IN: Xenomania is an English songwriting and production team founded by Brian Higgins and based in Kent, England. Formed after Higgins met Miranda Cooper, Xenomania has written and produced for renowned artists such as Cher, Kylie Minogue, Dannii Minogue, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Pet Shop Boys, The Saturdays and the Sugababes. In particular, all but one of Girls Aloud's studio albums have been entirely written and produced by Xenomania. Sugababes' "Round Round" and Girls Aloud's "Sound of the Underground" have been credited with reshaping British pop music for the 2000s.

Xenomania worked with American pop singer Britney Spears in 2003 during sessions for her fourth album In the Zone. The song submitted, "Graffiti My Soul", was not chosen for the album. While the record company loved the song, Spears felt that it needed more of a chorus. Higgins said that they wanted "essentially 'Sound of the Underground 2'." It later appeared on Girls Aloud's What Will the Neighbours Say?. The production team were due to work with rock bands New Order and Franz Ferdinand, but both sessions proved fruitless. Xenomania was due to produce for New Order's Waiting for the Sirens' Call, but Peter Hook said they "scrapped the Brian Higgins stuff because we didn't like it. I thought he did quite a good job on Girls Aloud but he didn't do a good job on us." Franz Ferdinand's drummer Paul Thomson said, "We wrote with Higgins for a while and initially we thought we'd work more with him but it didn't really work out. We just realized that we're not really a pop group." Xenomania were reported to have written five songs for Leona Lewis's second album, Echo (2009), described by Cooper as "tragic songs with a twist". The songs did not make the album. In 2012, Xenomania were reported to be working with Christina Aguilera. Higgins spoke of bad experiences with bigger artists to Literally magazine in 2009: "Everything about us is about enormous enthusiasm for something. And therefore big artists can come in and they think "they're the flavour of the whatever, let's take their thing and then we'll do what we want with it..." Well, no, that's not acceptable anyway. I've had that experience happen where the big artists were fine until they got into the mix room and then they basically pulled the record to pieces. So I took my name off the record and the writing credits off the record. Because they're assholes. And they sold about 20,000 copies, and they've never been seen since. So big artists are often jerks of the biggest order. And often people say don't meet your heroes because you'll be let down, and I sort of understand why people would say that."
QUESTION: How did that collaboration with New Order and Franz Ferdinand turn out ?
IN: Steven Lee Lukather (born October 21, 1957) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, arranger and record producer, best known for his work with the rock band Toto. A prolific session musician, Lukather has recorded guitar tracks for more than 1,500 albums representing a broad array of artists and genres. He has also contributed to albums and hit singles as a songwriter, arranger and producer. Lukather has released seven solo albums, the latest of which, Transition, was released in January 2013.

The 1989 album Lukather came about after Toto had been recording and playing for 11 years, and the consensus among the band members was to take a break. As Lukather had written a number of songs that did not appear on Toto albums, he decided to pursue a solo album, with the intention of presenting a dimension of his music that fans would be unfamiliar with. He collaborated with many notable musicians, including Eddie Van Halen, Richard Marx, Jan Hammer, Steve Stevens, and fellow Toto members Jeff Porcaro and David Paich. Lukather has said that the album was produced very simply, and that a lot of ambient studio noise--counting off on various tracks, for instance--is audible on it. He also credits bands Pink Floyd, Cream, Led Zeppelin, and guitarists Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton as influences on the album. The single "Swear Your Love" came from the album. Candyman, recorded and mastered from March 1993 through November 1993, was a collaboration of musicians who were for the most part also in Lukather's band Los Lobotomys. Toto familiars Simon Phillips and David Paich participated as well as David Garfield, John Pena, Chris Trujillo, Lenny Castro, Larry Klimas, Fee Waybill, Richard Page, and Paul Rodgers. Lukather recorded the album in mostly live takes with little overdubbing. Some international fans were confused about whether Candyman was a Steve Lukather album or a Los Lobotomys album. The Japanese and US releases of Candyman were under the Los Lobotomys name rather than Lukather's; the Japanese release also featured a version of the Hendrix song "Red House". The European release of Candyman was credited to Lukather alone. Additionally, the touring band for the album was sometimes introduced as "Steve Lukather and Los Lobotomys" and sometimes as just "Los Lobotomys". The song "Borrowed Time" was released as a single in Europe and included "Red House" as a B-side. Lukather describes 1997's Luke as a much different and more "introspective" album than his previous two solo efforts. The album is a concentrated collection of many of Lukather's musical influences, and he deliberately let those influences come out on the album. Luke is an experimental album, and like Candyman it was recorded mostly in live sessions with minimal overdubbing and processing afterwards. Luke also features instrumentation not heard on previous Lukather albums: pedal steel, Harmonicas, Mellotrons, and experimental guitar, bass, and drum sounds. The US version of Luke includes a version of the Jeff Beck song "The Pump". The song "Hate Everything About U" was released as a single.
QUESTION:
What is Candyman?