Music in Great Britain

WORLD OF JAZZ, POP AND ROCK Part 3

THE BEST MUSICIANS AND TOP BANDS IN GREAT BRITAIN TODAY

13. Chemical Brothers
As dance music's creative biorhythms hit a low, it's worth remembering the duo who did so much to define the genre's glory days. From the start, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons saw the connections between the records they loved: the stampeding energy that yoked hip-hop to acid house and the rapturous overload that joined techno to 1960s psychedelia. And they are still joining those dots, ever alert to the endless alchemical possibilities of the sampler and sequencer. Sound:20 Songs:16 Gigs:15 Style:7 Attitude:16

14. Sugababes
Every generation produces a girl or boy act that even indie types grudgingly admire - and at the moment, the teenage Sugababes are it. Their languid sound is unique, as is their involvement in songwriting and production, and if there are puppeteers behind the scenes, they are subtle about it. The Sugas have enough of a DIY mentality to excite anoraks ("We just assumed everyone always wrote their own songs"), the pop sensibility to score a string of hits and an apparent ban on smiling. Sound:17 Songs:17 Gigs: 13 Style:11 Attitude:14

15. Basement Jaxx
Brixton duo Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe began their career trying to imitate US house producers before introducing a very British irreverence to their music. The secret of their multicultural melee is not seamless merging, but worlds colliding: Latin rhythms and Jamaican chants ricochet off American house and R&B, which in turn clash with punk and rave. That their new album makes neighbours of Dizzee Rascal, Siouxsie Sioux and a former member of N'Sync says it all. Sound:16 Songs:14 Gigs:17 Style:11 Attitude:13

16. Goldfrapp
There is plenty of sex in pop, but precious little sensuality. After a few years in the shadows as a guest vocalist for the likes of Orbital and Tricky, Alison Goldfrapp (aided by collaborator Will Gregory) emerged to remedy that shortage with a cocktail of ripe carnality and sinister beauty. The duo's albums, Felt Mountain and Black Cherry, are exotic middle-European fantasias co-scripted by Christopher Isherwood and Hans Christian Andersen: music for black forests and red light districts. Sound:16 Songs:10 Gigs:10 Style:18 Attitude:16 Total: 70

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