Illumination
From AwardAnnals
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| Artist(s) | Earth, Wind & Fire |
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| Label | Sanctuary Urban |
| Honors | |
| 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. For other bands, it would have never worked, but Earth, Wind & Fire have always been masters at sophisticated genre-piling. 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… | |
Honors
Reviews
Amazon.com
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. For other bands, it would have never worked, but Earth, Wind & Fire have always been masters at sophisticated genre-piling. 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
