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Talk:Alchemy

RFC: Should Alchemy be included in Category:Pseudoscience
Up until December 8th, Alchemy was included in the category Category:Pseudoscience. Should it be restored?   Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:48, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

!Vote

 * Yes. Alchemy, like most ancient protosciences, is pseudoscience just as much as astrology, homeopathy, and all the others. That is has played a significant part in the history of science, or that its adherents were honest scholars at the time does not make its reliance on the classical elements, astrology, mysticism, etc... any less pseudoscientific. See, , "The paper acknowledges that not all practices of alchemy were pseudoscientific but that important contributions have been made by some of its adherents (Dobbs, 1992). The focus here, however, is on the pseudoscientific aspects of alchemy. Hence, the term alchemy in this paper denotes a pseudoscience.", as well as this criticism of Phillipe's Isis 'rehabilitation' of alchemy by Hank Campbell, and so on and so forth.   Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:48, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Wrg to Hank Campbell, note that his website mentions his own deleted WP page (AfD). This self-promoting dilettante cannot be taken seriously as a critic of an expert like Principe. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 21:47, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I think there are better sources than Campbell out there. jps (talk) 20:05, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

 * No as I am unsure that once real science took over it continued to be a thing. Unlike astrology, homeopathy, and all the others it is no longer practiced (as far as I know). At least in any meaningful way.Slatersteven (talk) 18:53, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes It could be considered a prescience or protoscience but also a pseudoscience especially today. I have a limited screen at the moment and the interface for navigation and writing is not optimal, but I can immediately list some sources that cover alchemy and are about pseudoscience (these will not be proper links or citations): Pseudoscience, a critical encyclopedia (Regal), Abominable Science (Loxon, Prothero, Shermer), Philosophy of PseudoscienceReconsidering The Demarcation Problem (Pigliucci, Boudry)...  In a way it is similar to old beliefs in medicine like humorism, that unfortunately is still believed (with variants) by some.  An example that immediately comes to mind was the "sexual transmutation" of "energies" in Samael Aun Weor's writings, with a syncretic "modernized" alchemy that suggested that seminal "hydrogens" were migrating (with their isotope changing) as they were going up the metaphysical nadis (channels) to feed the subtle bodies (and by metaphor, transform the lead of the personality in the gold of the spirit)...  And this is also a clue about an article that desperately needs improvements.Face-smile.svg  — Paleo  Neonate  – 19:11, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No, I propose we resurrect Category:Protoscience, which is a more accurate categorization. Skyerise (talk) 19:13, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It may then suit to both categories, — Paleo Neonate  – 19:22, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes Simply because while I certainly acknowledge that alchemy is not really a living pseudoscience, it was also not simply ended and replaced by real science, but rather, the two "co-existed" as it were for a good long while. One need look no further than the person of Isaac Newton for evidence of that.  It would not feel right to me to say that the author of the Principia also practiced "protoscience," though if that's the chosen terminology, I get it.  Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 19:26, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe – Apparently, the oldest known use of the word pseudoscience in English was in relation to alchemy (James Pettit Andrews calling it a "fantastical pseudo-science” in the Oxford English Dictionary; see the Science and Pseudo-Science article in SEP). Also, per, it is covered by experts on pseudoscience, such as Brian Regal in Pseudoscience, a critical encyclopedia. However, it's worth quoting what Regal actually writes about alchemy (pp. 6–7):

 * Regal rightfully cites the most foremost contemporary experts on alchemy, William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe. But what do these experts themselves say? I'll repeat the quotes I gave above:

 * Principe and Newman themselves are in fact quite explicit that projecting the modern concept of pseudoscience on historical alchemy is badly mistaken, highly anachronistic, dated, and results from strategic and polemical reasons and a lack of historical understanding. So on the one hand there's the traditional conception of alchemy as a pseudoscience, still popular among the general public, but on the other hand this traditional conception is rejected by the expert scholars of the last 20–30 years. This makes it a difficult call. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 20:00, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * And to that I reply

 *   Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:51, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but the criticism of one of the foremost academic experts on alchemy by the self-described "award-winning science writer and bestselling author Hank Campbell" (deleted WP page; AfD), who clearly is as ignorant as they come about this subject, is all but irrelevant. See WP:GEVAL. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 21:04, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

 * No. Alchemy was not a pseudoscience but a protoscience, and alchemy withered away as a separate field of study when it became chemistry. You can see this still in some of the obsolete chemical nomenclature. The same is true of ancient astrology, another protoscience which went the same way. -- The Anome (talk) 21:00, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No. Apaugasma is 100% correct. All scholars who have seriously studied the history of alchemy have serious question about characterizing it as a pseudoscience, and Principe and Newman, who adamantly oppose the characterization for good reasons, are two of the most eminent current living specialists in the history of this subject. Calling alchemy a pseudoscience is an anachronism and distortion of its history.  Throughout most of its history there was no meaningful distinction between chemists and alchemist.  In fact, "chemist" (Latin "chemicus") is a neologism of the 16th century, so all serious chemists before this time were literally "alchemists".Ajrocke (talk) 22:12, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No - it would be anachronistic to call alchemy a pseudoscience. Dirk Beetstra T C 11:15, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment The problem in these discussions is that category placement is not subject to nuance at all. This means the nuance all has to be in the text. In the case of "pseudoscience", the general consensus has been that it should only be applied to concepts which have a current following. Problem is, since by necessity, it is often the case that such followings are minimal, there is no reasonable threshold that we can point to in deciding when an idea is still adhered to and when it is moribund. There are certainly New Age fetishists who believe in alchemy as "ancient knowledge" for which they adopt pseudoscientific thinking, but this doesn't seem to be a particularly strong advocacy within that movement (unlike, in comparison, the champions of quantum flapdoodle). But they do exist. The problem here is that categorizing Alchemy as pseudoscience is necessarily paying attention to this fringe movement in a way that may detract from the much more academically robust investigation of alchemy in its historical context. Perhaps the correct thing to do is to WP:SPINOUT an article about the fringe pseudoscientific adoptions of alchemy in current practice (if there are enough sources to write about this coherently). jps (talk) 12:47, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree about categories being a yes/no question where there's no room for nuance. If the question of this RfC had been 'should alchemy be characterized as pseudoscience', my answer would have been a firm no rather than a maybe. But if the question had been 'is there some relation between alchemy and pseudoscience' it would have been a firm yes.
 * Alchemy was historically related to a complex web of ideas that also included various forms of learned magic ('talismanic magic', 'natural magic'), mysticism, astrology, etc., and as such became an important ingredient in the 19th-/20th-century re-imaginings of these ideas by occultist authors. But occultism is precisely characterized by scholars as a type of esotericism that seeks both to integrate and to overcome modern science, presenting itself –as well as the ancient and medieval ideas from which it takes it inspiration– as a superior alternative to secular or 'disenchanted' science. These occultist claims are, of course, essentially pseudoscientific, and as such they implicate alchemy in a pseudoscientific discourse.
 * But then it is occultism that is per se pseudoscientific, not alchemy: many modern so-called 'alchemists' are really just weaving further on the web of occultist fantasies, and are all but completely disconnected from the historical practices and conceptualizations of alchemy. The question is indeed whether alchemy has a current following, as opposed to occultism. If it has, it is decidedly marginal, to the point that these pseudoscientific offshoots are at best tangential to the topic of alchemy taken as a whole. I'm fairly certain that there are not enough sources on this to legitimize a separate article, and it will in fact not be easy to even write a reliably sourced section about it in this one. But to the extent that such a section is possible, it may mention the word 'pseudoscience', and as far as I understand categories on Wikipedia, that may be enough to include the article in category:pseudoscience. On the other hand, we do not yet have such a section, so perhaps we should not yet have the category either.
 * I will admit though that I'm weary of editors writing up such a section merely to be able to brand alchemy as pseudoscience: this article is not in a good state, but it is still blissfully free from the undue anti-pseudoscience rhetoric that plagues such articles as astrology. I would of course welcome a well-written section based upon actual experts on alchemy/occultism (the relevant field is 'Western esotericism studies') who are eager to understand and explain their subject material (rather than on skeptic authors who focus on debunking and discrediting the topic, while all too often being happy to remain largely or even entirely ignorant of it). However, such sections generally arise from knowledgeable editors who come to the article with a genuine interest and a mind to expand and improve its contents (rather than to ... well, debunk and discredit the topic without any interest to actually understand and explain it), and this is just not the case at this time. These things cannot be forced, and we should not try to force them: better to have the pseudoscience category without in-text support for it than to have a hastily written and undue section on this topic just for the sake of adding the category. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 18:21, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If we cannot manage to write an article/section about the pseudoscientific version of alchemy that is up to our standards, WP:ASTONISH, I would argue, would have us not categorize the article as such. It does the reader no good to see a category and be unable to find why the article is so categorized. jps (talk) 19:57, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Another article is probably not necessary although a few existing ones likely have mentions of alchemical concepts. The current article includes (unsourced): "The courses, books, organizations, and conferences generated by their students continue to influence popular applications of alchemy as a New Age medicinal practice." which could be clarified with a source, including a mention of modern pseudoscientific use (independently of the category)...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 02:16, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * @PaleoNeonate: yes, you're right of course. That section desperately needs a reliable source, as well as a clarification that in the modern context spagyrics is considered pseudoscience. An alternative may be to remove the section for the time being. I'm not sure how notable it is, and I'm kind of disappointed that Edzard Ernst 2019, Alternative Medicine: A Critical Assessment of 150 Modalities doesn't mention it. Let's just not go overboard in citing skepticist criticism of it if that's the only kind of source we find. Only writing about something to discredit it, while acceptable in some cases, easily veers off into unencyclopedic (WP:NOTADVOCACY) territory, and should be avoided as much as possible in my view. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 13:09, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I doubt there's any issue with "discrediting" any modern usage, though and stating the obvious isn't necessarily advocacy territory, especially considering WP:PSCI and that reliably published sources exist... — Paleo  Neonate  – 13:34, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * There's no issue at all with discrediting, or stating the obvious, as such. I explicitly said we should call modern spagyrics a pseudoscience if the section on it is to remain. The issue (only potential here) is rather with discrediting for the sake of discrediting, which would belong on Skeptopedia, but not on Wikipedia. If the only reliable sources that exist are written with the explicit and sole purpose of debunking or discrediting a subject, that is a strong indication in my view that the subject is not notable from a properly encyclopedic point of view (as may be the case for modern spagyrics). At least one or two reliable sources that approach the subject from an academic perspective (historical, sociological, philosophical, psychological, ... again, the most relevant field would be Western esotericism studies) are needed to get a broader view, one that goes beyond simply advocating against something. I'm aware that our guidelines are not adjusted to this, and that in many places Wikipedia actually functions as a kind of Skeptopedia. Now in some ways I actually like this Skeptopedia type of approach (there's a huge societal relevance to this), but I also do think that it should be its own project, and that it does not in fact belong here (we should rather be able to link to it, as in Wikipedia does not cover this subject, but a related article exists on Skeptopedia, or For more on this subject, see the article on Skeptopedia). These are my thoughts, but please feel free to disagree; I probably hold a minority view here, and I do respect other views on this. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 16:00, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and removed the brief mentions of spagyrics and TCM, as they are modern adaptations and were never part of alchemy proper. I see that spagyrics comprise most of the article on Paracelsianism. Perhaps the article should be re-titled "Spagyrics" with sections on Paracelsian and Modern uses. Alchemy and "plant alchemy" are really two different topics. We can put the pseudoscience category on that article. Skyerise (talk) 17:08, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It may be of interest to know that there used to be a separate page called Spagyric, which was merged with Paracelsianism on 5 July 2020. Also important to note is that spagyria primarily refers to the 16th-/17th-century iatrochemical practice, and as such does in fact deserve a place in this article. As for the section on 20th-century 'revival' spagyrics which was copied to Paracelsianism, I fear that the problem has merely been moved to that article. It still needs reliable sourcing, as well as a citation for the fact that it is a pseudoscience. I have already added Category:Pseudoscience to the article though. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 19:55, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Whether or not modern spagyrics is a pseudoscience is debatable. It depends on the exact definition. To the extent 'spagyrics' refers to the process and even the resulting product, it consists of perfectly scientific chemical extraction techniques. That is, the process uses recognizable chemical extraction methods and produces a perfectly real and analyzable extract. Does the term 'spagyrics' also include the diagnosis and prescription for illness? That's not clear to me, and if it doesn't, then there is no pseudoscience involved, just archaic terminology. The only part which might be considered pseudoscience is the medical part, which is why either 'plant alchemy' (used since the early 20th century) or 'herbal alchemy' (used since c. 1960) would probably be better titles than 'spagryics'. 'Herbal alchemy' is the most common designation. In any case, if herbal extracts in and of themselves are 'pseudoscience', then so is vanilla extract. Skyerise (talk) 21:40, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

 * No - To refer to alchemy as a pseudoscience is incorrect and anachronistic. It is part of the history of science and philosophy. It belongs in the category "protoscience" (which should be reactivated). Netherzone (talk) 13:38, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak No - I think I agree with Netherzone that alchemy seems to be more of a "protoscience" than a "pseudoscience". That said, I don't think those two things are necessarily exclusive of each other, and I'm sure some nutty guy somewhere is still trying to turn lead into gold. NickCT (talk) 13:14, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe Putting the article Alchemy into the category Category:Pseudoscience isn't the same thing as calling the historical subject of alchemy a pseudoscience. Anyone trying to do alchemy today isn't doing protoscience, but pseudoscience; if this article contained more material about such people, I'd be a solid "yes". The categorization might not be warranted as the article stands currently, but I wouldn't rule it out as a matter of principle, either. XOR'easter (talk) 18:47, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No. At least, not in Wikipedia's voice. Where relevant reliable sources have argued for and against the applicability of the term to alchemy we can of course cite them for what they say, but beyond that, it is simply anachronistic to apply such terms retroactively. 19:17, 14 December 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by AndyTheGrump (talk • contribs) 19:17, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No As per many of the above comments. ---Wikaviani  (talk) (contribs)  22:11, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No - (1) per the edit summary that the category ‘neither mentioned or supported in article text’; (2) *and* the category definition states to ‘not include obsolete scientific theories’; (3) logically, alchemy predates modern science so it could not have been an imitation of it; and (4) I prefer serious encyclopedic writing with more restraint against throwing around a sensationalist vague pejorative. Cheers  Markbassett (talk) 12:52, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. I would expect to find alchemy in the pseudoscience category, if I was browsing that category. If it is or is not pseudoscience is almost another question. It can probably be described as a fragmented religion, especially considering how the term is used by modern magical organizations. In the past, they probably really did try obtain transmutation via chemistry, a proto-science. · · · Omnissiahs hierophant (talk) 19:58, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

 * Only if it can be described as such uncontroversial in the text, which will require more work to determine. Literally the only source mentioning pseudoscience currently in the article is a ref that says Alchemy May Not Have Been the Pseudoscience We All Thought It Was, noting that Alchemy was for its time relatively cutting-edge and accurate compared to competing theoretical systems. A quick search turns up this as well, which says something similar - that alchemy is currently considered a form of early science rather than pseudoscience. A Google Scholar search, however, suggests that there are definitely plenty of sources referring to Alchemy as a pseudoscience (sometimes even as an iconic example of pseudoscience) - but we need to hash out a paragraph or so in the text about this.  The "science" section (which may or may not be the best place for this) is currently a ridiculously tiny stub that focuses on a bit of trivia rather than the much more important question of alchemy's place in the development of modern science. Work the text out first, worry about categories after.  --Aquillion (talk) 05:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Not sure It seems unfair to lump it in with astrology, as alchemy is an important part of the history of science. Also, pseudoscience is usually something masquerading as science while at the same time being at odds with it, but alchemy simply pre-dated science, there was nothing for it to be at odds with. It gradually evolved into modern chemistry, but it was a very slow transition in places, Vitalism was still being debated 100 years ago. --Project Osprey (talk) 19:58, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Astrology is also an important part of the history of science. It doesn't make it any less pseudoscientific.   Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:51, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed, — Paleo Neonate  – 21:04, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * And while it's also much less prevalent than astrology, by modern standards, it doesn't mean it's extinct. See this list amongst other things. I mean, just read this nonsense by French alchemist Jean Dubuis (.  Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:06, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Not nonsense, but not alchemy as generally understood. That's herbal alchemy, and "vegetable mercury" is a real thing in mid-17th-century medicine. Skyerise (talk) 22:01, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Wow. Then we should make the distinction between prescientific alchemy, which was definitely protoscience, and ... whatever that just was. Similarly prescientific astrology and modern astrology. -- The Anome (talk) 21:12, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * That's close to "purified mercury" (this one is not about isolation). — Paleo  Neonate  – 21:57, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Forget astrology. PaleoNeonate's comparison of alchemy above with humorism, and medieval medicine generally, is much better: alchemy was very closely related to medicine on a theoretical level (see, e.g., here). Take, for example, Unani medicine: no one would think about calling Hippocrates' and Galen's medicine pseudoscience, but people who still cling to this in the 20th century are obviously practicing pseudoscience. The important difference is that medieval chemistry (alchemy), in contradistinction to medieval medicine, had a huge influence on modern occultism and esotericism. Thus we find figures like Samael Aun Weor referring to alchemical concepts. But another difference is that, while adherents of Unani medicine are still practicing a form of medicine that is almost identical to medieval medicine, Weor's imaginings have little or nothing to do with actual medieval alchemy. In that sense, it's rather questionable to represent figures like Weor as 'alchemists'. The same is true about the 'alchemists' we list here. There are not many good reliable sources on 20th-century 'alchemy', but it is a very complex subject indeed. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 21:19, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that's right: "modern" alchemy, astrology etc. are all esoteric movements that are based on the concept that the prescientific ideas are somehow ancient wisdom that is "more true" than real science; and then they take those and build their own ideas on top. -- The Anome (talk) 08:58, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Alchemy Museums - the Alchemist's cave in Prague
I wrote about Alchemy in Prague, since Prague was a hub for massive scientific and artistic developments. I focused on the Alchemist’s Cave found after a flood, which was turned into a museum by a person who bought the place (so it was privatized). Some things to be thought about include how the cave connects to public history (If a person is in charge of curating the material) and is the cave is a memorial for alchemy. How is the interactivity of the cave/museum recreated as the original objects/interactivity (the doors opening the same as the original ones) part of a historical genre? How is talking about alchemy as a cool thing and mentioning only male alchemists create a historical power, vs how much of it is saving that past without adding presentism to it?Ushtima (talk) 12:25, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

 * Your edits were removed, as they were a word-for-word copy-paste violation WP:COPYVIO from Google Translate of an article in the Spanish language National Geographic magazine. Not cool. BTW, I have been to the Speculum Alchemae/Alchemist's Cave/Museum of Alchemy in Prague, and although it is very interesting to see the historical artifacts, it is primarily a tourist attraction selling "elixirs", and I'm not sure it belongs in this article unless it is rewritten without copyright violations and backed up with reliable, verifiable independent sources WP:RS. Netherzone (talk) 16:24, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

 * You seem to be annoyed by the fact the Prague exhibit has a commercial nexus (selling "elixirs") or is "privately owned". Selling merchandise at museums is a common practice (ie. - the "gift shop") as a way to offset operating costs and isn't considered something unethical.  Is the Louvre or MET compromised for this same practice?  The Prague exhibit is notable I think because it's a rare example of a genuine alchemical laboratory.  Plagiarism isn't appropriate, but maybe the original article can be summarized and cited, like we do here for all sources.  57.135.233.22 (talk) 08:41, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * No, I was not annoyed, rather I was pointing out that Copyright violations WP:COPYVIO and WP:CLOSEPARAPHRASING are policy violations. Additionally, using the encyclopedia for promotion, advertising, marketing or the like WP:PROMO is also a policy violation. An encyclopedia is not an appropriate venue to advertise museum gift shops and what they sell. Netherzone (talk) 15:27, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: History of Science to Newton
— Assignment last updated by Patt0400 (talk) 18:05, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

 * Welcome! I for, for one, look forward to your contributions, but should a change you make be reverted, please don't be offended, just come here and make your case.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:28, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Aristotle and alchemy
Hi ! Thanks for your contribution to this article. Unfortunately, I have needed to revert it, since there are several problems with it:
 * 1) Scholars generally agree that (western) alchemy originated in the late Hellenistic period, with the writings attributed to Democritus (pseudo-Democritus, dated to circa 54–68 CE) being the earliest surviving texts. Although earlier (Greek) natural philosophy did influence alchemy, it's misleading to speak about it as if it were part of alchemy's own history. The discussion of early Greek natural philosophy therefore does not belong in the Byzantium section, but in a separate section on pre-alchemical ideas on material constitution and change (theories of matter).
 * 2) The source you used,, is seriously dated (see WP:AGE MATTERS). One consequence of this is that Hopkins' claim (pp. 25–27) that Aristotle's theory of growth formed the basis for alchemical theories of transmutation needs some qualification. Among Aristotle's four causes, the final cause (and more generally the concept of entelechy or the natural tendency to a formal state of 'perfection') is still considered an important part of most alchemical theories (see, e.g., ), but it is now generally recognized that alchemical theory of matter was fundamentally opposed to Aristotelian hylomorphism and adopted instead a theory of the corpuscularian kind . This corpuscularian theory in turn did have roots in Meteorology IV, which despite the fact that it was probably written by Aristotle did not take a hylomorphistic approach (see ; ; ). Thus, the interplay of matter and form in Aristotle's theory of growth has been amply shown to be absent from –and indeed antithetical to– alchemical theories. Instead it is now recognized that alchemy drew upon the corporealist/materialist approaches of Hellenistic philosophies like Stoicism (see [updated English translation in ]; ; ; ).
 * 3) In general, it's probably a bad idea to write a single short paragraph only covering Plato and Aristotle. As you can see from the above this is a rather complex subject, which means that it needs a lot of context for the reader to understand. Even if 's claim about the influence of Aristotle's theory of growth would still hold up today, and if we were to write something about it in our article, we would need to explain what that theory of growth was and how precisely alchemists made use of it. What you wrote,, is incomprehensible for an average reader without context.
 * 4) When citing sources that have page numbers for claims made in wiki-voice (i.e., in articles), always be sure to include them in your citation.

One more tip: since alchemy in general is a difficult subject, it's probably best not to dive into the specialist sources I cited above. Instead, try some newer introductory coursebooks on the subject (similar to but much more recent and up to date), such as  or. Especially is a joyful read, and I'm sure you'll find something interesting in it to add to this article. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 15:23, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Article issues and classification

 * Reassess article to C-class, fails the B-class criteria. The "Further reading" section is the worse I have seen with 37 entries. This section is optional and I read that only 3% of Wikipedia articles have this. I am going to leave this ATM but will revisit it. Lacking any discussion on trimming (with a bush hog) I will cut the bottom half off. Also, as maintenance, I will cut all but the top three in the "External links". Three seems to be an acceptable number and of course, everyone has their favorite to add for four. The problem is that none is needed for article promotion.

 * ELpoints #3) states: Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum. A lack of external links or a small number of external links is not a reason to add external links.
 * LINKFARM states: There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to the external links section of an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia. On articles about topics with many fansites, for example, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate.
 * WP:ELMIN: Minimize the number of links. -- Otr500 (talk) 07:57, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Article promotion is irrelevant. On a purely formal level this article is much closer to B-Class than to C-Class. But this is a bad article, just like there are many bad GA-Class articles. This does not matter to readers, and since I'm not sure to whom it actually does matter apart from Wikipedia editors, for my part you can assign this article any class you like, from stub to FA.
 * Articles aren't good or bad because they meet or do not meet some list of criteria, but because they either have been written and curated by subject experts who know what they are writing about, or by random ignorant people on the internet. And this does affect readers.
 * I've renamed the 'Further reading' section to the more fitting 'Bibliography'. If you are an expert on alchemy (I mean just someone who's read a substantial proportion of the sources listed in the bibliography and who might know about other sources, not necessarily a professional academic) and can improve this section of the article, please do so. If you are not and you are just going to arbitrarily 'cut' stuff because you personally think it's too much, then please refrain. Bibliography sections like this are very useful (arguably more useful than the articles themselves in many cases) for people who actually come to Wikipedia as a first stop to start researching a subject. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 11:31, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Reply: Some people like order and some people thrive in chaos. There are several areas I excel but concerning wallpaper, I expect I am among the approximately 5 billion unique global "ignorant" visitors to Wikipedia a year. I sometimes reflect on the fact that academia would likely not have an audience were it not for those less learned, ignorant if you will, of certain information yet desiring to know more. Socrates wrote extensively concerning intelligence and ignorance. "There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance." As far as the article, if I see I can make improvements, I will try. -- Otr500 (talk) 18:02, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Nobody likes to think that they're ignorant. This doesn't mean that there are no ignorant people, nor that they will not cobble up bad articles when given the chance. I'm not saying that you are ignorant, nor that anyone could or even should keep ignorant people from writing bad Wikipedia articles. God knows that there are many such people, many such articles. All I'm saying is that if one realizes one is ignorant about something, one may find it worth considering leaving the Wikipedia article about that thing alone. It's what Socrates would do. On the other hand of course, academics should less be playing Socrates, and just write Wikipedia articles. But I suspect we agree on that one. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 18:36, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * ---Thanks. Otr500 (talk) 21:48, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Alchemy


text:
Aaliyah

Aaliyah Dana Haughton (January 16, 1979 – August 25, 2001) was an American singer and actress. She has been credited with helping to redefine contemporary R&B, pop, and hip hop, earning her the nicknames the "Princess of R&B" and "Queen of Urban Pop".

Born in Brooklyn and raised in Detroit, she first gained recognition at the age of 10, when she appeared on the television show Star Search and performed in concert alongside Gladys Knight. At the age of 12, Aaliyah signed with Jive Records and her uncle Barry Hankerson's Blackground Records. Hankerson introduced her to R. Kelly, who became her mentor, as well as lead songwriter and producer of her debut album, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number (1994). The album sold three million copies in the United States and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). After allegations of an illegal marriage with Kelly, Aaliyah ended her contract with Jive and signed with Atlantic Records.

Aaliyah worked with record producers Timbaland and Missy Elliott for her second album, One in a Million (1996), which sold three million copies in the United States and more than eight million copies worldwide. In 2000, Aaliyah made her acting debut in the film Romeo Must Die, alongside Jet Li. She contributed to the film's soundtrack, which was supported by her single "Try Again". The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 solely through airplay, becoming the first in the chart's history to do so. After completing the film, Aaliyah subsequently filmed her starring role in Queen of the Damned (which was released posthumously), and in July 2001, released her eponymous third album, which topped the Billboard 200. The album spawned the singles "We Need a Resolution", "Rock the Boat" and "More Than a Woman".

On August 25, 2001, at the age of 22, Aaliyah was killed in an airplane accident in the Bahamas along with eight other people on board, when the overloaded aircraft she was traveling in crashed shortly after takeoff. The pilot was later found to have traces of cocaine and alcohol in his body and was not qualified to fly the aircraft designated for the flight. Aaliyah's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the aircraft's operator, which was settled out of court. In the decades following her death, Aaliyah's music has continued to achieve commercial success, aided by several posthumous releases. She has sold 8.1 million albums in the US and an estimated 24 to 32 million albums worldwide. Billboard lists her as the tenth most successful female R&B artist of the past 25 years, and the 27th most successful in history. Her accolades include three American Music Awards and two MTV VMAs, along with five Grammy Award nominations.

Early life
Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born on January 16, 1979, in Brooklyn, New York City, the younger child of Diane and Michael "Miguel" Haughton, a warehouse worker. She was of African-American descent. Her name is the feminine form of the Arabic "Ali", meaning "highest, most exalted one, the best." Aaliyah was fond of her name, calling it "beautiful" and saying she was "very proud of it" and strove to live up to her name every day. When she was five years old, her family moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she was raised along with her older brother, Rashad. In Detroit, her father began working in the warehouse business, one of his brother-in-law Barry Hankerson's widening interests. Her mother stayed home and raised her and her brother. Her mother enrolled her in voice lessons at an early age. Eventually, she started performing at weddings, church choir, and charity events. Aaliyah attended a Catholic school, Gesu Elementary, where in first grade she was cast in the stage play Annie which inspired her to become an entertainer.

Aaliyah's mother was a vocalist, and her uncle Hankerson was an entertainment lawyer who had been married to Gladys Knight. As a child, Aaliyah traveled with Knight and worked with an agent in New York City to audition for commercials and television programs, including Family Matters. After failing to land a role on the show she continued her acting through the Gesu Players. In 1989 at age ten she appeared on Star Search, where she performed "My Funny Valentine". Aaliyah chose to begin auditioning. Her mother made the decision to drop her surname. She auditioned for several record labels and at age 11 appeared in concerts alongside Knight. During her childhood, she had several pet animals including ducks, snakes and iguanas. Her cousin Jomo had a pet alligator, which Aaliyah felt was too much, remarking, "that was something I wasn't going to stroke."

Aaliyah attended Detroit schools and believed she was well-liked, but she was teased for her short stature. By age 15, however, she came to love her height. Her mother told her to be happy she was small and complimented her. Although some children disliked Aaliyah, she determined, "You always have to deal with people who are jealous, but there were so few it didn't even matter. The majority of kids supported me, which was wonderful." Even in her adult life, she considered herself small. She had "learned to accept and love" herself and added: "the most important thing is to think highly of yourself because if you don't, no one else will".

During her audition for acceptance to the Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts, Aaliyah sang "Ave Maria" in Latin. Aaliyah held a 4.0 grade-point average when graduating from high school. She reflected: "I wanted to keep that 4.0. Being in the industry, you know, I don't want kids to think, 'I can just sing and forget about school.' I think it's very important to have an education, and even more important to have something to fall back on." She considered a future career teaching music, music history or drama if she did not make a living as a recording artist because, as she reasoned, "when you pick a career it has to be something you love".

1991–1995: Age Ain't Nothing but a Number
After Hankerson signed a distribution deal with Jive Records, he signed Aaliyah to his Blackground Records label at the age of 12. Hankerson later introduced her to recording artist and producer R. Kelly, who became Aaliyah's mentor, as well as lead songwriter and producer of her first album, recorded when she was 14. Aaliyah's debut album, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number, was released under her mononym "Aaliyah", by Jive and Blackground Records on May 24, 1994; it debuted at number 24 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 38,000 copies in its first week. It peaked at number 18 on the Billboard 200 and it was certified two times Platinum by the RIAA. To date the album has sold over 3 million copies in the US. In Canada, the album was certified gold by Music Canada for 50,000 copies in shipments. In 2014, Vibe magazine estimated that the album had sold six million copies globally.

Upon its release, Age Ain't Nothing But a Number received generally favorable reviews from music critics. Some writers noted that Aaliyah's "silky vocals" and "sultry voice" blended with Kelly's new jack swing helped define R&B in the 1990s. Her sound was also compared to that of female quartet En Vogue. Christopher John Farley of Time magazine called the album a "beautifully restrained work", noting that Aaliyah's "girlish, breathy vocals rode calmly on R. Kelly's rough beats". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic felt that the album had its "share of filler", but described the singles as "slyly seductive". He also wrote that the songs on the album were "frequently better" than that of Kelly's second studio album, 12 Play. The single "At Your Best (You Are Love)" was criticized by Billboard for being out of place on the album and for its length.

Aaliyah's debut single, "Back & Forth", peaked at number 5 on the Hot 100 and topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for three weeks. Two more singles charted: a cover of the Isley Brothers' "At Your Best (You Are Love)" peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the album's title track, "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number", peaked at number 75. Additionally, she released "The Thing I Like" as part of the soundtrack to the 1994 film A Low Down Dirty Shame.

1996–2000: One in a Million and Romeo Must Die
In 1996, Aaliyah left Jive Records and signed with Atlantic Records. She worked with record producers Timbaland and Missy Elliott, who contributed to her second studio album, One in a Million. Elliott recalled Timbaland and herself being nervous to work with Aaliyah, since Aaliyah had already released her successful debut album while Elliott and Timbaland were just starting out. Elliott also feared she would be a diva, but reflected that Aaliyah "came in and was so warming; she made us immediately feel like family." The album yielded the lead single "If Your Girl Only Knew", which peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs for two weeks. It also generated the singles "Hot Like Fire" and "4 Page Letter". One in a Million peaked at number 18 on the Billboard 200, and was certified double platinum by the RIAA on June 16, 1997, denoting shipments of two million copies. The album went on to sell 3 million copies in the US and over eight million copies worldwide. The year after her album was released, Aaliyah was featured on Timbaland & Magoo's debut single, "Up Jumps da Boogie".

In 1997 Aaliyah graduated with a 4.0 GPA from the Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts, where she majored in drama. The same year, she began her acting career, playing herself in the police drama television series New York Undercover. During this time, Aaliyah participated in the Children's Benefit Concert, a charity concert at the Beacon Theatre in New York. She also became the spokesperson for the Tommy Hilfiger Corporation. During her campaign with Tommy Hilfiger, the company sold over 2,400 pairs of the red, white and blue baggy jeans she wore in their advertisements. In December 1997, she performed the Christmas carol "What Child Is This?" at the annual Christmas in Washington television special. She also contributed to the soundtrack album for the animated film Anastasia, performing a cover version of "Journey to the Past" that earned songwriters Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Aaliyah performed the song at the 1998 Academy Awards ceremony, becoming the youngest singer to perform at the event. Also in 1998, she released the song "Are You That Somebody?" which was featured on the Dr. Dolittle soundtrack. The song peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Aaliyah her first Grammy Award nomination.

In 1999, Aaliyah landed her first big-screen acting role in Romeo Must Die. She starred opposite martial artist Jet Li, playing a couple who fall in love amid their warring families. Released on March 24, 2000, the movie grossed US$18.6 million in its first weekend, ranking number two at the box office. Aaliyah purposely stayed away from reviews of the film to "make it easier on" herself, but she heard "that people were able to get into me, which is what I wanted." In contrast, some critics felt there was no chemistry between her and Jet Li, as well as viewing the film as too simplistic. This was echoed by Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times, who wrote that while Aaliyah was "a natural" and the film was conceived as a spotlight for both her and Li, "they have so little chemistry together you'd think they're putting out a fire instead of shooting off sparks.

In addition to acting, Aaliyah served as an executive producer of the film's soundtrack, for which she contributed four songs. "Try Again" was released as a single from the soundtrack; the song topped the Billboard Hot 100, making Aaliyah the first artist to top the chart based solely on airplay; this led the song to be released in a 12-inch vinyl and 7-inch single. The music video won the Best Female Video and Best Video from a Film awards at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. It also earned her a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female R&B Vocalist. The soundtrack went on to sell 1.5 million copies in the United States.

2001: Aaliyah and Queen of the Damned
After completing Romeo Must Die, Aaliyah began to work on her second film, Queen of the Damned. She played the role of an ancient vampire, Queen Akasha, which she described as a "manipulative, crazy, sexual being". Filming both Romeo Must Die and Queen of the Damned delayed the release of the album. Aaliyah had not intended for her albums to have such a gap between them. "I wanted to take a break after One in a Million to just relax, think about how I wanted to approach the next album. Then, when I was ready to start back up, "Romeo" happened, and so I had to take another break and do that film and then do the soundtrack, then promote it. The break turned into a longer break than I anticipated." Ultimately, she filmed Queen of the Damned and recorded her third album at the same time so that it could be released in 2001. Aaliyah enjoyed balancing her singing and acting careers. Though she called music a "first" for her, she also had been acting since she was young and had wanted to begin acting "at some point in my career", but "wanted it to be the right time and the right vehicle" and felt Romeo Must Die "was it". Connie Johnson of the Los Angeles Times argued that Aaliyah having to focus on her film career may have caused her to not give the album "the attention it merited."

During the recording stages for the album, Aaliyah's publicist disclosed that the album's release date was most likely in October 2000. Eventually, she finished recording the album in March 2001; after a year of recording tracks that began in March of the previous year. Aaliyah was released five years after One in a Million on July 17, 2001, and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 187,000 copies in its first week. The first single from the album, "We Need a Resolution", peaked at number 59 on the Billboard Hot 100. The week after Aaliyah's death, her third album rose from number 19 to number 1 on the Billboard 200. "Rock the Boat" was released as a posthumous single. The music video premiered on BET's Access Granted, and it became the most viewed and highest rated episode in the history of the show. The song peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Promotional posters for Aaliyah that had been put up in major cities such as New York and Los Angeles became makeshift memorials for grieving fans. In February 2002, the album was certified double Platinum by the RIAA.

"More than a Woman" and "I Care 4 U" were released as posthumous singles and peaked within the top 25 of the Billboard Hot 100. "More than a Woman" reached number one on the UK singles chart making Aaliyah the first female deceased artist to reach number one on the UK singles chart. "More than a Woman" was replaced by George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" which is the only time in the UK singles chart's history when a dead artist has replaced another dead artist at number one.

Aaliyah was signed to appear in several future films, including a romantic film titled Some Kind of Blue, and a Whitney Houston–produced remake of the 1976 film Sparkle. Houston recalled Aaliyah being "so enthusiastic" about the film; the project was shelved after she died. Before her death Aaliyah filmed some scenes for the sequels of The Matrix as the character Zee. A portion of her role in The Matrix Reloaded was filmed; these unused scenes were included in the tribute section of the Matrix Ultimate Collection series.

Voice
Aaliyah had the vocal range of a soprano, and with the release of her debut album Age Ain't Nothing but a Number, writer Dimitri Ehrlich of Entertainment Weekly compared her style and sound to R&B group En Vogue. Ehrlich also expressed that Aaliyah's "silky vocals are more agile than those of self-proclaimed queen of hip-hop soul Mary J. Blige." In her review for Aaliyah's second studio album One in a Million Vibe magazine, music critic Dream Hampton said that Aaliyah's "deliciously feline" voice has the same "pop appeal" as Janet Jackson's. According to Rolling Stone "the most remarkable thing about Aaliyah's voice, besides its flexibility and crisp range, was its almost preternatural poise — she always seemed to be holding her power in reserve, to know every side of the scenarios she described". While, Siân Pattenden from Mixmag stated that, "She doesn't try to toss the caber with vocal athleticism. There's no shouting, screeching, wailing or jazz-style noodling. Everything is underplayed: Ms Haughton's range is displayed by the slightest high-octave backing and tiniest harmonies".

Aaliyah herself said her vocal styling consisted of her singing softly while utilizing her falsetto. She further explained saying, "My signature style is breathy, tone-y, airy. It's simple but I can ride a crazy track." Although she frequently sang in a softer tone, there were moments when she utilized other facets of her voice. "Never Givin' Up" (1996) and "The One I Gave My Heart To" (1997) are a few stand-out vocal highlights. Daryl Simmons the producer of "The One I Gave My Heart To", recalled Aaliyah doing opera vocal warm-up exercises in preparation for the songs recording. While commenting on her doing opera vocal warm ups Simmons mentioned, "It was the furthest thing I would have ever thought that she could do. It just blew my mind." The song's writer, Diane Warren praised her vocals on the song, saying: "It showed her vocal range, and I know a couple of people thought she wouldn't be able to do that song. I thought, 'No, she'll be able to do that." Variety echoed a similar sentiment as Warren, saying "The One I Gave My Heart To" "showcased Aaliyah's ability to hit higher notes." Discussing her approach on "Never Givin' Up" producer Craig King said, "lyrically and vocally she just took you to places that you didn't know she could go".

Musical style
From the very beginning, she opted "for an edgier, more mature sound", and her songs were often uptempo and at the same time often dark, revolving around "matters of the heart". She "easily straddled the hip-hop and pop worlds, never projecting the frilliness of her ingénue peers". In 2001, Aaliyah called her sound "street but sweet", pairing feminine vocals with a gritty urban rhythm track. In another interview she further spoke about her artistry, saying, "I love to fuse other types of music with my own". She explored a wide range of genres such as R&B, pop,  hip hop,  funk, soul, and dance-pop. Altogether, Aaliyah's music can be described as alternative R&B, progressive soul, and neo soul, according to Time Farley.

Discussing her lyrical content in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Keith Harris said "When it came to sexual availability, she was between En Vogue maliciously taunting 'You're never gonna get it' and Tweet blankly cooing 'Oops, there goes my shirt.'" Lyrically, "Her first two albums carefully toed the line between adolescence and adulthood, displaying a woman exploring the terrain of love, trust, and lust; one who exuded a playful innocence while hinting at a more sultry side." Aaliyah did not usually write her own lyrics. The only time she had a hand in writing is on the song "Death of a Playa" from the "Hot Like Fire" single (1997). She co-wrote that song with her brother Rashad Haughton, and "it reflects Aaliyah's dark perspective on romance". Of her role in crafting her music, Aaliyah said, "I like to have the final say but I was trained as a singer, actress and dancer, the interpreter, bringing other people's words to life. I need the songs to reflect me in one way or another". After her R. Kelly–produced debut album, Aaliyah worked with Timbaland and Missy Elliott, whose productions were more electronic. The duo "mixed choppy, nervous rhythms over loops of computer-generated backing tracks, and incorporating harmonies which – within the genre's limited horizons – seemed daring". They also created, the "Freeze-and-stop style of singing on top of bass-heavy instrumentals" which became Aaliyah's signature style.

Aaliyah's songs have been said to have "crisp production" and "staccato arrangements" that "extend genre boundaries" while containing "old-school" soul music. Kelefah Sanneh of The New York Times called her "a digital diva who wove a spell with ones and zeroes", and writes that her songs comprised "simple vocal riffs, repeated and refracted to echo the manipulated loops that create digital rhythm", as Timbaland's "computer-programmed beats fitted perfectly with her cool, breathy voice to create a new kind of electronic music." She released "musically risky singles into a notoriously fickle pop market", without being "concerned about conforming to the stereotypes of the marketplace". Her songs "gracefully walk a line between commerciality and experimentation". Reviewing her album, British publication NME felt that Aaliyah's "radical" third album was "intended to consolidate her position as U.S. R&B's most experimental artist".

As her albums progressed, writers felt that Aaliyah matured, calling her progress a "near-flawless declaration of strength and independence". ABC News noted that her music was "evolving from the punchy pop-influenced hip hop and R&B to a more mature, introspective sound", on her third album. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described her album Aaliyah as "a statement of maturity and a stunning artistic leap forward", and called it one of the strongest urban soul records of its time. She portrayed "unfamiliar sounds, styles and emotions", but managed to please critics with the contemporary sound it contained. Ernest Hardy of Rolling Stone felt that Aaliyah was displaying stronger technique, giving her best vocal performances.

Influences
As an artist, Aaliyah said she was inspired by a number of performers. These include Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Sade, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Korn, Donnie Hathaway, Johnny Mathis, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Barbra Streisand. Aaliyah said that Michael Jackson's Thriller was her "favorite album" and that "nothing will ever top Thriller." She said she had always wanted to work with Janet Jackson, to whom she had often been compared, saying, "I admire her a great deal. She's a total performer ... I'd love to do a duet with Janet Jackson." Jackson reciprocated Aaliyah's affection, saying, "I've loved her from the beginning because she always comes out and does something different, musically." Jackson also said she would have enjoyed collaborating with Aaliyah.

Music videos
According to director Paul Hunter from day one, "Aaliyah wanted her videos to stand out from clips by other R&B singers". He stated, "You can watch programming all day and see a certain type of video by female artists, "Then when one of hers comes on it's something special, something different to look at. That's what she was about." Christopher John Farley from Time stated that Aaliyah's "videos, for the most part, are about mood, not about storylines... Her videos are usually lushly shot and infused with sexual tension, though not in overt and obvious ways".

Alisha Acquaye from Teen Vogue felt that, "There's much to gather while watching an Aaliyah music video" in fact, she thinks that watching them is "actually an understatement". Acquaye further explained, "There's a state of hypnosis you submit to as she envelops you through sight and sound, tugging at your heartstrings. Between a sequence of sensual, strong movements, infectious instrumentals, and intuitive lyrics that spark emotions of desire, sex, and empowerment, you are enraptured in Aaliyah's physical presence".

Most of Aaliyah's videos included dance routines. While discussing her video choreography Billboard mentioned that she "coined the smooth choreography and tomboyish style that would inspire [R&B]'s future generations for years to come". Vibe praised several videos saying, "Looking back on her videos like "Try Again" and "Are You That Somebody," Aaliyah's talent in all of those techniques of dancing are apparent, as she's able to hit every syncopated word and beat with ease as if she's moving on air". Kyann-Sian Williams from NME named "Are You That Somebody?" as a visual that, "pushed the boundaries when it came to dance breaks in music videos". Williams declared, "Until that time, dance breaks were usually reserved for boybands like *NSync and the Backstreet Boys, but Aaliyah claimed it for R&B stars too".

Public image
Aaliyah focused on her public image while protecting her private life. She felt that it was "important ... to differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack". USA Today said, "Her slinky vocal style and eye-popping videos made her a crossover star, while her persistent protection of her privacy added an air of intrigue about her". According to Aaliyah, "I put a lot of pressure on myself to be true to myself and not let anything else influence me to do what someone else is doing. Being a little edgy and sexy is me. My image isn't a put-on. I'm happy to put over that dark edge in my videos, because it's always been there. I used to wear my sunglasses or have my hair over one eye a lot more when I was younger. [Now] I'm happy with all aspects of myself."

She often wore baggy clothes and sunglasses, stating that she wanted to be herself. Aaliyah also wore black clothing, starting a trend for similar fashion among women in United States and Japan. In 1998, she hired a personal trainer to keep in shape, and exercised five days a week and ate diet foods. As her career progressed, "she went through so many fashion revamps". For example, When she changed her hairstyle, Aaliyah took her mother's advice and covered her left eye, much like Veronica Lake. The look has become known as her signature and been referred to as fusion of "unnerving emotional honesty" and "a sense of mystique". In regards to her fashion choices, writer Jeff Lorez described her as a "model of understatement". According to Lorez, "She's beautiful, but hardly in a high-gloss, supermodel way—more like a really good-looking girl next door. And rather than bling-blinging her ice in a ghetto-fabulous manner befitting her Trumped-up surroundings, she blings on the down-low: A subtle bracelet here, a winking pendant there, offset by her simple black jeans and matching sweater. Trés cool". Former TRL host Carson Daly said that she was "cutting edge, always one step ahead of the curve and that the TRL audience looks to her to figure out what's hot and what's new".

Aaliyah was often praised for her "clean-cut image" and "moral values". Robert Christgau of The Village Voice wrote of Aaliyah's artistry and image, "she was lithe and dulcet in a way that signified neither jailbait nor hottie—an ingenue whose selling point was sincerity, not innocence and the obverse it implies." Emil Wilbekin, told CNN: "Aaliyah is an excellent role model because she started her career in the public eye at age 15 with a gold album, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number. And then her second album, One in a Million went double platinum. She had the leading role in Romeo Must Die, which was a box office success. She's won numerous awards, several MTV music video awards, and aside from her professional successes, many of her lyrics are very inspirational and uplifting. She also carried herself in a very professional manner. She was well-spoken. She was beautiful, but she didn't use her beauty to sell her music. She used her talent. Many young hip-hop fans greatly admire her."

She was also seen by others as a sex symbol and didn't have a problem with being considered one. "I know that people think I'm sexy and I am looked at as that, and it is cool with me," she stated. "It's wonderful to have sex appeal. If you embrace it, it can be a very beautiful thing. I am totally cool with that. Definitely. I see myself as sexy. If you are comfortable with it, it can be very classy and it can be very appealing." Aaliyah also felt though her image was "risque and sexy", it was important to remain respectable because she wanted to make songs that everyone could relate to without it being vulgar. When she participated in fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger's All America Tour Tommy Jean ads, she wore boxer shorts, baggy jeans and a tube top. Hilfiger's brother, Andy, called it "a whole new look" that was "classy but sexy". The single "We Need a Resolution" was argued to have transformed "the once tomboy into a sexy grown woman".

Family
Aaliyah's family played a major role in the course of her career. Beginning in 1995, Aaliyah's father Michael Haughton served as her personal manager, and her mother assisted him. Aaliyah's brother Rashad Haughton and her cousin Jomo Hankerson were with her when she worked. After her father became ill, her brother Rashad became her manager.

Aaliyah was known to have usually been accompanied by members of her family. Her brother Rashad stated that the filming of "Rock the Boat" was the only time her family was not present during a video shoot. In October 2001, Rashad said: "It really boggles everyone [that] from Day One, every single video she ever shot there's always been myself or my mother or my father there. The circumstances surrounding this last video were really strange because my mother had eye surgery and couldn't fly. That really bothered her because she always traveled. My dad had to take care of my mom at that time. And I went to Australia to visit some friends. We really couldn't understand why we weren't there. You ask yourself maybe we could have stopped it. But you can't really answer the question. There's always gonna be that question of why." Her friend Kidada Jones said in the last year of Aaliyah's life, her parents had given her more freedom and she had spoken about wanting a family.

Illegal marriage
Aaliyah reportedly developed an intimate relationship with Kelly during the recording of her debut album. She told Vibe magazine in 1994 that she and Kelly would "go watch a movie" and "go eat" when she got tired and would then "come back and work". She described the relationship between her and Kelly as "rather close." In December 1994, Aaliyah told the Chicago Sun-Times that whenever she was asked about being married to Kelly, she urged them not to believe "all that mess" and that she and Kelly were "close" and "people took it the wrong way".

With the release of Age Ain't Nothing but a Number, rumors circulated about a relationship between Aaliyah and R. Kelly, including the allegation that they had secretly married without her parents' knowledge. Vibe magazine later revealed a marriage certificate that listed the couple married on August 31, 1994, in Sheraton Gateway Suites in Rosemont, Illinois. Aaliyah, who was 15 at the time, was listed as 18 on the certificate; R. Kelly was 27. The marriage was annulled by her parents in February 1995, but the pair denied the allegations, saying that neither was married and that the certificate was a forgery.

Jamie Foster Brown in the 1994 issue of Sister 2 Sister wrote that "R. Kelly told me that he and Aaliyah got together, and it was just magic." Brown also reported hearing about a sexual relationship between them. "I've been hearing about Robert and Aaliyah for a while—that she was pregnant. Or that she was coming and going in and out of his house. People would see her walking his dog, 12 Play, with her basketball cap and sunglasses on. Every time I asked the label, they said it was platonic. But I kept hearing complaints from people about her being in the studio with all those men." Brown later added "at 15, you have all those hormones and no brains attached to them".

In his 2011 book The Man Behind the Man: Looking from the Inside Out, Demetrius Smith Sr., Kelly's former tour manager, revealed that Kelly married Aaliyah after she told him that she was pregnant. In the 2019 documentary Surviving R. Kelly, Smith described how he helped Aaliyah forge the necessary documents to show she was 18 to marry Kelly. Smith also said he was "not proud" of his role in facilitating their marriage. Additionally, the documentary revealed that Jovante Cunningham, a former backup dancer, claimed to have witnessed Kelly having sex with Aaliyah on his tour bus.

Aaliyah admitted in court documents that she had lied about her age. In May 1997, she filed suit in Cook County seeking to have all records of the marriage expunged because she was not old enough under state law to get married without her parents' consent. It was reported that she cut off all professional and personal ties with Kelly after the marriage was annulled and ceased contact with him. In a 2014 interview, Aaliyah's cousin Jomo Hankerson said that she "got villainized" for her relationship with Kelly and the scandal over the marriage made it difficult to find producers for her second album. "We were coming off of a multi-platinum debut album and except for a couple of relationships with Jermaine Dupri and Puffy, it was hard for us to get producers on the album." Hankerson also expressed confusion over why "they were upset" with Aaliyah given her age at the time.

Aaliyah was known to avoid answering questions about Kelly after the professional split. During an interview with Christopher John Farley, she was asked whether she was still in contact with him and would ever work with him again. Farley said Aaliyah responded with a "firm, frosty 'no to both questions. Vibe magazine said Aaliyah changed the subject anytime "you bring up the marriage with her". A spokeswoman for Aaliyah said in 2000 that when "R. Kelly comes up, she doesn't even speak his name, and nobody's allowed to ask about it at all." Kelly later said that Aaliyah had opportunities to address their relationship after they separated professionally but chose not to. In 2019, Damon Dash revealed to Hip Hop Motivation that Aaliyah did not even speak of her relationship with Kelly in private; he tried multiple times to discuss it with her, but she would only say that Kelly was a "bad man". Dash said he was unable to watch Surviving R. Kelly because its interviews with visibly traumatized girls struggling to discuss their encounters with Kelly reminded him of how Aaliyah behaved when trying to recount her relationship with Kelly. Dash later appeared in Surviving R. Kelly, Part II in 2020.

Other allegations were made about Kelly regarding underage girls in the years after Aaliyah's death, and their marriage was used as an example of his involvement with them. He has refused to discuss his relationship with her, citing her death. "Out of respect for her, and her mom and her dad, I will not discuss Aaliyah. That was a whole other situation, a whole other time, it was a whole other thing, and I'm sure that people also know that." In 2016, Kelly said that he was as in love with Aaliyah as he was with "anybody else." Aaliyah's mother, Diane Haughton, reflected that everything "that went wrong in her life" began with her relationship with Kelly.

After the documentary Surviving R. Kelly aired in January 2019, pressure from the public using the Mute R. Kelly hashtag escalated and RCA Records dropped Kelly from the label. In February 2019, Kelly was indicted on ten counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. In July 2019, he was arrested on federal charges of sex crimes, human trafficking, child pornography, racketeering, and obstruction of justice. When his trial began in August 2021, Kelly faced 22 federal criminal charges that involved allegedly abusing 11 girls and women between 1994 and 2018. Aaliyah's illegal marriage to Kelly was heavily featured in the court case. On September 27, 2021, a federal court jury found Kelly guilty of nine counts including racketeering, sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, bribery, sex trafficking, and a violation of the Mann Act. The judge ordered that Kelly remain in custody pending sentencing, which was set for May 4, 2022. On June 29, 2022, Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Relationship with Damon Dash
Aaliyah was dating the co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records, Damon Dash, at the time of her death. Although they were not formally engaged, Dash claimed the couple had planned to marry in interviews given after Aaliyah's death. In the summer of 2000, Aaliyah was introduced to Dash by his accountant and they formed a friendship. Aaliyah never publicly addressed their relationship as anything but platonic. Due to their hectic work schedules, Aaliyah and Dash were separated for long periods of time. Jay-Z mentioned Aaliyah and Dash in the remix of her song "Miss You", released in 2003. In August 2021, Dash told Entertainment Tonight Kevin Frazier, "I was reflecting [that] there hasn't been one day since she's passed, not one in the 20 years, that I haven't either heard her name, heard her record, or seen a picture of her ... Every single day she's present in my life and I feel lucky for that."

Death
On August 25, 2001, at 6:50 p.m. (EDT), Aaliyah and some employees of her record company boarded a twin-engine Cessna 402 light aircraft at the Marsh Harbour Airport in Abaco Islands, the Bahamas, to travel to Opa-Locka Airport in Florida after they completed filming the video for "Rock the Boat". They had a flight scheduled the next day, but with filming finishing early, Aaliyah and her entourage were eager to return to the US and decided to leave immediately. The designated airplane was smaller than the Cessna 404 on which they had originally arrived, but the whole party and all the equipment were accommodated on board. The plane crashed and caught fire shortly after takeoff, about 200 ft from the end of the runway.

Aaliyah and the eight others on board—pilot Luis Morales III, hair stylist Eric Forman, Anthony Dodd, security guard Scott Gallin, family friend Keith Wallace, make-up stylist Christopher Maldonado, and Blackground Records employees Douglas Kratz and Gina Smith—were killed.

The passengers had grown impatient because the Cessna was supposed to arrive at 4:30 pm. EDT, but did not arrive until 6:15 pm. Another charter pilot, Lewis Key, said he overheard passengers arguing with their pilot, Luis Morales, before takeoff, adding that Morales warned them that there was too much weight for a "safe flight". Key added: "He tried to convince them the plane was overloaded, but they insisted they had chartered the plane and they had to be in Miami Saturday night." Key indicated that Morales gave in to the passengers and that he had trouble starting one of the engines.

According to findings from an inquest conducted by the coroner's office in the Bahamas, Aaliyah had "severe burns and a blow to the head" in addition to severe shock and a weak heart. The coroner theorized that she went into such a state of shock that even if she had survived the crash, her recovery would have been nearly impossible given the severity of her injuries. The bodies were taken to the morgue at Princess Margaret Hospital in Nassau, where they were kept for relatives to help identify them. Some of them were badly burned.

As the subsequent investigation determined, the aircraft was overloaded by 700 lb when it attempted to take off, and was carrying one more passenger than it was certified for. The National Transportation Safety Board reported, "The airplane was seen lifting off the runway, and then nose down, impacting in a marsh on the south side of the departure end of runway 27." The report indicated that the pilot was not approved to fly the plane. Morales falsely obtained his FAA license by showing hundreds of hours never flown, and he may also have falsified how many hours he had flown to get a job with his employer, Blackhawk International Airways. Additionally, toxicology tests performed on Morales revealed traces of cocaine and alcohol in his system.

Funeral
Aaliyah's private funeral Mass was held on August 31, 2001, at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan, following a procession from the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel. Her body was set in a silver-plated copper-deposit casket, which was carried in a horse-drawn, glass hearse. An estimated 800 mourners attended the procession.

Among those in attendance at the private ceremony were Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Gladys Knight, Lil' Kim, and Sean Combs. After the service, 22 white doves were released to symbolize each year of her life.

Aaliyah's brother Rashad delivered the eulogy and described his sister as giving him strength: "Aaliyah, you left, but I'll see you always next to me and I can see you smiling through the sunshine. When our life is over, our book is done. I hope God keeps me strong until I see her again." He read the names of the other victims of the crash and concluded by asking mourners to pray for them as well. As Diane Haughton and the mourners left, they sang Aaliyah's song "One in a Million".

2001–2014: Queen of the Damned, compilations, and single releases
Immediately after Aaliyah's death, there was uncertainty over whether the music video for "Rock the Boat" would ever air. It made its world premiere on BET's Access Granted on October 9, 2001. She won two posthumous awards at the American Music Awards of 2002; Favorite Female R&B Artist and Favorite R&B/Soul Album for Aaliyah. Her second and final film, Queen of the Damned, was released in February 2002. Before its release, Aaliyah's brother, Rashad, re-dubbed some of her lines during post-production. It grossed US$15.2 million in its first weekend, ranking number one at the box office. On the first anniversary of Aaliyah's death, a candlelight vigil was held in Times Square; millions of fans observed a moment of silence; and throughout the United States, radio stations played her music in remembrance. In December 2002, a collection of both previously unreleased and released material was issued as Aaliyah's first posthumous album, I Care 4 U. A portion of the proceeds was donated to the Aaliyah Memorial Fund, a program that benefits the Revlon UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program and Harlem's Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. It debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200, selling 280,000 copies in its first week. The album's lead single, "Miss You", peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for three weeks. In August of the following year, luxury fashion house Dior donated profits from sales in honor of Aaliyah.

In April 2005, Aaliyah's second posthumous album, a double CD+DVD box set titled Ultimate Aaliyah, was released in the United Kingdom by Blackground Records. A documentary movie Aaliyah Live in Amsterdam was released in 2011, shortly before the tenth anniversary of Aaliyah's death. The documentary, by Pogus Caesar, contained previously unseen footage shot of her career beginnings in 1995 when she was appearing in the Netherlands.

In March 2012, music producer Jeffrey "J-Dub" Walker announced that the song "Steady Ground", which he produced for Aaliyah's third album, would be included in a posthumous Aaliyah album. Aaliyah's brother Rashad denied Walker's claim. On August 5, 2012, Blackground Records released the track "Enough Said" which was produced by Noah "40" Shebib and features Canadian rapper Drake. Four days later, Jomo Hankerson claimed a posthumous album was being produced that would feature new production by Timbaland and Missy Elliot, who both later denied being involved with the project. The album was scheduled to be released by the end of 2012 by Blackground Records, but its release was shelved. In June 2013, Aaliyah was featured on the track "Don't Think They Know" by Chris Brown, which appears on Brown's sixth studio album, X. Timbaland voiced his disapproval for "Enough Said" and "Don't Think They Know" in July 2013, but later apologized to Chris Brown, explaining that Aaliyah and her death were a "very sensitive subject".

2015–present: Merchandise, catalog rerelease, and Unstoppable
In May 2015, Aaliyah was featured on the Tink track "Million", which contained samples from her song "One in a Million". In September 2015, Aaliyah by Xyrena, an official tribute fragrance, was announced. On December 25, 2015, Timbaland released the mixtape Kings Stay Kings which includes the unreleased Aaliyah song "Shakin" featuring rapper Strado. In June 2018, MAC Cosmetics released a cosmetics collection inspired by Aaliyah, The Aaliyah for Mac collection which was priced at $250 and sold out within minutes. MAC and i-D Magazine partnered up to release a short film titled "A-Z of Aaliyah" which coincided with the launch. On August 21, 2019, the Madame Tussauds museum unveiled a wax figure of Aaliyah at their Las Vegas location, modeled on her appearance in the "Try Again" music video. Four days later, Aaliyah's family announced that they were in talks with record companies to discuss the future of her discography.

In March 2021, Funko Pop! released an Aaliyah figurine. In August 2021, Blackground Records announced that Aaliyah's recorded works would be re-released on physical, digital, and streaming services in a deal between the label and Empire Distribution. Aaliyah's estate issued a statement in response to the announcement, denouncing the "unscrupulous endeavor to release Aaliyah's music without any transparency or full accounting to the estate". One in a Million was reissued on August 20. After the album's re-release, One in a Million re-entered the UK Official Hip Hop and R&B Albums Chart Top 40 at number eight. In the US, the album reached the top ten on the Billboard 200 for the first time at number ten, selling 26,000 album-equivalent units in the week ending of August 26. Aaliyah was reissued September 10, 2021. After the album's re-release, Aaliyah re-entered the UK Official Hip Hop and R&B Albums Chart Top 40 at number seven and re-entered the US Billboard 200 chart at number 13. In celebration of the reissue, Blackground released an animated commercial titled "It's Been A Long Time" (in a similar style to the album's original 2001 commercial), directed by Takahiro Tanaka, showing Aaliyah resurrecting her music from out of a large underground vault. Compilation albums I Care 4 U and Ultimate Aaliyah were reissued October 8, 2021. Ultimate Aaliyah peaked at number 8 on the UK R&B Albums Chart Top 40 and charted for the first time in the US at number 41 on the Billboard 200.

On August 25, 2021, Barry Hankerson revealed in an interview with Big Tigger for WVEE that a posthumous album titled Unstoppable would be released in "a matter of weeks". The album was said to feature Drake, Snoop Dogg, Ne-Yo, Chris Brown, Future and use previously unreleased vocals from before Aaliyah's passing. On December 17, 2021, Background Records released the posthumous Aaliyah single "Poison" featuring The Weeknd. On January 4, 2022, Hankerson claimed that Unstoppable would be released later that month, however, it did not see a release and there was no related announcement from the label. In January 2024, Blackground Records hinted in an Instagram post that the release was "coming".

Legacy
Aaliyah has been credited for helping redefine R&B, pop and hip hop in the 1990s, "leaving an indelible imprint on the music industry as a whole." According to Billboard, she revolutionized R&B with her sultry mix of pop, soul and hip hop. Peter Piatkowski from PopMatters, stated, "Much like Janet Jackson's Control set a template of sorts for dance-pop divas in the 1980s, Aaliyah's patented brand of Black pop, which was a mélange of hip-hop, electropop, and soul, set a standard against which other young urban-pop singers were judged". In a 2001 review of her third album, Ernest Hardy from Rolling Stone professed that Aaliyah's impact on R&B and pop has been enormous. Steve Huey of AllMusic wrote Aaliyah ranks among the "elite" artists of the R&B genre, as she "played a major role in popularizing the stuttering, futuristic production style that consumed hip-hop and urban soul in the late 1990s." Critic Bruce Britt stated that by combining "schoolgirl charm with urban grit, Aaliyah helped define the teen-oriented sound that has resulted in contemporary pop phenom's like Brandy, Christina Aguilera and Destiny's Child".

Described as one of "R&B's most important artists" during the 1990s, her second studio album, One in a Million, became one of the most influential R&B albums of the decade. Music critic Simon Reynolds cited "Are You That Somebody?" as "the most radical pop single" of 1998. Kelefah Sanneh of The New York Times wrote that rather than being the song's focal point, Aaliyah "knew how to disappear into the music, how to match her voice to the bass line", and consequently "helped change the way popular music sounds; the twitchy, beat-driven songs of Destiny's Child owe a clear debt to 'Are You That Somebody'." Sanneh asserted that by the time of her death in 2001, Aaliyah "had recorded some of the most innovative and influential pop songs of the last five years." Music publication Popdust called Aaliyah an unlikely queen of the underground for her influence on the underground alternative music scene. The publication also mentioned that the forward-thinking music Aaliyah made with Timbaland and the experimental music being made by many underground alternative artists are "somewhat cut from the same cloth". While compiling a list of artists that take cues from Aaliyah, MTV Hive stated that it's easy to spot her influence on underground movements like dubstep, strains of indie pop, and lo-fi R&B movements. Erika Ramirez, an associate editor of Billboard, said at the time of Aaliyah's career "there weren't many artists using the kind of soft vocals the ways she was using it, and now you see a lot of artists doing that and finding success". Ramirez argued that Aaliyah's second album One in a Million was "very much ahead of its time, with the bass and electro kind of R&B sounds that they produced", and that the sound, "really stood out" at its time, was being replicated.

There has been continuing belief that Aaliyah would have achieved greater career success had it not been for her death. Emil Wilbekin mentioned the deaths of The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur in conjunction with hers and added: "Her just-released third album and scheduled role in a sequel to The Matrix could have made her another Janet Jackson or Whitney Houston". Director of Queen of the Damned Michael Rymer said of Aaliyah, "God, that girl could have gone so far" and spoke of her having "such a clarity about what she wanted. Nothing was gonna step in her way. No ego, no nervousness, no manipulation. There was nothing to stop her." On July 18, 2014, it was announced that Alexandra Shipp replaced Zendaya for the role of Aaliyah for the Lifetime TV biopic movie Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B, which premiered on November 15, 2014. Zendaya drew criticism because people felt that she was too light skinned and did not greatly resemble Aaliyah. She voiced her strong respect for Aaliyah before dropping out of the project. She explained her choice to withdraw from the film in videos on Instagram. Aaliyah's family has been vocal in their disapproving of the film. Her cousin Jomo Hankerson stated the family would prefer a "major studio release along the lines" of What's Love Got to Do with It, the biopic based on the life of Tina Turner. Aaliyah's family has consulted a lawyer to stop Lifetime from using "any of the music, or any of the photographs and videos" they own and Jomo Hankerson claimed the TV network "didn't reach out." On August 9, 2014, it was announced that Chattrisse Dolabaille and Izaak Smith had been cast as Aaliyah's collaborators Missy Elliott and Timbaland. Dolabaille and Smith both received criticism for their appearances in comparison with that of Missy Elliot and Timbaland. Despite negative reviews, the film's premiere drew 3.2 million viewers, becoming the second highest rated television movie of 2014.

On August 17, 2021, Atria Books (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) published Kathy Iandoli's Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah, a biography that draws on interviews with Aaliyah's friends, mentors and family, and document how her career influenced a new generation of artists. It has not been authorized by the Haughton family. On August 5, 2022, Beyoncé released "The Queens Remix" to her single "Break My Soul", in which she name-drops Aaliyah, along with other cultural icons. On June 14, 2023, Aaliyah was the subject of the documentary Superstar: Aaliyah, which was broadcast on ABC. The documentary included interviews with Damon Dash, Barry Hankerson, Sevyn Streeter, Will.i.am, Justine Skye, and author Kathy Iandoli, and discussed Aaliyah's life, career and legacy.

Achievements
Aaliyah has sold 8.1 million albums in the United States and an estimated 24 to 32 million albums worldwide. Throughout the years, she has earned several honorific nicknames, including "Princess of R&B", "Pop Princess", Sources for Pop Princess: as she "proved she was a muse in her own right". While Ernest Hardy of Rolling Stone dubbed her the "undisputed queen of the midtempo come-on". She also has been referred to as a pop and R&B icon for her impact on those genres.
 * and "Queen of Urban Pop", Sources for Queen of Urban Pop:
 * and "Queen of Urban Pop", Sources for Queen of Urban Pop:
 * and "Queen of Urban Pop", Sources for Queen of Urban Pop:
 * and "Queen of Urban Pop", Sources for Queen of Urban Pop:

At the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, Aaliyah was honored by Janet Jackson, Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Ginuwine and her brother, Rashad, who all paid tribute to her. Also during 2001, the United States Social Security Administration ranked the name Aaliyah as one of the 100 most popular names for newborn girls. In 2003, Aaliyah was ranked as one of "The Top 40 Women of the Video Era" in VH1's The Greatest series. Also, in 2003 in memory of Aaliyah, the Entertainment Industry Foundation created the Aaliyah Memorial Fund to donate money raised to charities she supported. In 2008, she was ranked at number 18 on BET's "Top 25 Dancers of All Time". In December 2009, Billboard ranked Aaliyah at number 70 on its Top Artists of the Decade, while her album Aaliyah was ranked at number 181 on the magazine's Top 200 Albums of the Decade. In 2010, Billboard listed her as the tenth most successful female R&B artist of the past 25 years, and 27th most successful R&B artist overall. In 2011, Essence ranked her at number 14 on its 50 Most Influential R&B Starts list. In 2012, VH1 ranked her number 48 on their "Greatest Women in Music". In 2014, NME ranked her at number 18 on its 100 most influential artist list. In August 2018, Billboard ranked Aaliyah at number 47 on their Top 60 Female Artists of All-Time list. In 2020, the publication included her on its list of the 100 Greatest Music Video Artists of All Time. Rolling Stone ranked her at number 40 on their 200 Best Singers of All Time list. In September 2023, she was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.

Studio albums

 * Age Ain't Nothing but a Number (1994)
 * One in a Million (1996)
 * Aaliyah (2001)

Compilation albums

 * I Care 4 U (2002)
 * Ultimate Aaliyah (2005)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Aaliyah