Audio CD review:
Earth Wind & Fire - Illumination

Earth Wind & Fire - Illumination

Band: Earth Wind & Fire Title: Illumination Rating: Release Date: 20 September, 2005 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Lovely People feat. Will-I-Am of the Black Eyed Peas 2: Pure Gold 3: A Talking Voice Interlude 4: Love's Dance 5: Show Me the Way feat. Raphael Saadiq 6: This Is How I Feel feat. Big Boi, Kelly Rowland and Sleepy Brown 7: Work it Out 8: Pass You By 9: The One 10: Elevated feat. Floetry 11: Liberation 12: To You feat. Brian McKnight 13: Bonus Track: The Way You Move feat. Kenny G

Editoral Review For other bands, it would have never worked, but Earth, Wind & Fire have always been masters at sophisticated genre-piling. On Illumination, Earth, Wind & Fire take a hip-hop strategy and turn it on its head, working rhymes and beats into their still pudding-smooth harmonies and sun-warmed, ethereal soul. If anyone has earned the right, it's frontmen Philip Bailey and Maurice White and the rest of the gang. Few other 35-year-old, eight-time Grammy-winning bands can claim as many followers or liberally-borrowing samplers. Where other old-timers might have let the young'uns--in this case Big Boi, Will. I. Am, and Kelly Rowland, among others--scribble their ultra-mod, find-it-here brand of cool all over the record, Earth, Wind & Fire are able to maintain their elemental excellence in the midst of the hip-hop boogie shuffle. Hear it on "The One," as well as the white-hot spectacle "This Is How I Feel" and the Raphael Saadiq smoothie "Show Me the Way. " The Rolling Stones aren't the only Rock and Roll Hall of Famers to score an incredible new disc in 2005. --Tammy La Gorce .. You can see a complete list of all Earth Wind & Fire discography, or go back to the Earth Wind & Fire tabs