Missy Elliott positively 'Addictive'

As Black Entertainment Television taped its "Spring Bling" concerts last March at the Bandshell in Daytona Beach, an alien sound unexpectedly slithered through the air.

(of 5) Missy Elliott, "Miss E . . . So Addictive" (Elektra)

While Black College Reunion visitors cruised Atlantic Avenue with the beefy, macho sounds of Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin' " blasting from cars, the scene at the Bandshell sounded puny and peculiar, discordant and unearthly -- and hypnotic. Why, it sounded like the aliens from the bar scene in "Star Wars" had dropped in.

Welcome to Missy Elliott's world. The singer-rapper was in the house, once again flipping the hip-hop script with her fresh hit "Get Ur Freak On." Never mind that the song's insistent, alien groove sounded like it was played on a Japanese koto. The BCR folks at the BET taping were joyously freaking out.

For anyone who missed Missy dropping her bomb on the Bandshell, she gets her freak on just as gloriously on her new album, the aptly titled "Miss E . . . So Addictive." Just when rap once again seems stagnant and mired in big pimps, the "bling bling" and Eminem's blustery bullying, Missy has come to the rescue with a sack full of Y2K grooves and pungent takes on the man-woman thing.

No wonder Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger recently visited Missy to propose that she write and produce some songs for his upcoming solo album. No doubt the aging satyr sees something of his younger self in the rambunctious, provocative, alterna-hip-hop princess.

Like the young Jagger, Missy is at her most striking on "So Addictive" when she slinks, and occasionally dives head-first, into sexual politics. But, unlike sex-obsessed rappers Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown and even herself on her last album, "Da Real World," Missy here manages to be scandalous without being sleazy, blunt without being crude.

Over the techno-salsa groove of "Scream a k a Itchin'," Missy raps about how she's going to make all the boys scream. On the seductive ballad "X-tasy," Missy sounds like a futuristic Sade as she sweetly sings, "I'm willing to do all the things I said I wouldn't do."

The groove of "Step Off" is hard, suave and techno-freaky all at once as Missy turns into a "Fatal Attraction"-like stalker babe. "What part don't you get?" she coos icily to an ex-beau, in a voice that sounds like a dove on steroids. She then makes Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know" gal and Glenn Close's "Fatal Attraction" she-devil seem like cherubs as she adds, "Even though I'm not your girl any more and you don't want me no more, I deserve to know who you're sleeping with."

She gives the fellas equal time on two versions of "One Minute Man," a battle-of-the-sexes ditty that features her sparring first with rapper Ludacris, then with rapper Jay-Z.

For those leery of such erotic games, "Get Ur Freak On" will serve as an all-around do-your-thing anthem.

"Y'all can't come close to me," Missy brags on "Get Ur Freak On," sending a defiant challenge to her fellow rappers. Indeed, not many hip-hop artists will be able to get their freak on like addictive Missy.

(of 5) Mandy Moore, "Mandy Moore" (Epic)

(of 5) Jessica Simpson, "Irresistible" (Columbia)

It's Britney's world -- Mandy Moore and Jessica Simpson just live in it.

Of course, that's not going to prevent Moore, a 16-year-old Orlando native, and Simpson, now a virtual withered crone at age 21, from making a run at Britney Spears' crown.

But it's a brutal world out there in Teen-Pop Diva Land. Just look at Christina Aguilera. She's the best teen-pop songbird around, voice-wise, and what has she resorted to lately in pursuit of the almighty Britney? Why, Christina tarted herself up like a French Quarter hooker for that "Moulin Rouge/Lady Marmalade" thing, and she's still not going to move as many units as Queen Britney.

What? You thought it was about the music, about the singer and the song, and not about style, buzz, hip quotient and, in the words of boy-popsters 'N Sync, the buy, buy, buy? (Oh, you mean that song was "Bye Bye Bye?") In a fairy-tale land where the music matters, Christina would rule and, judging by their latest albums, Moore would out-pace Britney in a close race for second, with Simpson coming in a distant fourth.

Moore almost commits teen-pop suicide on her new, self-titled album (with help, of course, from her producers). When her teen-pop fans encounter the oud-pop on the opening track, "In My Pocket," they may think they've stumbled like Alice through the looking glass. That's oud as in the Middle Eastern lute-like instrument, which adds a funky world-beat vibe to that song and the equally Arabic-sounding "One Sided Love." No, Moore doesn't threaten to put Peter Gabriel out of business, but she's letting her fans know she's not always in Kansas, or her Mouseville hometown, any more.

Elsewhere on the album, Moore borrows a vibe from Orlando mates Matchbox Twenty for the song "Crush." That is, the tune is more middle-of-the-road rock than teen-pop, making Moore sound like Sixpence None the Richer of "Kiss Me" fame.

The remainder of the album (it's her third, and she's just 16!) is straight from Teen-Pop Diva 101. But don't forget that even Moore's oud-pop is still firmly rooted in boy-meets-girl, girl-loses-boy, synth-bolstered stuff. Oudn't you know it.

Jessica Simpson's new album, "Irresistible," ain't. Compared to Simpson's paint-by-the-numbers, techno-lite teen-pop, Moore seems like a Xena-punk sonic adventuress. Even Simpson's obligatory Latin-flavored track, "Forever in Your Eyes," is watered down to vanilla, as if she were afraid to get too spicy and wander from the basic formula.

A touch of Stevie Wonder-style funk manages to escape into "Imagination," and Simpson summons a bit of torch-song smolder for the ballads "When You Told Me You Loved Me" and "To Fall in Love Again." But such interesting, tentative moves get shoved aside in Simpson's race to follow the yellow brick road toward Britney clone-dom.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is really the fairest teen-pop diva of them all? Who knows? That may depend on whom MTV currently is anointing with 15 minutes of fame. In any event, the current contenders and new pretenders will battle until the teen-pop craze dies out.

1/2 (of 5) Robert Mirabal, "Music From a Painted Cave" (Silver Wave Records)

Native American musician Robert Mirabal is a member of the Taos Pueblo tribe of northern New Mexico. But he's a riff rocker, folky mellow fellow and world-beat performer, as well as a Native American artist, on his new album, "Music From a Painted Cave."

Such a crowded palette might seem bodacious and unwieldy, but Mirabal weaves sonic magic in this live performance, which was recorded for a PBS television special and now appears on CD.

In the CD's liner notes, Mirabal says that, although Pueblo traditions have "a lot to do with my artistic expression, who I am culturally stays at home with the tribe." That may be, but the most spell-binding moments of "Painted Cave" come on "Courtship Song" and other tracks when Mirabal conjures plaintive, cooing sounds from the Native American flutes that he himself made.

Cello, native flute and acoustic guitar combine with Mirabal's native tongue on the mellow folk-pop song "Ee-You-Oo." On "Runners Dreamtime" Mirabal plays the didgeridoo, that bullfrog-sounding Australian folk instrument.

"Skinwalker's Moon" and "Hope" are snarling rockers, the former a tale about a Native American "bogyman" (Mirabal's word), the latter a story about Hopi spirits, kachinas and "an ancient prophecy." "Hope" finds Mirabal half-rapping, half-barking the tale, as if he were auditioning for the vacant vocal slot in the rap-metal band Rage Against the Machine.

Mirabal hints in the liner notes that, musically and artistically, he's moving on to "another dance." "Music From a Painted Cave" is a worthy marker of the trail he's traveled so far.

(Readers can comment on The News-Journal's music reviews, or post their own reviews, by visiting The News-Journal Online. Go to www.news-journalonline.com/music, then look under message boards.)

New releases

-- Afro Celt Sound System, "Volume 3: Further in Time"

-- D12 featuring Eminem, "Devil's Night"

-- Mandy Moore, "Mandy Moore"

-- Sisqo, "The Dragon Returns"

-- Stone Temple Pilots, "Shangri-La Dee Da"

-- Luther Vandross, "Luther Vandross"

-- Brian Wilson, "Live at the Roxy Theatre"

Search our archives for related stories