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[D.I.E.G.O.]

Great year for music

[BigDawg]

The music of 98 was poppin

[Lazarus]

Aaliyah definitely deserved to be No.1

[b7]

Just wanna say Jay?s hard knock life is vastly overrated there at number 10. n

But

The digital streaming platforms don?t carry it, and the YouTube uploads aren?t beaming money to any label. On some level this is correct, because ?Are You That Somebody?? should forever live in the beyond, as something to chase

perfect description of the way i think of Aaliyah as a whole

[ssw4919]

1. Aaliyah, "Are You That Somebody?" (No. 21, Hot 100)

You can?t even find the song.

?Are You That Somebody?? is currently lost outside the stream of capital, thanks to the chicanery and stubborn grief of Aaliyah?s uncle and manager, Barry Hankerson. The digital streaming platforms don?t carry it, and the YouTube uploads aren?t beaming money to any label. On some level this is correct, because ?Are You That Somebody?? should forever live in the beyond, as something to chase.

It?s of the past -- 20 years come June -- but still sounds like the future. Produced and written by Timbaland and Static Major and sung by Aaliyah, the song was recorded like a dream. At 4 a.m., Tim received a call from Hankerson, explaining that they needed a hit to put on the Dr. Doolittle soundtrack by 8 a.m. Talking animals and PG-13 Eddie Murphy? It hardly mattered -- the near-half-a-million bag beckoned and the great work began, with Timbaland hunched over a drum machine, Aaliyah in the booth, Static waving a blunt and smiling because he had the hook. They made the hit Hankerson asked for, and more.

Before you get to the baby, there?s the staccato bass line and drum sounds. You could stutter-step through the empty pockets left in the beat like you were dodging fat, lazy raindrops. The clucking and popping is a human mouth, only it?s tap dancing. ?Boy,? Aaliyah begins like she?s creating a perfectly round bubble of sound, drawing out the vowel and vibrating it. The lyrics describe love like a secret, and if this boy is let in on it, he can?t tell nobody. Fifty-three seconds in, the baby pops out, right on time and totally uncalled for, a genuine moment of awe for the Hot 100, where the song would eventually peak at No. 21. Prince himself used the same sample to close out ?Delirious? in 1982, but man, the chutzpah to let it coo repeatedly through this skeleton of a beat.

As Grammy-winning producer Bryan-Michael Cox told Vibe in 2008, ?It ain?t been a record like that since.? A year later, Drake interpolated Static?s hook for Young Money?s ?BedRock,? and one year after that, James Blake submerged and pitch-shifted Aaliyah?s voice for his breakout single ?CMYK.? Like Sasha Frere-Jones wrote in The New Yorker, the song is ?still effervescing? and inspiring new work, many years after the Grammys gave it a nod for best female R&B vocal performance. Ten out of ten people agree: This shit is not regular.

?Are You That Somebody?? persists in the cultural imagination despite being unavailable for sale on Amazon or iTunes, despite being unstreamable on Spotify or Tidal or Apple Music. Tens of millions of us know, by heart, a field recording of an infant made in 1969 -- an infant who will never be identified. Aaliyah passed away in August, of 2001. There is no way to tell her that nearly two decades later, ?Somebody? remains like the secret cave her and Timabaland?s crews populate in the song?s video: sacred territory hidden in plain sight, accessible only to the two of them. -- R.S.

Bitttttt! 

[ssw4919]

?98 was the last GREAT year in mainstream music, IMO.

[Aalumeci.]

fhruriruirur i wanna find who wrote that and stan them

[ssw4919]

The way they lashed Barry. 

[Young]

This list is tired and late.

C c ccnncnccn

[Sovereign.]

?Top of the World? should definitely be on there. The record is so feel good.

[b7]

Make it hot by Nicole Wray >>

omfff-a!

[b7]

?Top of the World? should definitely be on there. The record is so feel good.

right!

But i guess that and Have u ever popped in 99, if i recall correctly

[ssw4919]

Trippin by Total came out in 98.

[TriBeCa]

More pity and sympathy votes for Aaliyah. She doesn't deserve #1 when Brandy and Monica had the #1 song of the entire year, spending 13 weeks at #1 and going double platinum which was massive and rare at the time. They also had the #1 video of the year on MTV and BET's year end countdown.

[FlowerBomb]

AOTY was sonically ahead of TBIM, but I see what you mean, this is based on chart success.