It's Me Again
It's Me Againis a bad name for a great record, the reason being that the sound that bumps infectiously through around half of these 16 tracks is distinctivelyMissy Elliott's (she executive produced). "Turn Da Lights Off," the opening song after a space-wasting, self-congratulatory intro, crackles for a moment with what sounds like an old Supremes sample, then off we go—each subsequent joint doles out some unexpected aural treat, be it the whomp-bomp of "Iceberg," the dreamy '70s coast-along of "Cab Ride," or the clever boogie-woogie of "Sports, Sex & Food" (listen up, girls). The small screen in simpler days is a major theme, with Tweet revisiting "Kojak" and "Taxi" for samples; when she's not channel-surfing for sounds, the sturdy-voiced chanteuse sticks around the era to rework "We Don't Need No Water." The roof never smoldered quite so elegantly.--Tammy La Gorce