Regardless of what revisionist pop culture might otherwise assert after 30 years, there was way, way more music on offer in the `90s than just Grunge. Simply put, not everyone was a flannel-clad acolyte of all things Seattle, despite the Grunge scene’s readily identifiable style and signature sound. Some people consider the `90s to be the golden age of Hip-Hop, the glory days of BritPop or the rebirth of teen-oriented pop ala Brittney Spears and N’Sync. The `90s was also the era of Nu-Metal (may God forgive us), Drum’n’bass, neo-Pop-Punk ala Green Day, Shoegazery ala Lush and Ride, Grebo, Third-Wave Ska and the sort of lazy (and ultimately meaningless) catch-all term alt. rock. Suffice to say, there was a lot going on.
Personally speaking, while I was very much in thrall to Grunge bands like Soundgarden and Mudhoney (Nirvana were never quite my thing, fine little combo though they were), the first half of the `90s, for me, was largely defined by British indie bands like The Wonder Stuff, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Pop Will Eat Itself and The Wedding Present, as well as noisey local ensembles like Pussy Galore, Prong and my beloved Cop Shoot Cop. But as those scenes fractured and mutated, there was one burgeoning subgenre that really grabbed me by both ears and went on to become, to my mind, the actual sound of the decade, and that was Trip-Hop.
And just like Grunge, Trip-Hop’s essence can usually be distilled down into the ouevres of a small handful of distinct names – those being Massive Attack, Tricky and Portishead. As progenitors of this very particular sound, I’d suggest that this triumverate spawned an avalanche of similarly inclined (and, let’s be honest, frequently lesser) artists in their wake, but the same could very easily be said about Grunge.
Right at the top of that triumverate is Massive Attack, whose atmospheric mix of hip-hop beats, dubby effects, lushly cinematic soundscapes and whispered, unconventional rapping effortlessly birthed Trip-Hop with the release of their seismic first LP, Blue Lines. I mean, if I ever had to point to a single recording that sums up all things Trip-Hop, I’d go right to the source with the deliciously menacing “Safe From Harm.”
But while Blue Lines may have indeed set the template (also serving as the springboard for Tricky, nee Tricky Kid, who contributed to several tracks on both that LP and its follow up, Protection, before launching his solo career), the record that genuinely and literally stopped me in my tracks was a non-single cut by Portishead called “Wandering Star.”
A trio of studio producer Geoff Barrow (who’d acted as a tape-op assistant during the recording of Blue Lines), guitarist Adrian Utley and enigmatic vocalist Beth Gibbons, Porthishead – named after a fittingly grim industrial port city in southwest England – indeed mined a similar vein as Massive Attack, but took proceedings in an incalculably deeper direction.
While it seems easy to quantify the ingredients of Portishead – hip-hop beats paired with a frigid flood of minor keys (samples, treated keyboards), spy-movie guitars and Beth Gibbons’ tortured torch songs – the effect of actually hearing that incongruous combination for the first time was bracing and indelible – the veritable “What the fuck is THIS? moment. Between the brittle beats, the ponderously dark tones and Beth’s hushed, haunted and harrowed delivery (her fragile voice is really the wounded heart and shattered soul of this band), Portishead perfected a sound on their debut album Dummy -- released 30 years ago today -- that was entirely their own.
Many have tried to replicate it, but all have failed to duplicate it.
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