This week it's a case of Six Degrees of R'n'B Separation...The Sisterhood are reining supreme over the upper end of the singles chart with Estelle, Mariah, Madonna, Duffy, Leona and even Kate Bush making an appearance. The normally static US singles chart is also feeling the lady love right now with Mariah chalking up her18th American No. 1 single ‘Touch My Body’ – beating Elvis and, without a shadow of doubt, soon to beat The Beatles' all time high of 20 US chart toppers. ‘Touch My Body’ has also knocked our lovely Leona Lewis off the top spot and Madonna is currently one position behind Leona with her biggest US hit in a long time, '4 Minutes'.

Much has been made of Madonna hitching a Hip Hop Jiggy ride with A list urbanites: Timbaland, Timberlake, Kanye, Danja and Pharrell, as if it’s some sort of desperate attempt to claw back US record sales. However, Madonna, as with most things, has done this before... after all, she collaborated with R'n'B royalty Babyface in 1995 on ‘Take A Bow’ – giving her the biggest selling US single of the year (even knocking TLC’s ‘Creep’ off the No. 1 spot). So here she is with the snap, crackle and R'n'B pop that is ‘Hard Candy’. It’s bags of fun for everyone and suitable for 'Work, Rest and Play'. The album kicks off with 'Candy Shop' which, incidentally, Lourdes says is her favourite track off Mummy’s new album, but then it would be with Madge’s sweet shop-related promises: "I got Turkish Delights." Single number two, 'Give It To Me', soon follows and is almost Madonna at her true to form pop best. And rather surprisingly for an R'n'B album, ‘Hard Candy’, like ‘Confessions On A Dancefloor’, even has the odd Abba moment.

Whilst Madonnarama was the original first lady of pop having already released eight albums by the time Miss Mariah arrived on the scene with her debut in 1990, we cannot ignore the fact that Mariah has just scored her 18th US No. 1 and is about to release her 10th album, ‘E=MC2’, which will no doubt become the biggest selling global album of the year – much like her last one. As with ‘Hard Candy’ it is an ace R'n'B pop album with the 2 M's (Madonna and Mariah) even sharing Mr Nate ‘Danja’ Hills’ producing skills.

Madonna’s new pop pal on ‘4 Minutes’, Justin Timberlake, has come out (so to speak!) in support of the new R'n'B sensation that is Kenna. Justin states, “Kenna is what the world needs to hear... They just don't know it yet," and he’s not arf wrong. As with 'Hard Candy', Parrell is on board producing Kenna and Kenna and Timbaland are two of the six writers (!) involved on the new Ashlee Simpson single ‘Outta My Head’. The track hasn’t exactly set the charts alight in the US (and with a title like that, surely it would have been more suited to Britney) but with such talent on board this will hopefully help Ms Simpson step out from behind her sister’s shadow and become one of the Sisterhood in her own right here in the UK.


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By Nick Neads - T4's Head of Music

T4 Music Maestro Part One featuring Girls Aloud, Leona Lewis, Alicia Keys and The Ting Tings.

T4 Music Maestro Part Two featuring Duffy, Spice Girls and The Brit Box.

T4 Music Maestro Part Three featuring Goldfrapp, HotChip and Shayne Ward.

T4 Music Maestro Part Four featuring the best 40 songs of 2007.

T4 Music Maestro Part Five featuring the first part of his 2008 preview.

T4 Music Maestro Part Six featuring the second part of his 2008 preview.

T4 Music Maestro Part Seven featuring Yazoo.