Aaliyah
Released
It’s hard to hear this album sometimes as a collection of ideal summer R&B jams rather than the prelude to a tragedy; less than two months after a release that fulfilled her long-building potential and promised so much more to come, she was gone. But it’s far better than just cold comfort to be able to throw on the slinky “We Need a Resolution,” the simmering ballad “I Care 4 U,” the Funkadelic seethe of “I Can Be,” or any of her other coolly heated performances and know she’s left us with an end-to-end classic.