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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