Music Monday | Missy Elliott

Howdy!

When I was thinking about doing the series, I know I wanted to keep it diverse, not because my love of music is all of the place, but it is very important to say that there are women music producers out there. In fact, I decided to talk about two of them that I knew were important to my life and musical journey. However, if you know and love of any other women producers out there, please tell me about them in the comments. I would love to learn more about why you adore them, and of course check out their music too!

A couple of years ago, Missy Elliott was awarded by MTV’s VMAs (Video Music Awards) with the Lifetime Achievement award. Back when MTV did play hours and hours (boy, do I miss those days!) of music videos, you probably saw one or if you were really lucky two Missy Elliott videos within 20-30 minutes of each other. I’d say from 1998 to 2004 is when she was just creating all kinds of stuff. A lot of them included dancing, but she was very known for her crazy antics and style in those days. They all looked fun every single time they appeared on your television screen. I’m sad to say I haven’t seen any of her previous videos, but remembering her others, I know she would continue going down that way for as long as she is allowed.

Missy is most known for her songs and friendship with Timbaland and Aaliyah, but I think it’s important to say that she has worked with all kinds of acts throughout the years! In 2004, when the R&B artist Ciara appeared, especially after watching her first music video for “Goodies” you probably hoped that she’d work with Missy one day. Dancing played a big part in the two artists, but it also just seemed like a great combination because Ciara has that same soft voice that Aaliyah was known for–even though nobody could ever be as good as her–you still hoped that they would work together. So, by the time “1, 2, Step” came out on the radio, it was like the music gods were really hearing our prayers and then it happened again in 2004 with Missy’s track “Lose Control” with Fatman Scoop. It was an awesome sequel to the story of these two big female singers.

Since we’re on the subject of girl power, I think we should discuss the remake of Patti LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade” of the film Moulin Rouge in early 2002. Instead of having one singer do the entire song, she produced and worked with four powerhouses of the popular genres of that time. You had the R&B artist Mya to start off and then we move on to Pink, who at the time was a mixture of pop-R&B at the time. Brooklyn’s own Queen rapper Lil’ Kim lended a nice section and gave the song an added flare, and finally Christina Aguilera graced us at the end. I still think this is where she began weaning herself out of the cookie cutter bubblegum pop music. The song itself went on to win lots of awards but I think a lot of people either don’t know and/or forget that Missy Elliott was a huge part of making this happen. I mean, think of it as like the first time The Avengers assembled. Yes, I just did that and I’m not even sorry about it either!

Are you a fan of Missy Elliott? Do you have a favorite music video from over the years? Is there any other artists that you think she should consider working or maybe not collaborating with next? Please give me your thoughts about that down in the comments.

When TRL Ruled My Life

Growing up, coming home and watching TV was a given. Nobody as a kid or a teenager wants to do their homework as soon they come home. Favorite shows would come on an hour after you get home. I remember coming home from school a lot and watch Full House and  Family Matters on ABC Family or one of those channels. I think around when I turned nine years old I started to watch this show on MTV, it was called TRL (Total Request Live) and I remember watching every once in a while. I would watch for Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera, and N’Sync. For me at that time, everything revolved around them. After I came home from Shriner’s I remember watching it more often. I started getting into rap music again and discovered Good Charlotte and Simple Plan and just exploded my musicial tastes from there.

I was just watching VH1’s doctumentary of “The TRL Decade” and was seriously holding back tears because I miss that part of my usual routine and it was my childhood to watch music videos all day long when I was sick and around 4pm it would be TRL time. That was my day. No wonder I’m crazy about my music. I still watch music videos all day long sometimes. I remember watching Backstreet Boys on there. Practically kissing the TV as well. Then when I got into 50 Cent and Eminem, it was a bomb went off. I would get excited about watching their interviews and wish I was there watching them perform to all the people there. I remember the first time I heard and watched Fort Minor’s “Petrified” it was on the countdown and I instantly loved it. I don’t remember seeing any Linkin Park on the countdown unfortunately. MTV will never be as good as it was back then. Maybe that’s why they’ve been playing all these reality shows now.

What Happened To Music Videos?

VH1 has been advertising their new documentary about the TRL (Total Request Live) days on MTV. I might watch it, but I don’t know. I’m worried it’ll make me cry. Not even joking either. Ever since they’ve been playing nothing but reality TV shows and crap on there, it doesn’t seem like MTV anymore. When I was growing up, MTV was the go-to channel to watch music videos all day long. I do have to say, both MTV and MTV2 still play music videos, you just have to get up very early in the mornings to watch any of them. It’s like old cartoons that use to be on Nickelodeon, they came back but you have to stay up from midnight to 4am on the weekdays. Where’s the fun in that? Play it on the weekends like it use to be! I know every person that was born in the late 80s and early (maybe late) 90s would LOVE to watch some shows of their childhood. Everything is getting pushed back and that’s not right.

I remember when I was 9 or 10 years old, there was an award show that night before and mom taped it for us. So we watched parts of it that morning. We watched Britney Spears perform “Hit Me Baby One More Time” and what I remember of this performance was the fact that in the beginning of it, sounds a part from Wizard of Oz. Think back to the scene where Dorothy was  trapped inside the witches castle and her little knights or whatever the hell they were called were chanting something, and me knowing the Wizard of Oz really well, when Britney Spears performance had the exact same chant I was amazed and it has never left. Besides her performance, mom had gotten the Backstreet Boys performance. They sang “Show Me The Reason Of Being Lonely” and I was in a trance. Rock music hadn’t been around me yet, so I was still in love with pop music.

I also remember when I was little, we were getting ready for school. I was going into the living room to watch TV and I remember watch music videos, I definitely still see the play-by-play of Dream’s “He Loves U Not” and that was such a bad ass song back then! My parents would say MTV was better back in the 80’s. Well, from what I’ve read I don’t think that’s true. Back then, they had to censored a lot of the videos and lyrics of the song. Now, it’s just the lyrics it seems like. Sometimes the lyrics aren’t blocked well enough. Maybe it is a good thing they play music videos in the early mornings considering what they do play. YouTube and VEVO have become the way the go to way to watch music videos. It’s sad that it’s like that since the whole reality shows have taken over. I do have to say VH1 has been the last (I don’t know how much FUSE and BET plays music videos) that still plays them from 6am until 10am. Which is like the best thing ever for somebody like me, who still loves her music videos.

When I Loved Football

My first year of high school. Ah! It was a fun year full of two things: new batch of boys and football. I came attached to our football team. Even though our school wasn’t the greatest at football, a lot of people still had hope. I had some hope but I also had a lot of crushes by the end of the season. Powder Puff Football was another factor that I loved it so much. It was where girls could play flag football. I watched the game my freshman just to get an idea of what I was getting into if I really wanted to do it next year. Which I ended up doing it for the next three years.

It wasn’t just our school’s football team I began to fall for. In 2006, MTV premiered a show called, Two-A-Days. It was a football team in Hoover, Alabama. It was one of the first reality shows MTV started showing. My Tuesdays (I think that was the day they came on) were always set on MTV at 10pm. If I missed an epsiode, they always replayed it throughout the rest of the week. After one episode, I was hooked. Of course I fell for Alex and Max. The show was really good, but it was opposite of my football team at school. Everytime I would watch it, somebody in my family had to crack a joke about our football team. After a while, it became somewhat normal. After the first season ended, I was happy and excited. Because they were saying that season two was starting soon and season one was being released on DVD. I was very happy!

When season two started, I was upset because of the seniors I loved in season one were off to college and you saw less of them. The only one you saw from the first season besides the coach, was their quarterback Ross. He was now the senior in season two. They showed new players from the team and the girlfriends of these players. Brittany was always my favorite from season two. In this time, I was still on MySpace and found her on there and added her as a friend. I was shocked she expected me, but she also had a lot of other people on her friends list too. Some she didn’t know like me. And I can’t lie, I also added Alex too. But this was before I had figured out he had gotten Danielle pregnant and soon after that they got married. I tried to get Max to add me, but he never did. Which was ok, I had Brittany, Alex, and Ross on my friends list. I was a happy camper! Then after MySpace became something of the past. I forgot all about Two-A-Days.

After season two, word got out that something had happen between the school and the coach. I found this out by my mother who was reading the newspaper one day. I was shocked, but I was saying to her it wasn’t true because season three was going to start soon. Even though they never really told us about season three. I had to go back on my MySpace account to find out that MTV was no longer showing Two-A-Days anymore and season two DVD was never released. I was sad, but after three years of searching I finally found season one DVD and I was feeling my happy emotions again it always brought me. I lend my friend the set and haven’t gotten it back since. This was also two years ago. Recently, I remembered telling my mom about Tim Tebow, during season one he went to the rival school of the bucks. I told her, it’s very strange how a guy like him could be so big and was on a show on the opposite team. But you know how I remembered all this, I was on Twitter and an account called “Retweet That Song” had a song by Angels and Airwaves. I had remembered searching for the theme song of Two-A-Days once a few years ago, I just finished listening to it for the second time in over fou years. The song is called, “The War” and it’s still good as I remembered it.