Blackground Records to finally release Aaliyah and JoJo's albums to streaming

Hell must have frozen over along with Barry Hankerson's bank accounts, because Aaliyah's One in a Million and her self-titled album are finally hitting streaming services. And it's not just Aaliyah's albums which will be made available, but all Blackground releases; including JoJo's self-titled debut and its follow up The High Road, Toni Braxton's Libra, Timbaland & Magoo's album and Tank's albums.

All of the Blackground albums will be releasing on different days. All of the dates are in the image above. But if like me, you are getting confused by the date formats (I'm from the UK, so I automatically read dates in the DD/MM/YYY format, where-as the poster is in the US MM/DD/YY format), I've listed them below. Also, the layout of the image is garbage and some of the dates are small and just plain difficult to read. You can barely see the dates for the Timbaland & Magoo albums. Who puts black text on a navy backdrop!?

Aaliyah: One in a Million | Out now
Timbaland & Magoo: Welcome to our World, Indecent Proposal & Under Construction, Part 2 | August 22, 2021
Timbaland: Tim's Bio | August 22, 2021
Film soundtracks: Romeo Must Die & Exit Wounds | September 3, 2021
Aaliyah: Self-titled | September 10, 2021
Tank: Force of Nature, One Man & Sex, Love & Pain | September 17, 2021 
JoJo: Self-titled debut & The High Road | September 24, 2021
Ashley Parker Angel: Soundtrack to your Life | September 24, 2021
Toni Braxton: Libra | October 1, 2021
Aaliyah: I Care 4 U & Ultimate Aaliyah | October 8, 2021

As great news as two of Aaliyah's most famed and non R. Kelly affiliated albums hitting streaming is, Aaliyah's family apparently had no idea this shit was happening. Even when Barry Hankerson is doing something right, it's messy.

JoJo fans are rejoicing, as am I. Because as much as I like hearing 2018 JoJo sing her old shit, not every song that she re-recorded sounded better. I'm still about the original versions of "Leave (Get Out)", "Baby It's You", "Never Say Goodbye", "Like That", "Anything" and "Coming for You". It wasn't even just about some of the vocal choices for me, but the music production. Some of the remade instrumentals were a little wonky. But when a fan tweeted that they'd be streaming the original albums on release day, JoJo had this to say...

thanks for the love babe 🥰🤍 never telling you what to do, but just so you know - a stream of the re-recorded 2018 version supports me and helps me continue to do what I love. streaming the original unfortunately does not. https://t.co/pYL0W8glEz

— JoJo. (@iamjojo) August 5, 2021

It's an unfortunate situation, because as a fan you want to support JoJo. But as a fan you also want to listen to the versions of the songs that made you a fan in the first place and that you prefer. I'm fortunate enough to own physical copies of JoJo's debut album and The High Road (the same goes for One in a Million and Aaliyah's self-titled album), so listening to them was never an issue for me. But of course I want to support JoJo.

Something that JoJo should consider is releasing a live album, or an acoustic album of covers which spans her debut up to Mad Love, including her mixtapes, which still aren't available on streaming platforms. This way she's giving fans additional versions of songs and thereby incentive to stream them over the originals. I also think some additional material to truly separate the re-records from the originals would have helped. Taylor Swift is in the process of re-recording all of her albums pre Lover, and is giving fans every fucking reason not to stream the original versions of her albums. They're getting unreleased shit, reworked shit, new shit. Her latest release, her third studio album Red include 30 DAMN SONGS. JoJo and Taylor Swift's circumstances are not like for like though. Taylor Swift's fanbase is bigger and more feverent than JoJo's, so she'll see a far bigger effect and return on her fans streaming her re-records over the original recordings. Also, Taylor Swift is credited as a songwriter on every single song on each of her albums, so she'll see money no matter which version of her album is streamed.

It's a shame that news of the release of JoJo's albums hitting streaming feels so tainted, but at least they'll be available.