Best Record of 2001: Day 37
Good morning!
Today we’re taking a look at Aaliyah’s self-titled record, aka “The Red Album.”
Note: As many of you saw, I recently wrote about a Best Record of 2001 challengeand noted that I’d be writing some of these up.
The plan is to do quick hits on each first-round matchup and post them directly to the page. Some will be longer, some won’t, and some might just be a handful of sentences. There’ll probably be a few typos. We’ll also have a few guest posts along the way, so make sure to stay tuned for those!
Check ’em out and let me know your thoughts! Chin wags & hot takes welcome! Sharing and restacks always appreciated.
KA—
On August 25, 2001, a small plane crashed just after takeoff in the Bahamas, killing all 9 aboard. This event would likely have been lost to time had one Aaliyah Dana Haughton not been on the manifest.
In aviation, there are multiple layers of safety (the Swiss cheese approach). The idea being that if there is a hole somewhere, there’s another layer to stop things from getting through. Acting as one of those layers is a large part of my day job. It almost always works- there’s a reason we get to complain about things like bad food and long check-in lines and not planes falling out of the sky. There’s never just one single point of failure. But when the holes line up, disaster is usually inevitable. And in late August in Marsh Harbour, they did just that. I don’t want to go too inside baseball here, but almost everything that could go wrong here did. It’s maddening, tbh. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that this incident now serves as a great example of what not to do when it comes to flight safety and demonstrating preventive practices.
Just a few weeks prior, Aaliyah’s self-titled third album dropped. It was a turning point: a record poised to expand her reach beyond R&B’s borders. We didn’t know it yet, but it would also turn out to be the last we’d hear from her, the album now frozen in time as her final statement.
Working closely with Timbaland, Missy Elliott, and Static Major, Aaliyah leans into a hybrid of hip-hop, electropop, and soul. On this record, she’s cast off the New Jack Swing shackles of her previous two records (and R. Kelly, too, for that matter). “We Need a Resolution” wastes no time setting the tone—its stuttering rhythms and negative space give her voice room to glide. Elsewhere, “Rock the Boat” (they were returning from the video shoot when the crash occurred) slows things down into a lush, quiet storm anthem. It’s an all-timer, IMO. These two tracks are the album’s high points—both unmistakably “Aaliyah” and suggest an even greater artistic leap looming on the horizon. In a lot of ways, this reminds me of Janet Jackson’s “Control” album, right down to the red background on the cover.
Elsewhere, the record can feel uneven. There are stretches where the songwriting doesn’t quite match the sophisticated production (you can only pen songs about f**king so many different ways), and a few tracks blur together.
That said, it still makes for a compelling listen. Tracks like “I Can Be” experiment with distorted guitars and fragmented vocal loops, while “It’s Whatever” drifts into airy, soul. The record’s willingness to push at genre boundaries is undeniable—even when the results don’t fully land. I appreciate that she never feels like she has to oversell anything. She’s here, she’s singing, and that’s the deal.
Her death, just weeks after the album’s release, inevitably colors how it’s heard. Aaliyah captures an artist at an early peak, but I couldn’t help but think “what if?” while listening. In another universe, this would have been her breakout album- a statement record, if you will. Instead, it marks the end of life and a career cut down way too soon.
Bottom Line: This is up against Hope Sandoval. Both have incredible voices, and on paper, Sandoval would be my pick on the strength of her duet with The Jesus and Mary Chain alone. but the Red Album makes a compelling case. My bracket pick went to the late Ms. Haughton. My vote? Well, I’m not sure yet…
Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my takes? Which one of these would you vote for? Sound off in the comments!
Kevin Sent 