Paranoid & Sunburnt
While everyone around them was celebrating resolutely white-boy, hedonistic, 1960s-inspired Britpop, the four Londoners who make up Skunk Anansie released a multiracial, politically-charged debut in 1995 that owed a greater debt to the funk-rock ofSly & the Family StoneandLiving Colourand to the metal mightiness of primeBlack Sabbath. Lyrically, in "Intellectualize My Blackness" and the "100 Ways to Be a Good Girl," vocalist Skin directly confronts prejudice and throws it back in the faces of its vessels. "Selling Jesus" and "I Can Dream" showcase her voice pretty much at the height of its power. Indeed,Paranoid & Sunburntcaptures the band in top form.--Everett True