accelerated career

[jfb]

When Aaliyah was alive, I was frustrated by the inconsistent quality of her work. She--especially when working with Timbaland--could create mind-controllingly good songs, but her albums were all filled with, well, filler. Most egregious example: In order to get "Are You That Somebody"--a song that owned my brain for much of the summer of 1998--I would have had to buy the whole Doctor Dolittle soundtrack.

I occasionally looked forward to the day when her greatest hits album would come out, and I could get all the lethal singles without much of the chaff. Unfortunately, at the rate she'd been making records ("Are You That Somebody" came in the middle of a five-year break between albums), the greatest hits album was a long way off.

Now the greatest hits album is out, and yet somehow I'm not happy.