They’ve been heralded as the biggest thing in Irish rock since U2 – a prediction that proved prescient when The Script romped to the top of the charts with their debut album.
Having already conquered Ireland and the UK, SAMANTHA MUMBA is poised to join Britney and Christina at the top of the American pop chart. Not bad for someone who two years ago was fired from a panto by Twink! Now, with her new album Gotta Tell You ready for release, the Dublin singer talks candidly to JOE JACKSON about drugs, sex and the break-up of her parents marriage
Perhaps the most marketable band in the USA right now, TLC are usually assessed in terms of their take-no-shit sexual politics, their increasingly adventurous visual image (Girlz In The Hood meets Barbarella), and their private lives (rapper Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes once burned down her millionaire boyfriend's mansion). If anyone ever bothered seriously analysing the stuff contained on their records, their jaws would drop even further.
It all went to hell when he started calling himself The King Of Pop. The backroom boys work their usual production juju, but Invincible has the air of everything Prince has done since Diamonds & Pearls: beautifully crafted tracks, top-notch performances, not a blemish in the merchandise (unless of course it was put there on purpose) but still light years from his best work.
Why the musical legacy bequeathed by Michael Jackson will ultimately outlive and overshadow the huge morass of questions surrounding his life and death...
