Black Eyed Peas

Behind the Front in 1998 introduced the first album chapter, with Joints & Jam, Fallin’ Up and The Way U Make Me Feel placing rap alongside funk, jazz colours and soul samples. Will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo developed that approach further on Bridging the Gap. The records have a communal quality before the group’s later stadium-sized refrains: voices trade space, the rhythm carries conversation, and the arrangement feels interested in what happens between its parts.

Fergie’s arrival changed the balance on Elephunk in 2003. Where Is the Love?, Shut Up and Hey Mama gave the group new melodic possibilities and a much wider audience. Her voice could supply a refrain with a different weight while the rappers continued to move around it. The songs opened out without making every trace of the earlier group disappear.

Monkey Business followed in 2005, with Pump It and Don’t Phunk with My Heart among a varied set of singles. Its guest appearances, from James Brown to Q-Tip and John Legend, also show the breadth of the musical conversation. The E.N.D. in 2009 made electronic repetition and dance-floor momentum central to the design. Boom Boom Pow and I Gotta Feeling approach the pop single as an event that keeps gathering people into it. Meet Me Halfway offers another colour within the same album. Hearing these stages together is more revealing than treating the biggest hits as a single unchanging formula. The group’s particular skill is in reorganising a shared performance: deciding when one voice should lead, when a phrase should repeat, and when the whole room should be invited to answer.