He’s best known as the voice of Soundgarden and Audioslave. But now grunge legend Chris Cornell has embarked on his most far-fetched adventure yet – a hook-up with uber-beatmaster Timbaland.
Beloved of both nu ravers and Timbaland who neglected to ask permission before sampling one of their songs, Crystal Castles might just be the biggest band to come out of leftfield this year.
The 11th album from the original and arguably the most versatile of rap superstars, this features the Timbaland- produced hit ‘Headsprung’ and ten other hip-shaking, beat-driven cuts.
Former Moloko singer Roisin Murphy talks to Paul Nolan about collaborating with an all-star team of songwriters, her unique image and clubbing in Sheffield and New York.
How Bubba Sparxxx went from being nose-down in a bowl of coke to becoming hip-hop's greatest white hope since Eminem. Peter Murphy hears how the southerner fell and rose
With a little help from Timbaland and The Neptunes, Justin Timberlake’s debut solo album justified propelled him from N’Sync baby food salesman to purveyor of the slickest dancefloor pop since the days when Michael Jackson was black. here, via the wonders of modern technology, HP eavesdrops as the boy wonder receives a Woodward & Bernstein-style investigative enema from the Euro-press.
Warp’s latest is something of a find, a 23-year-old Detroit native on a mission to breath new life into the sounds of Motor City. So while the reference points are apparent – D.May-esque percussion and washing machine basslines – Edgar’s willingness to blend old with the new (glitch-hop, Timbaland-inspired r’n’b beats, laptop electronica and digital dub) has resulted in a pristine and damn near perfect future/retro update (Magic Juan would no doubt approve).
On her sixth album, Missy Elliott has – for the most part – ended her long-running working relationship with gifted producer Timbaland. It’s difficult to be happy about the death of a partnership that has thrown up some of the most dazzlingly futuristic pop music of recent years, but it was a collaboration that had been on the wane for some time.
After Ms Furtado’s disappointing attempt to join the generic territory of Timbaland collaborators with ‘Maneater’ and ‘Promiscuous Girl’, it’s good to know he hasn’t completely beaten out of her the very thing that makes her unique. Though he’s still behind the glass wall for this, and it shows by being interchangeable with any old claptrap in the charts, ‘All Good Things’ displays Furtado’s honey-sweet voice in all its glory. It would have been interesting to hear its original form, with Chris Martin from Coldplay guest-starring, but alas, the record company gods intervened.
On her first (brilliant) album, Supa Dupa Fly, Missy Misdemeanor Elliott and her producer, Tim "Timbaland" Mosley, effortlessly mastered the trick of mixing the avant garde with the accessible, in the process giving a welcome injection of energy to American R&B.
The title of the album notwithstanding, Beenie’s sound is plenty sophisticated. Back To Basics is full of effective floor-fillers like ‘King Of The Dancehall’ or the Timbaland assisted ‘All Girls Party’.
This is the first album from the former ‘NSync frontman since his trillion-selling 2002 debut Justified, and back in the safe hands of hitmaker and producer Timbaland, he seems to be trying to come up with a latter day version of Marvin Gaye's ‘Let’s Get It On’. Only instead of recreating Gaye’s subtle mastery of sonic seduction, Timberlake goes straight for the main course.
Live at the Marquee on Friday June 29: They were the gaudiest of the ‘80s pop sensations. 20 years on, Duran Duran leader Simon Le Bon explains why the good time boys are a band for the long haul.
Radio has studiously ignored it but that doesn’t mean that Republic Of Loose’s ‘Girl i’m gonna fuck you up’ isn’t the best Irish single of the year. Tanya Sweeney meets the Dublin boys who just want to have fun.
Radio has studiously ignored it but that doesn’t mean that Republic Of Loose’s ‘girl i’m gonna fuck you up’ isn’t the best Irish single of the year. Tanya Sweeney meets the Dublin boys who just want to have fun.
Radio has studiously ignored it but that doesn’t mean that Republic Of Loose’s ‘Girl i’m gonna fuck you up’ isn’t the best Irish single of the year. Tanya Sweeney meets the Dublin boys who just want to have fun.
Astronomical record sales, sell-out tours and critical plaudits have not dimmed Coldplay's reputation as the worried men of pop. Bassist Guy Berryman gives us the lowdown.
One of the highlights of this year's Witnness festival Basement Jaxx drop hints about their forthcoming third album, explain why Brixton is so important to their sound and preview the live show
They've masterminded recordings by Lily Allen, Estelle and Kate Nash, to name a few. In this exclusive interview, Future Cut lift the veil on their whizz-bang production techniques.
The producers of choice for everyone from Justin Timberlake to Jay-Z, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo are also earning plaudits for their rock and hip-hop influenced side project, N*E*R*D
The Black Eyed Peas emerged in the mid-‘90s as “positive” underground rappers, who aimed to provide good vibes as an alternative to gangsta fraternity’s macho excesses. More recently, the group have attempted a balancing act between indie-rap’s relaxed outlook, and the pop immediacy of more primal hip hop. This is not as exciting a cross-pollination as it sounds – frequently feeling like a tame, uninspired compromise – though still managing to throw up some undeniably fun pop moments.
LCD Soundsystem's frontman James Murphy talks about working with Justin Timberlake, his Cork ancestors and recalls the time he almost hooked up with Arcade Fire
Origin of Symmetry? Freak of Evolution more like. The common response to Muse’s Showbiz debut in 1999 was akin to a primitive people’s first glimpse of a spacecraft over the prehistorical landscape. Here was an unlikely but hugely accomplished hybrid of prog-rock flash, quasi-symphonic attack and ferocious virtuosity, spearheaded by Matt Bellamy’s soaring tenor and Dick-ian lyrics. An impressive sound, even if you didn’t know what the hell it was.
Although there's been no official confirmation, the word on the industry grapevine is that this year's Electric Picnic headliners will include Bjork, the Beastie Boys, Primal Scream and Damon Albarn and Paul Simonon's new outfit, The Good, The Bad & The Queen.
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.
Full profiles on Faithless, Antony & The Johnsons, Slayer, The Who, Bell X1, Status Quo, The Flaming Lips, 50 Cent, Madness, Christy Moore, Elton John and Lionel Richie.
BECK is one of the most eclectically talented musicians of his generation. STUART CLARK sees the man play a stormer at Witnness and hears him talk about fame, musical obsession, heroes like Bowie and Black Sabbath and 'Britney fascism'
Not since the death of Elvis has the passing of a music legend so gripped the world. As fans and detractors alike struggle to come to grips with the sad, strange end of Michael Jackson we assess his legacy – as musician, celebrity and enduring icon and talk to some of the people who knew and understood him best.
Our annual HP-7 summit brings together some of the pre-eminent movers and shakers in irish music to reflect on everything from backstage catering to the end of war, pestilence and famine. Your host: Stuart Clark.
Republic Of Loose are that rarest of beasts – an Irish rock band who can get their groove on. Ahead of the release of their new album, they talk about standing out from the crowd.
Stacie Orrico has had some catchy tunes in the past, like ‘More To Life (There’s Gotta Be)’, but her new album Beautiful Awakening is mediocre at best.
Ex-Junglist (and quite a good one at that) Adam F has ditched the 170bpm beats and the studio in Essex and decamped to NYC and the world of 90bpm jiggyness. In short, he’s gone a bit bling.
Although Rihanna tries to hit too many different targets on this album, the beats are up and the lyrics are vacuous enough to guarantee a few more hit singles before anybody finds out.
Chris Cornell is set to play The Olympia Theatre, Dublin. The former front man with Seattle trailblazers Soundgarden hit Ireland for a one-off show in the capital on Sunday 14th June, 2009.
A whopping 60 songs were reportedly recorded for this album, and if these are the best 16 then one can only wonder what those were like that didn’t make the cut.
When she debuted in 2001, the then-20-year-old New Yorker Alicia Keys had a soulfulness well beyond her years, an authoritative piano style that recalled gospel churches in Harlem as much as it did Tchaikovsky and Chopin, an earthy, street-accented, dark-chocolate contralto and an unusually acute emotional understanding of what gave old-school soul records (by Marvin, Stevie and Reverend Al) their magic.
If this album really does mark the fading to black of one of hip-hop’s true heavyweights then at least we can take some consolation in the fact that the self-styled ‘Michael Jordan of rap’ has gone out at the top of his game.
No expense has been spared here. Stages lift and fall, lasers cut through plumes of dry ice, diaphanous movie screens give the impression of 20ft tall gospel singers towering over the crowd.
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 gives your reviewer great pleasure to report that on this album the singer has quite literally cut the crap and created a vibrant and inventive urban variation on an old school R&B set (that’s R&B as in rhythm in the beats and blues in the voice rather than rhinestones and baubles).
