DJ Shadow, a. k. a. Josh Davis, could be credited with bringing newfound introspection to the gloating sounds of hip-hop. Condensed with urban oscillations and scatological beats, Endtroducing. shutters with eclectic samples and aural montages that reach beyond the constraints of hip-hop style. Enhancing the mix with fundamentals of rock, soul, funk, ambient, and jazz, the modern fusions fail to go unnoticed, even by the casual listener. While most of the tracks are compiled by layering samples from vinyl treasures found in used-record bins, the production quality of the mosaic is unmatched. [+]

Respect features all the classic songs by the original Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. Rooted in a gospel tradition that was to inform her soul-charged sound, her impact on pop music, and in particular American pop music was profound. It was the run of late-60s Atlantic hits featured here ("Respect", "Chain of Fools", "I Say A Little Prayer") that made her a star but as this "best of" shows, there was plenty more to come. Aretha was discovered all over again by a new generation in the 80s thanks to her role and performance ("Think") in hit musical The Blues Brothers. Riding high on a wave of success, duets with latter day icons followed like the epic "I Knew You Were Waiting" with stubble-faced George Michael and the anthemic "Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves" with self-proclaimed diva Annie Lennox. Respect is certainly due to the remarkable talent of Aretha Franklin and this double disc anthology thoroughly represents the diva in her full majesty. -Carol Baines.

On Boy in the Corner, 18-year-old East Londoner Dylan "Dizzee Rascal" Mills sets himself the task of melding British hip-hop with UK-garage. Both styles have an unenviable history of providing a sonic backdrop to violence and criminality, and both are subject to excessive scrutiny from obsessive purists who view miscegenation as heresy. So it's little surprise that Mills' debut sounds so paranoid, claustrophobic and unsettling; this is front-line music, fidgety, distracted and distracting. It is, in the main slow, stripped-down and awkward, recalling Kraftwerk, Afrika Bambaataa, Schooly D and LL Cool J as much as Dizzee's UK peers. At times it lives up to the extravagant praise many have already bestowed upon it. "I Luv U", the nagging single, is brilliantly conceived-boy and girl talking about one another without hearing, a perfect encapsulation of how disconnection is the norm, even if you've got two mobiles, a pager and an e-mail address. "Fix Up, Look Sharp", sampled from Billy Squier's 1980 rock classic "Big Beat", is as near as the record comes to straightforward rap, its joyous flavour provides a much needed moment of uplift to what is an often brilliant but densely oppressive album. -Angus Batey.

Greatest Hits Chapter One carves an unusual career path for those wholesome Backstreet Boys. Although all five members are from the USA, they had their first hit singles, "We've Got It Goin On" and "I'll Never Break Your Heart", in Europe. The story unfolds further as their singles marched with regularity into various Top Tens around the world at the end of the 1990s-as they "broke through" and won a string of prestigious awards. Chapter One begins with the somewhat childlike "We've Got It Goin On" and continues through all the greats such as "Larger Than Life", "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" and the new song "Drowning". -Ulf Behlen.

So much unnecessary fuss was made over Enigma's juxtaposition of the sexual and sacred. After all, Prince had been doing it for years, and his take on it was far more interesting-and a lot more daring. But Enigma's MCMXC A. D. did manage to work a lot of people into a lather, both on the dance floor and behind the pulpit. Their inclusion of chanting monks in "Sadeness", over wooshy ambient noises and a slower hip-hop-appropriated beat was a sensation. "Callas Went Away" promised more than it could deliver, although "Mea Culpa" stands as one of the few shining moments on the CD. The idea of mixing new age aural wallpaper with beats that you can do a slow grind to is actually rather intriguing. Spicing it up with controversial religious chants isn't a bad idea either. But there's got to be something personal to it. [+]

After three albums that seemed to find Moby in some sort of creative stasis, Last Night sees the once-restless DJ/producer changing the record and returning to one of his first loves: the heaving dancefloors of his native New York. Soulful, uplifting piano rave is the order of the day here, and while some hallmarks of Play remain-Moby still has a fascination for long, tearful synth lines and sampled vocals, which he drops in here and there, seemingly to yield the maximum emotional response-Last Night still feels like a clean slate. "I Like to Move in Here" shimmies along on a languid house beat that doffs a cap to early hip-hop in the shape of a cameo from MC Grandmaster Caz, one of the writers of "Rapper's Delight", while "Everyday It's 1989" is the sort of overdriven, ecstatic piano house that Moby perfected on his 1995 classic Everything Is Wrong. There's more guest spots in the shape of British MC Aynzli, the Nigerian 419 Squad and Sylvia from dark NYC disco band Kudu, but the most impressive thing about Last Night is the peaks that Moby can reach when he's working alone: see the grand, emotive swell of "Sweet Apocalypse", cold synths and driving beats that, were it released by James Murphy, would be hailed as genius-and rightfully, too. -Louis Pattison.

Gotan Project give new meaning to the term French Dance Music with their debut La Revancha Del Tango. A collaboration between soundtrack composers Philippe Cohen Solal and Christophe Mueller and Argentinean guitarist Eduardo Makaroff, the Gotan project project are more about Tangos and accordions than chic disco-house and vocoders. And while the Parisian trio's debut is unlikely to set any superclub dance floors alight, it's unique, bewitching and incredibly French. Part ingenious dance hybrid, part spine-tingling soundtrack, the success of their peculiar mix of strident break-beats, eerie violins and those all-important accordions owes no small debut to Solal & Mueller's cinematic expertise. Exuding enchanting-chilling atmosphere, tracks play out like a sensual score to the nocturnal life of Paris' Latin Quarter. The longing melody of "Queremos Paz" and the jazzy "Last Tango in Paris" are pure romance, and the frantic Latin rhythms of the only real club contender, "Triptico", conjure the hectic café society, but most affecting are the backstreet sleazy of Epoca and swagger of "Chunga's Revenge"; both as hypnotic as they are sinister. Strange amalgams of dub bass and unhinged cabaret vocals add to Gotan Project's allure, but it's the passion and drama that mesmerise, and no dance music has more of both than a Tango. -Dan Gennoe.

Zero 7's ability to conjure beautiful lullabies with all the romance of 1960s French pop, as found on their debut long-player Simple Things, would have made them the toast of soundtrack composers and chillout connoisseurs the world over. Unfortunately, two French men beat Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker to the title of Masters Of Comedown Cool, leaving the London duo to a life time of being termed the British Air. And justifiably so to some degree; the similarities between Zero 7's lush cinematic soundscapes and those of Air's Moon Safari and The Virgin Suicides Soundtrack are so strong as to sound almost intentional. Nonetheless, their debut is a truly gorgeous album. All the tried and tested atmospheric tricks are in play-bleeps and whooshes layered over plodding Fender Rhodes chords, swathes of strings and tender trumpet parps-but it's Binns & Hardaker's languid grooves and the soft melancholy of their melodies that make dream-state instrumentals "Give It Away" and "Polaris" utterly enchanting. The real power of Simple Things, however, is in its songs. As beautiful as their ambient strains are, it's when laid beneath the seductive vocals of Australian diva Sia on the ethereal "Destiny" or the heart breaking "Distractions" that their potency becomes apparent. With such moving tracks as these, Zero 7 dispel the notion that Simple Things is just another collection of nice background music and that they're just riding on Air's coattails. -Dan Gennoe.