Various - Romeo Must Die (The Album) (2LP)

Romeo Must Die: The Album landed on 28 March 2000 through Blackground and Virgin, and it still sounds like the moment R&B and rap fully embraced the new millennium. The film put Jet Li and Aaliyah on the same poster, and the soundtrack did something similar on a CD tray card, lining up a roster that felt both radio ready and street tough. You can hear the pivot in real time, with sleek, syncopated beats and voices that defined charts and dancefloors that year.

The obvious centrepiece is Aaliyah’s Try Again. Timbaland’s production is all clipped kicks, subby bass and space for her to float. Static Major co-wrote it, and that chemistry between writer, producer and singer is the magic. The song made history by becoming the first to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 based on airplay alone, and it pulled in Grammy nominations while cleaning up at the MTV VMAs. Even now, that chorus still feels like a pep talk you want in your ear before a night out. If you’re after a single track that captures turn-of-the-century R&B futurism, this is it.

Come Back in One Piece pairs Aaliyah with DMX and gets the tone just right. His gravel and her cool glide meet in the middle, the beat struts, and you get a proper back-and-forth rather than a cut-and-paste feature. It backed up the single run and gave the record a second anchor around which the rest of the set could swagger. The video’s curbside energy suited DMX, but it’s Aaliyah keeping it smooth that makes the song replayable long after the credits roll.

The curation leans heavily on the Blackground family and friends. Timbaland shows up more than once, bringing that minimalist thump he was honing in Virginia, and you can feel the through-line from his work with Missy and Ginuwine into this set. Timbaland and Magoo slide in with a posse cut that feels built for car stereos. The mood toggles between late-night R&B and harder-edged rap, but it never loses the film’s pulse. Even when the lyrics step away from the plot, the atmosphere matches the choreography and neon of the movie.

What gets overlooked is how important the soundtrack was for Aaliyah’s arc. Before her 2001 self-titled album, this was the place where fans went for new material, and the response proved the point. The album debuted high on the charts, peaking at number three on the Billboard 200, and it went platinum in the United States. Critics singled out the Aaliyah cuts and the precision of the production, which is fair, but the whole record works as a scene report for mainstream R&B and hip hop in 2000. If you were listening to commercial radio in Australia around then, you heard these beats everywhere, from shopping centres to suburban parties.

On vinyl the low-end pops in a way digital never quite nails, especially on Try Again where the kick and bass interplay needs a bit of air moving in the room. If you stumble on Romeo Must Die vinyl in a Melbourne record store, don’t overthink it. It’s the sort of compilation that gets spun more than you expect, because there’s always a cut that suits the mood. Folks hunting for Various Artists vinyl or trying to buy Various Artists records online tend to chase classics from the 90s, but this one sits neatly beside them and tells a different story about how the 2000s began.

The legacy isn’t just numbers and awards. It’s the feeling that a film tie-in didn’t have to be a grab bag. This one plays like a proper album, with recurring voices and a sonic palette that holds together from front to back. Put it on next to any of the big R&B sets of the era and it hangs in there, partly because the best tracks are undeniable, and partly because the sequencing keeps the energy steady. For collectors building out a shelf of Various Artists albums on vinyl, it’s a tidy bridge between glossy soundtrack culture and the artist-led albums that followed.

If you’re crate digging around vinyl records Australia or scrolling late at night, Romeo Must Die: The Album is worth the chase. It captures Aaliyah at a creative peak, lets DMX stomp through in full flight, and bottles the Timbaland sound that ruled the radio. Twenty-plus years on, it still kicks.