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The Old Sod has a way of turning up surprisingly soulful female singers. First it was Joss Stone, a blonde, teenage schoolgirl from England’s Devon region, who burst on to the scene with a robust, older-than-her-years voice that drew comparisons to Aretha Franklin. Now comes Corinne Bailey Rae, a twentysomething singer blessed with a smoky, intimate vocal style that has caused British critics to breathlessly describe her as a young Billie Holiday. But, like EMI label mate Stone, Bailey Rae didn’t emerge from the highly cosmopolitan capital of London. Rather, the daughter of a mixed-race marriage hails from the northern city of Leeds. “My dad’s from the Caribbean and my mum’s English,” explai...

It’s been easy to dismiss Sinéad O’Connor as a kook, a volatile artist who seemed hell bent on career self-destruction by refusing to have the American national anthem played before her U.S. concerts and ripping up Pope John Paul II’s photo on Saturday Night Live. The backlash was swift and severe. The outspoken Irish-born singer suffered a nervous breakdown, attempted suicide and announced her retirement from the music business—several times. Last year, O’Connor took out a full-page ad in the Irish Examiner newspaper, pleading with her critics to be left alone. “I have been the whipping post of Ireland’s media for 20 years,” she wrote in the 2,000-word open letter. “If ye all think I am suc...

It looks like Andy Warhol’s fabled Factory in New York. Walls, windows, doors and furniture are all encased in tin foil. Silver balloons add a surreal, festive touch. It’s a photo shoot for Franz Ferdinand, the reigning dukes of pop-rock, and the four band members are happy to play along. After tossing and kicking many rolls of foil, more tin-foolery follows. First, the group mummifies drummer Paul Thomson. Then, hamming it up like Ringo, Thomson turns into a crack-head Tin Man, puffing on a dubious-looking foil pipe. Blame it on their roots. “We’re a product of the Glasgow scene,” says singer Alex Kapranos, “where artists play in bands and bands perform in art galleries. There’s a great cro...

Chris Martin seems perfectly at home in the Big Apple. Although quintessentially English, the Coldplay frontman talks at New York speed, his mouth racing to keep up with his hyperactive mind. And he walks fast, with a New Yorker’s sense of purpose, navigating Manhattan streets like a veteran. Martin is talking with boyish enthusiasm about Coldplay’s next album, X & Y, revealing that it was largely motivated by his becoming a father and Coldplay’s commitment to fighting global poverty. “Sure, we want to outdo Sgt. Pepper or OK Computer,” says Martin, striding along the Hudson River on a warm February day. “But this isn’t just about me and the band. Success doesn’t mean anything if we can’...

There’s a gulf in country music as wide as the Grand Canyon. On one side is a shopping mall, full of cowboy hats, sequins and schlocky songs with a well-polished sheen. On the other is a saloon, with soaring voices, twanging guitars and songs gutsy enough to shake the shingles loose. Neko Case resides on the saloon side of country. Over the course of three impassioned studio albums and countless tours of rowdy barrooms, Case has blazed a trail across North America that left fans awestruck and critics breathlessly drawing comparisons to Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. Now Case has made an album that captures the unbridled emotion of her live shows. Recorded in three different venues, including ...

Boyish John Mayer bursts into the hotel room like the Sundance Kid, crouching down with pretend guns a-blazing. The cocky, playfully combative pose befits the U.S. singer-songwriter who, at 26, is already at the top of his game and riding high on newfound fame. So far, Mayer has enjoyed multi-platinum sales for his Rooms for Squares album and then saw his current album, Heavier Things, debut at number one. Meanwhile, there’s a Grammy Award on Mayer’s mantle, which he won for “Your Body is a Wonderland,” beating out his idol, Sting, and one of his biggest supporters, Elton John. Now, after opening for Sting’s European spring dates, Mayer is headlining his own major North American tour—one of ...

Gwen Stefani is sitting in her 1920s mansion, east of Hollywood, waxing breathlessly about her solo debut album, Love Angel Music Baby. “Dude, the record is so frickin’ good,” she gushes, “not in a braggy way—I’m not the only one who worked on it—but I feel like every track could be a single.” Stefani’s enthusiasm is understandable; the singer has just finished work on her much-awaited “dance record” which, by her own admission, had a difficult genesis. “I got to work with so many talented people,” she continues, referring to collaborations with such heavyweights as songwriter Linda Perry and producers like Dr. Dre and Outkast’s Andre 3000, “that I’d sometimes feel that I was drowning in the...

Mention the White Stripes and most people think of garage-rock revival groups like the Strokes and the Hives. True, the Detroit duo does owe something to the raw, three-chord tradition of 1960s’ classics like “Louie Louie” and “Wild Thing.” But the group’s tastes run much deeper, all the way back to blues artists like Son House and Blind Willie McTell, prompting some critics to describe them as a mutant blues band. Fact is, singer-guitarist Jack White and his ex-wife drummer Meg White are art-rockers—not of the King Crimson variety, but of the modernist aesthetic sort. From their name, taken from the peppermint candy and symbolizing childhood and innocence, to their use of simple musical for...

Six years is an eternity in pop music. Hits come and go. Superstars quickly fade, only to be supplanted by a new round of pop royalty. An artist who falls out of the limelight runs the risk of being quickly forgotten. Such is the transitory nature of the music world that keeping one’s hat in the ring is essential for any pop performer looking at career longevity. Sarah McLachlan needn’t worry. Although it’s been half a dozen years been since her last album, Surfacing, the Vancouver diva’s profile has remained high through remixes, charity work and her role as brainchild and den mother of the hugely successful Lilith Fair festivals. There are also good reasons why it’s taken McLachlan so long...

My 13-year-old son, Duncan, came with me to a listening session for the new Radiohead album, Hail to the Thief, organized by EMI in an IMAX theatre equipped with massive, state-of-the-art, surround-sound speakers. Duncan writes about music for a magazine called Brand New Planet, so he had a legitimate reason for attending. (In truth he was more excited about seeing a sneak preview of The Matrix Reloaded that EMI had added.) As the lights in the IMAX theatre darkened and the hypnotic groove of the opening track “2+2=5” kicked in, my son and I settled in for an accentuated aural experience. By the time he heard the dreamy, rhythmic strains of “There, There,” Duncan leaned over to me and whispe...