Portishead - Dummy (1994) (1 Viewer)

What are some other good trip hop albums?

I have all the portishead albums...prolific they ain't.
The first two morcheeba, before the went pop.
Sneaker pimps, becoming x, really like that one. Then the lads fired kelli ali & tried to sing themselves, bad move.
Tricky, maxinequaye, great but not as perfect as dummy. Anything I heard after max was patchy.
Have 2 massive attack albums. Like the music but their mumbly rapping I can take or leave.
 
What are some other good trip hop albums?

I have all the portishead albums...prolific they ain't.
The first two morcheeba, before the went pop.
Sneaker pimps, becoming x, really like that one. Then the lads fired kelli ali & tried to sing themselves, bad move.
Tricky, maxinequaye, great but not as perfect as dummy. Anything I heard after max was patchy.
Have 2 massive attack albums. Like the music but their mumbly rapping I can take or leave.

More Kraut than trip hop but Geoff Barrow from Portishead has a band called Beak> that are well worth checking out.

I always preferred the live in NYC versions of the Dummy tunes to the album.
 
A perfect album to have been listening to these past few days with all the shite thats been going on, and how crap its been making everyone feel (me included).

It captures a particular mood. Kind of sad, but consoling at the same time.

I remember hearing this way back and thinking I'd never heard anything like it. I came to it about a year after it was released, and in an odd kind of way. I knew Sour Times and Glorybox from the radio but it was when I got a copy of the first War Child album (Help) that I started to take proper notice. That album was released in a major rush. So much so that the CD didn't even come with a track listing. I listened to that ablum over and over, without properly realising who half the bands were. The internet, as we know it today, did not exist. I eventually got a track listing somewhere, months later.

But Morning Air was kind of unmistakably Portishead. That was on the following album (released in 97), but I didn't know that at the time. I went out and got Dummy. It probably didn't do a whole lot for me at the time. It was a summer during my college days. I had just learned to drive so I was driving a lot. And I was listening to music in the car a lot. Dummy didn't really fit that bill.

I dont' think I started to fully appreciate it until I went back to it after Third came out. Likewise, Portishead (2nd album).

Of the 3 this is my favourite. Its interesting that a lot of folks are voicing their love for Third, over the other 2. This is the one for me though.

I dunno, theres a kind of subtlety to it. The songs are nice, but maybe they don't grab the attention straight away. That might be due to there being so many quieter songs in a row, and its hard enough to tell one from the other. Repeated listens sort that.

'Its' a Fire' is my favourite song from it. I only realised lately that this was a bonus track (wikipedia page says it was on the CD version only). I rebought the vinyl last year and wondered where the hell the song went. Anyway, I love the subtle organ playing behind Beth's vocal. Its one of the more soulful songs on it and its if they took extra care to make sure the music stayed as subtle as possible, so as not to distract from the vocal. If you stripped out all of the music and left only vocal, it'd still be a stunning song.

So many good songs though. I remember them playing Wandering Star at Electric Picnic and nearly being in tears with emotion.

It'd be hard to imagine anyone else singing these songs. Mention has been made of Gibbon's voice. Its what makes Portishead. Apologies to Geoff Barrow el al, but thats just how it is.

It was such a privilege to see them live, and its encouraging that they released a new song in the past couple of weeks. I know Barrow has his Beak project and seems to be doing other bits and bobs (he did the soundtrack to the movie, Ex-Machina). I never saw them back in the day, so if theres even a remote chance they'll get together for more gigs or even another album, I'll happily cling to that.

The only other band from that Bristol 'Trip-Hop' scene I ever really got into was Massive Attack. I was a huge fan of theirs for the first 3 ablums (they lost me at number 4). I still like those albums today, but its all about Portishead now.

I'll go 4/5. Nah, fuck it, 5/5.
 
I was too busy listening to the second and third album all week to bother with Dummy but I think I'll give it three stars. My favorite bit is the opening chords of Roads. I can't decide which of the two later albums I prefer.
 
Listening to it right now on streaming as it has that extra track that was mentioned earlier (that isn't on my CD). The extra track is good but it really disrupts the flow of the album, not sure if it's because I'm used to it being absent or because it doesn't quite fit the mood of the other songs.

I got the second Portishead album when it came out after hearing "Cowboys" on a Q Magazine compilation, I was instantly hooked but it took me a while to buy Dummy (in those days of pocket money and relying on what Golden Discs in Stillorgan and Nutgrove carried). It's a hard call to make as to which of their albums I prefer, yesterday I would have put it as my favourite with Third and s/t coming quickly after. However, Dummy has ended and the second album has just started so that's now my favourite. They're all perfect really, love the live in NYC album too.

I never got to see them back in the day, a mate saw them at the Olympia (I think) and I think it's in his top three concerts ever. I did go to the ATP they did when they reformed, it was my birthday my night before so I had beer, cake and a fantastic view of an unbelievably good concert (they played loads of Third, which no one had heard before). What a weekend.
 
Ok, I was mad into this album when very young because in my head it made me a bit more sophisticated than the usual Blur/NOFX I was listening to, and besides, OK Computer hadn't come out yet. I couldn't really talk about it with my mates though cos they'd just slag me over it so it was a "secret" sophistication.

I don't really know much about the band themselves, wiki says Beth GIbbons was only about 29 when it came out but that seemed so ancient to me at the time, I thought it was weird that someone so "old" was playing "pop" music. Oh man.

The opening chords of Mysterons immediately remind me of being about 12 and listening to the album as quiet as possible because I didn't want to disturb my brother on the other side of the room.

I'd forgotten about Sour Times, what a great track. Remember loads of bands went this way? Space in 1998 were like a cheesy casio version of this kind of thing. They were hardly the worst though, it all went seriously awry a few years later with the obligatory lounge track on every album and by the year 2000 I believe they were calling it "dinner party music" cos it was all such inoffensive, lifeless stuff. Ugh.

It's quite hard to write about a lot of the songs individually as, bar Sour Times and Glory Box, they tend to exist more on vibe than melody don't they? A lot of them i'd struggle to remember if asked. Way back when I used to prefer Becoming X by the Sneaker Pimps to this album because that one was a bit poppier, every song had a bit of a distinctive chorus, while some on this album get by on vibe alone. Listening back now this album is a billion times better but I can see why I thought that at the time. If Sour Times and Glory Box were removed though I wonder would people hold this album in nearly as high regard though?

I love the spaghetti western guitar all the way through it, it's rare enough that stuff breaks into the mainstream, I can only think Marco Pirroni from Adam & the Ants doing something similar. So there we go, a strange link between the completely ludicrous pop of Antmusic and the oh so serious grown up music on show here.

Anyway, 10/10 but God it was responsible for an awful lot of garbage afterwards.
 
If Sour Times and Glory Box were removed though I wonder would people hold this album in nearly as high regard though?
I think "Mysterons", "Roads" and "Wandering Star" are as strong as those two tracks and make the album what it is. "Roads" is fucking amazing. I think "Glory Box" and "Sour Times" are great tracks but the rest is hardly filler. So far the only song of theirs that I think is anything close to filler/a miss is that Abba cover, which is fine but wish they had done something new themselves rather than a cover.
 
I think "Mysterons", "Roads" and "Wandering Star" are as strong as those two tracks and make the album what it is. "Roads" is fucking amazing. I think "Glory Box" and "Sour Times" are great tracks but the rest is hardly filler. So far the only song of theirs that I think is anything close to filler/a miss is that Abba cover, which is fine but wish they had done something new themselves rather than a cover.
I don't mean the rest are filler, not at all, but they're not immediately as hooky.
 
Anyway, 10/10 but God it was responsible for an awful lot of garbage afterwards.

One of the better albums it influenced was Goldfrapp's Felt Mountain. Actually Felt Mountain was probably more inspired by this (had to check the year, 1997)

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One of the better albums it influenced was Goldfrapp's Felt Mountain. Actually Felt Mountain was probably more inspired by this (had to check the year, 1997)
I love Felt Mountain but i'm so glad Goldfrapp moved on from the dinner-party music scene.
 

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