The Roots - Phrenology

It says it all about the music industry today that perhaps the finest alternative Hip Hip band of the late 1990's and early 2000's have to perform as a late night talkshow house band in order to make a half decent book. Between 1999's breakthrough album Things Fall Apart and its successor Phrenology three years later, The Roots were pretty much untouchable. Recorded over two years, Phrenology threw away the easy-flowing feel of their previous album - and perhaps a few new fans with it - for something a whole lot more ambitious. And it delivered in spades, most notably on lead-off single 'The Seed' which still sounds like the catchiest song of all time seven years later. (Padraic Halpin)