Illumination
OnIllumination, 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