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Aaliyah (album)

2001 album by Aaliyah

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ478739
Source-derived summary

Aaliyah is the third and final studio album by the American singer Aaliyah. It was released on July 7, 2001, by Blackground Records and Virgin Records. Because of its packaging design, it is also known as "The Red Album". Aaliyah started to work on the album in 1998, but rescheduled its recording around her developing film career. She resumed recording in 2000 at Sing Sing Studios in Australia, where she shot her role for the 2002 film Queen of the Damned during the day and recorded songs at night. Additional recording took place at Manhattan Center and Sony Music Studios in New York and Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, among other locations. Through her recording contract with Blackground, the singer worked primarily with the record label's in-house crew of writers and producers, including Bud'da, J. Dub, Rapture, and Eric Seats, as well as longtime collaborator Timbaland.

Aaliyah is described in critical commentaries as an album of R&B, neo soul, and dance-pop, while drawing on an array of other genres such as funk, hip-hop, alternative rock, electronica, and Latin music. The album's producers incorporated synthesizer melodies, fragmented beats, distorted guitar, and eccentrically manipulated vocals and song structures, while much of the lyrics were written by singer-songwriter Static Major, who shared a close friendship and strong rapport with Aaliyah. The resulting songs deal with the complexities of romantic love and different stages in a relationship.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Aaliyah (album)” as 2001 album by Aaliyah. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2001, 1998, 2000, 2002—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Aaliyah and album can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2001 album by Aaliyah. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q478739. The first chronological checks are 2001, 1998, 2000 and 2002.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Aaliyah (album)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Aaliyah (album) primary sources, Aaliyah (album) archive and Aaliyah research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Aaliyah (album)”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Aaliyah (album)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.