referred to as a pop and R&B icon for her impact and contributions to those respective genres”.
The main point of this feature was to both discuss the influence of Aaliyah and remember her almost twenty years after her death but, as her eponymous album was released on 7th July, 2001, many will be remembering it ahead of its twentieth anniversary. Her third studio album, it arrived five years after the brilliant One in a Million. I am glad that Aaliyah got to release another album before her death; she would have heard and seen how the Aaliyah album was received. Many may disagree, but I think Aaliyah is her strongest album. It is more confident than anything she put out before and, before I introduce a couple of positive reviews, I hope that Blackground, and Virgin America release the album on vinyl as an anniversary commemoration. One can get Aaliyah on vinyl, but copies can be extremely expensive - and I don’t think you can get a new copy on vinyl. It is such an important and stunning album, so it is a shame that it has such a limited release. One of the biggest losses is the fact Aaliyah is not on Spotify and other streaming services. One can find some of her music on streaming platforms; Aaliyah remains a notable absentee. Despite the fact that such an important artist has very little representation on streaming sites, there is a small glimmer of hope that she may be on there this year.
Back last August, there was an announcement that Aaliyah’s music may be more widely available in time:
“Loyal Aaliyah fans who’d hope to stream her music on Spotify, Google Play, or Apple Music have largely been out of luck since her untimely passing in 2001.
But it seems like our prayers have finally been answered, since the catalog of our beloved “babygirl” is finally coming to streaming services.
Her estate made the announcement via her posthumous Twitter account, “To our loyal fans: We are excited to announce that communication has commenced between the estate and various record labels about the status of Aaliyah’s music catalogue, as well as its availability on streaming platforms in the near future. Thank you for your continued love and support. More updates to come!”
While it’s not a guarantee that the music will be up and running anytime soon, it’s certainly a glimmer of hope for fans who want to keep the singer’s legacy alive.
Aaliyah released three hugely successful albums during her lifetime: 1994’s Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number, 1996’s One in a Million, and 2001’s Aaliyah. With the exception of her first album — which was recorded under Jive Records — Aaliyah’s music has been missing from streaming services, due to her uncle Barry Hankerson, who used to run the now-defunct label Blackground Records.
Keeping Aaliyah’s music off the biggest streaming services isn’t just a matter of legacy; it’s also a way to introduce a new generation to the music of the former pop star”.
2001 was such a tough year for many reasons, but I was especially moved by the death of Aaliyah. She had such promise and potential and, having released a career-best album just over a month before her death, that was such a blow. I think many of the album tracks are available on YouTube, so I would encourage people to listen to those songs and understand just how strong and phenomenal Aaliyah is as a body of work. I want to finish with a couple of reviews. Pitchfork looked back on the album in 2019 – where they made some interesting observations:
“Whether you believe in the afterlife or not, it’s easy enough to picture Aaliyah in heaven. The video for “Rock The Boat,” the 2001 single that would be her last, looks as if it were beamed down from one of the mythical seven heavens: gently lapping water, the flare of a bright sun, women dressed in all white. She seems peaceful, softer than in previous clips. In August, after wrapping her scenes in the Bahamas, Aaliyah boarded a flight home. The Cessna twin-engine crashed moments after takeoff, killing the singer and eight others. She was 22. In life, Aaliyah was often described by friends and collaborators as angelic; in her death, that image persists.
Just weeks earlier, she had released her third album, Aaliyah, a well-received collection of songs that mapped her personal growth during the five years since her second full-length, 1996’s One In A Million. During that hiatus, she’d taken an interest in acting, starring in a couple of films and lining up others, including two upcoming Matrix movies. But in between being on set during the day and in the studio at night, Aaliyah also had a lot to reckon with.
PHOTO CREDIT: Arnold Turner/WireImage
Aaliyah took that many steps further. By the time she began working on the album in 1998, she had developed an interest in both the experimental and traditional, and her collaborators on the album—the Supafriends as well as producers signed to her family’s Blackground record label—were up to the task. She veers wildly, but cohesively, between the futuristic, triple-time experimentation of singles like “We Need A Resolution” and “More Than A Woman” and the throwback soul of “Never No More” and “I Care 4 U.” It was Aaliyah’s voice that strung it all together. Her falsetto had earned an edge, and her multi-part harmonies, arranged ingeniously, added grace and texture. Even Timbaland’s grating, awkward raps and ad-libs are softened.
…Aaliyah has been a reference for Solange, and others, elsewhere, too: The multiple-part harmonies that have become the younger Knowles’s signature were in fact once the signature of Aaliyah, most in focus on, Aaliyah. On what would have been Aaliyah’s 36th birthday, Frank Ocean shared his own take of the Isley Brothers’ “At Your Best,” which she’d first covered more than 20 years earlier, in 1994. She’d updated it with a spare, solemn almost-whisper, and Ocean’s version, which was eventually given a proper release on Endless, draws equally from Aaliyah’s falsetto as from the Isley Brothers’ original. There are traces of her influence elsewhere, too; the layered harmonies and gentle melodies of Beyoncé’s “I Miss You,” co-written by Ocean, could easily have been recorded first, albeit with more restraint and whimsy, by Aaliyah. Understandably, among the most common refrains about the singer was that she was ahead of her time”.
It is good that, nearly twenty years since Aaliyah died, her crowning achievement might get be available for streaming. I would love to hear vinyl release with extra tracks and memories from those who knew her and worked alongside her in the linear notes. In 2012, AllMusic tackled an incredible album:
“Aaliyah waited nearly five years to deliver her third album, but considering that she was essentially growing up -- it was the equivalent of spending time in college -- when she came back with an eponymous record in the summer of 2001, she came back strong. Aaliyah isn't just a statement of maturity and a stunning artistic leap forward, it's one of the strongest urban soul records of its time. Where such peers as Macy Gray and Jill Scott work too hard to establish their ties with classic soul, Aaliyah revels in the present, turning out a pan-cultural array of sounds, styles, and emotions. This sound is entirely unfamiliar -- part of the pleasure is how contemporary it sounds -- but she sounds just as comfortable within the sonicscapes of Timbaland as Missy Misdemeanor Elliott and, possibly, less self-conscious. Aaliyah never oversings, never oversells the songs -- this comes on easy and sultry, and there's a lot of substance here, in terms of the songwriting and the songs themselves. Urban albums rarely come any better than this, and there haven't been many records better than this in 2001, period”.
I miss Aaliyah terribly, but I was keen to celebrate her brilliance rather than mourn the fact that we lost her in 2001. More than a mere Pop artist, her impact and legacy extends across multiple genres and styles! She has inspired so many other musicians and, the more I listen to her work, the more I get this impression of a young woman blossoming, experimenting and challenging herself. I guess the tragedy is that we may have seen even bigger and better albums from her after 2001. Earlier this week, there was an update from Aaliyah’s estate regarding updates:
“To our loyal fans: We hear you and we see you,” a new note reads. “While we share your sentiments and desire to have Aaliyah’s music released, we must acknowledge that these matters are not within our control, and, unfortunately, take time. Our inability to share Aaliyah’s music and artistry with the world has been as difficult for us as it has been for all of you”.
As we remember Aaliyah twenty years after its release and the amazing person who gave it to us, it is very clear that we were all…
LUCKY we had her in the world.