Missy Elliot - The Cookbook

Mike Jones has as album called Who Is Mike Jones? coming out on Tuesday. For serious.

HELLO!

I am hoping for a single close to as good as "Work It."

xxpost

on and on and on and onnnn

foreground l-r: Anthony, me

foreground l-r: Anthony, me

also no ballads = no "pussy don't fail me now", no sweet robot choir on "take away"

This is not a Test! had ballads for sure, none quite as good as "Pussy Don't Fail Me Now."

here is the zarn:
http://krofft.dementedstuff.com/thezarn.jpg

I like this title, that it's rolled into one word. The way it looks on the 'page' I mean.

Do we have a release date yet?

except it did, but Missy decided not to release them as singles - 'Let Me Fix My Weave' and 'Toyz' especially. This Is Not A Test is such an underrated album: sure, it sounds like a bunch of demos at times, but she fucking nails the mid-tempo tracks like 'Dat's What I'm Talking About'.

OTM - those would have made great singles.

Hahahah. (Also, the secret reason why Chad Hugo is the real genius in the Neptunes -- the KENNA ALBUM, PEOPLE.)

On first listen I like The Cookbook a lot (much better than This Is Not A Test) but I wish that Missy wouldn't be so insistent on distinguishing b/w r&b and hip hop - in retrospect maybe what lifts Under Construction so far above This Is Not A Test was the presence of great, tight pop songs like "Bring The Pain" and "Play That Beat" where all the different aspects of her sound are set against eachother.

In that sense "Can't Stop" is definitely a big step in the right direction.

At this point the differences b/w Missy albums are negligible at best. She'll always make a good not great album filled with two or three undeniable tracks, plesant filler, dull ballads, and one exampmle of treacle. Her consistency is her hobgoblin and as such it's not worth raising a fuss. She's like the Neil Young of hip-hop/R&B.

Missy's inconsistency is a total red herring, there are at most 1-2 dodgy tracks on each of her albums, which is completely negligible. the ballads on The Cookbook are pretty good and will probably grow on me even more (esp 'Time And Time Again'), the ballads on This Is Not A Test are the best songs.

i'm surprised no one's mentioned 'Mommy' yet, it's funny as hell.

i'm also surprised that no one's noticed that 'Teary Eyed' = Pink's 'Family Portrait'

This is foolishness. The ballads are often the best songs, and there's usually very little if any filler.

Strange then that she has never released a ballad as a single.

and there's usually very little if any filler

I could go along with that for the first four album, but the last two have at least been half and half. I meanon a lot of the tracks in the second half of this album, Missy sounds completed uninspired (and with half assed oldskoolminimalzm beats like Mommy and Bad Man, who could blame her).

dude, I love "Take Away" and "Best Friend"! Her ballads are good when they're good. I haven't got the new album yet, so we'll see.

"Take Away" was the third single from "So Addictive"

Didn't realize that about 'Take Away' (don't think it came out here is Australia) - easily my favourite ballad by her.

"All in my Grill" was also a single from Da Real World.

I've only heard "Miss E..." and "Under Construction" but I'm leaning towards the wary myself (UC is fab, Miss E, to the half-way point, unstoppable, but the momentum and track flow is f*cked after that to a degree I can't recall hearing on many other albums ever). I might wait to pick up "The Cookbook" at some stupidly low second hand price off amazon (like all her others sell at) rather than wait for the singles collection :-P

xpost - "4 My People" wasn't a single in the US? Was it the (E) thing?

OK, I just did. It wasn't boring. Pretty good song actually.

Could you elaborate on this? I don't hear such a great divide (especially on something like "Irresistable Delicious," which makes the splash of an Olympian when it dives from hip-hop to the R&B hook). Same with "Meltdown." In fact, I think she's more fluid then ever when bouncing between genres (and even bouncing between trend-chasing material and the more avant tracks).

"All N My Grill" is not a ballad. "Beep Me 911" is. That was also a single (first album, no less).

I'll stand by "My Man" forever.

Yeah - people used to say Missy had a lot of filler even then, which shocked me as those two albums have among the lowest filler quotients in hip hop/R&B!

"Could you elaborate on this? I don't hear such a great divide (especially on something like "Irresistable Delicious," which makes the splash of an Olympian when it dives from hip-hop to the R&B hook). Same with "Meltdown." In fact, I think she's more fluid then ever when bouncing between genres (and even bouncing between trend-chasing material and the more avant tracks)."

I think this is one of the things that makes The Cookbook a better album than the previous one - that fluidity. BUT she still perseveres with these very carefully delineated ideas of rap and R&B - the former has the chunky beats and the old-skool flow and the latter has the slow clammy production and lyrics about what Missy needs to do keep her man etc. So even when she moves between the two on a single track there's a sense of it being more like two tracks welded together rather than some point in between the two.

There's nothing wrong with this division per se, and it can actually have great results. On the other hand, there's something about the balance of intensities that Missy achieved on a lot of her earlier work (stuff like "Sock It 2 Me", "Hot Boys", "You Don't Know", "We Did It", "One Minute Man", "Bring The Pain", "Play That Beat") which I adore - R&B songs performed as if everyone involved is unaware that they're not actually hip hop tracks. And it's not like those albums didn't have proper honest to goodness ballads as well.

Yes, and there's even support to what you're saying ("Time and Time Again": "Lemme stop playin' wit y'all motherfuckers, this ain't no rap record. Get back to the hook"). I guess I can see what you're saying in a lot of places, except for "Meltdown," which is a hip-hop song performed as if everyone involved is unaware that it's actually an R&B track.

I think what I mean when I admire The Cookbook's "fluidity" is that I really dig the sculptures that the welding produces. It all just makes so much sense and sounds so natural to me.

Yeah I do like this too Rich! And The Cookbook is a very good album. It's more just that I have this idea in my head wrt what "classic" Missy sounds like (and I don't mean "Get Ur Freak On" here, I mean more what I would consider to be the "meat and potatoes" of her earlier work) and it's hard for me to let go...

You're kidding, deej! You have to be. What isn't fun about "We Run This?" Black dudes got big wood!

Forget Ned, the resemblances (and differences) between Dan and I are straight out of The Clone Saga.

A less obvious way, definitely.

Which is par for the path with Missy albums anyway!

8. Mr. D.J. Listen Listen
9. Checkin' for You (Interlude) Listen Listen
10. Stickin' Chickens - Da Brat Listen Listen
11. Smooth Chick Listen Listen
12. We Did It Listen Listen
13. Throw Your Hands Up (Interlude) Listen Listen
14. She's a Bitch Listen Listen
15. U Can't Resist Listen Listen
16. Crazy Feelings - Beyoncé Knowles Listen Listen
17. Religious Blessings (Outro) Listen Listen

9. 4 My People Listen Listen Listen
10. Bus-A-Bus Interlude Listen Listen Listen
11. Whatcha Gon' Do Listen Listen Listen
12. Step Off Listen Listen Listen
13. X-Tasy Listen Listen Listen
14. Slap! Slap! Slap! Listen Listen Listen
15. I've Changed Listen Listen Listen
16. One Minute Man (Remix) Listen Listen Listen

You mean, the part with the drums? Limp? Really?

OK, maybe it's not strictly a ballad - but that's part of what Missy does, blending the ballads, r&b, and hip-hop tracks together. In any case it's not a straight-up club banger like later singles like "Get Ur Freak On" and "Work It".

Meanwhile: it's strange to hear her biting someone else's style so obviously but still pretty good

Yeah, she's biting quite a bit throughout The Cookbook, which is fine with me because if you can own it, do it. It often just makes her sound better. I just think "Click Clack" is ugly.

I just put on the second half of Supa Dupa Fly to check out if it accorded with this whole "second half patchy" rule. It does much more so than Da Real World and Miss E: that three song stretch of understated grooves and ultra-forced rapping from "Don't Be Commin In My Face" to "Why You Hurt Me". Although I love "I'm Talking" and "Gettaway".

The second half of Da Real World is definitely as strong as the first, though Lil Kim's ranting bloats it a bit. "We Did It" in particular is fantastic, a really underrated track.

OTM - I think DRW may be the most consistent Missy album, but I like the second half of Cookbook just fine.