Aaliyah CD

Personnel includes: Aaliyah, Static (vocals); Timbaland (rap vocals); J "Rockstar" Dub (various instruments, programming); Rapture, E. Seats (various instruments); Sean Cruse (guitar); Black Orchestra (strings); Ron Blake (horns); Renzo Pryor (keyboards).
Producers: Timbaland, Rapture, E. Seats, Bud'da, J "Rockstar" Dub.
Engineers include: Jimmy D, Acar Keys, Michael Conrader.
AALIYAH was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. "Rock The Boat" was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.
"More Than A Woman" was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.
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. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Aaliyah's self-titled third album comes some five years after her sophomore effort ONE IN A MILLION. . The singer has obviously put her time out of the spotlight to good use. She's joined here by a few old friends, including Timbaland (a co-producer of her previous album who also shares some production credits here).
For the most part this is a downtempo set, typified by the Missy Elliot-penned "I Care 4 U," a slice of old-school R&B that displays Aaliyah's sultry, fragile vocals to good advantage, and the Latin-inflected "Read Between the Lines." There's more depth to Aaliyah than her stock diva cover photos might suggest, as evidenced by the ambitious opus "I Refuse," which brings all the contradictions of a contemporary relationship into sharp relief, and the end-of-the affair "Those Were the Days," the lyrical and musical content of which reveal the singer's darker, more interesting side.Rolling Stone (8/2/01, pp.61-2) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...A near-flawless declaration of strength and independence....AALIYAH is CONTROL, VELVET ROPE and JAGGED LITTLE PILL all rolled into one..."
Spin (8/01, pp.130,132) - 8 out of 10 - "...Deeper than anything she's delivered before...This is a hard record....the drama plays nonstop: slinky resistance, sideways flirtation, an edgy dance on the verge of getting it on..."
Entertainment Weekly (7/27/01, p.70) - "...A largely up-tempo, thrillingly melodramatic set that again takes a melancholy...view of matters of the heart....the zingy hip-hop-textured musical tracks...echo the feverish passion of the lyrics..."
Q (9/01, p.106) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Respectable rather than radical..."
NME (Magazine) (12/29/01, p.59) - Ranked #39 in NME's 50 "Albums Of the Year 2001".
NME (Magazine) (7/14/01, p.44) - 7 out of 10 - "...A gentle subversion of diva-dom....a graceful album...sensible, responsible, fractionally freaked in atmosphere..."