Missy Elliott: 'Best Best'

Missy Elliott's time away hasn't diminished her ambition. She begins 'Best Best', her first single since 2006's Respect M.E. Greatest Hits collection, by pledging to "switch R&B" and "flip a new melody on these suckas". Well, if anyone can make good on such bold promises, it's the woman who gave us 'Work It', 'Lose Control' and of course 'Get Ur Freak On'.

Sadly, despite some suitably space age production from Elliott and Timbaland cohort Nate "Danjahandz" Hills, R&B remains defiantly unswitched by the end of its four-and-a-bit minutes. The main problem is Elliott's banal lyrics, on which she salutes her man for being "cute", fresh" and having the credit limit to buy her "half the mall". Whatever happened to the feisty, independent Missy of old?