What is it with albums where the second side is just a weaker version of the first? If this album were nothing but the first four "actual" tracks it would be one of the best of the decade: "Dog in Heat", "One Minute Man", "Lick Shots" and of course "Get Ur Freak On" are fucking
awesome, a combination of monstrous funk bass and squiggly-sounding synths that sound not only completely new but out of time entirely: Timbaland's production here is fantastic. But the album's last two-thirds? Well, there's nothing much to say about it except that it fails to match what's come before and just makes you want to listen to "Dog in Heat" again. Actually, can we talk about "Get Ur Freak On"? That track is
amazing. It doesn't reveal its genius the first time round: in fact it even sounds annoying, the perpetual Punjabi melody threatening to give you a headache, but a lot of great pop music has skirted just this side of irritation--remember "Sugar Sugar"? Hell, even on the opposite side, Laurie Anderson's "O Superman"? Pop music thrives on repetition (The Fall understand this) and "Get Ur Freak On" is such a bracing combination of genres that it transcends funk/R&B and becomes not even pop but some kind of all-encompassing music that represents all cultures: Eastern and Western, rich and poor. The rest? Ehh.
MY RATING:
6.3
Missy Elliott - "Get Ur Freak On"
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