The Cookbook
The Age
Friday July 15, 2005
The Cookbook, Missy Elliott (Atlantic/Warner) ***
When Missy Elliott toured Australia last year she mimed, coughed and spluttered her way through a show that was panned by her fans. In the anticlimax of the year, the extraordinary choreography and deep artistic influences (ranging from George Grosz to James Brown) were washed away by a muddled, nondescript end to the show. Unfortunately, Missy Elliott's sixth album is destined to suffer the same fate. There's nothing wrong with the album per se; indeed, her signature elements are here, hinting at what she could have delivered. Timbaland's production is there for the first two tracks, on the sparse Joy and the up-tempo Partytime. Her consistently well-executed nostalgic streak comes in the form of a duet with Slick Rick in a subversive reinterpretation of his track Lick My Balls, and in her sampling of old friend Mary J. Blige's What's the 411 on My Troubles. Cleverly "doing it for the ladies", she makes 50 Cent sound like the talentless thug he is, reappropriating the inane lyrics of 50's Candy Shop on the sex-ballad Meltdown. But from the sappy Remember When onwards, the energy dissipates; Elliott sounds like an artist fulfilling her contract as she drones about her lover on 4 My Man. Indeed, she sounds tired and submissive, a world away from the crazed, independent energy of Da Real World. Like her live show, the album peters out into a bland mix of unworthy songs. (The exception to this is the brilliant final track, Bad Man, in which she scoops British rapper MIA and the Vybez Cartel up into drum-heavy fusion of ragga and crunk.)Without the consistent presence of Timbaland, The Cookbook is in many ways Elliott's first true solo outing. They were one of rap's greatest double acts; his beats filled the void where her technical ability lacked, and her charisma fleshed out the robotic perfection in his beats. Drawing in a melange of producers, Elliott loses direction. Mainstream rap is no longer about experimenting with the genre, it's about experimenting with music itself. Sadly, there's nothing daring here; worse still is that The Cookbook is a fans-only release. It's a disappointing first for Elliott, and hopefully her last. -- KHALIL HEGARTY
© 2005 The Age
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