A DANCE ALBUM YOU COULDN'T DANCE TO, A CLUB CLASSIC FOR WHEN THE CLUBS CLOSED - MASSIVE ATTACK'S BLUE LINES TRULY REDEFINED NOTIONS OF ARTIST, GROUP AND GENRE. CLASSIC POP EXPLORES THE AMORPHOUS 1991 DEBUT FROM THE BRISTOL COLLECTIVE THAT LEFT
AN INDELIBLE MARK ON BRITISH MUSIC HISTORY...
The Songs
SAFE FROM HARM - Download mp3 high quality or download sendspace
One of the first four songs produced for 6/ue Lines (alongside 8e Thankful For What YbuVe Got, tafe/y and the not-included Any Love) and the first recorded wıth singer Shara Nelson. 3D favoured it, as he felt the other three songs were too retro and soft. Nelson s öpening words of "Mİdnight rockers/ City slickers/ Gunmen /And maniacs" and îts black and white vîdeo set the album's unnerving, clausîrophobic tone. Perhaps more so tha n any other Massİve Attack chart hit, Safe From Horm owes a majör debt to its primary sample, from Bİİİy Cobham s Sfrafus off hîs 1 973 fusion albüm, Specfrum. 3D's "I was lookin' back to see if you were lookin' back at me to see me lookin' back at you ' lyric is lifted from David Essex's Streetfight, from 1973 albüm, Rodc On.
ONE LOVE - Download mp3 high quality
Blue Lines second track turns a meditative two-second piano lick from the Mahavishnu Orchestra plus some select Isaac Hayes into a crawling reggae mantra* İt sounds threatening, despite Horace Andy's lyrics bei ng a hymn to monogamy. The Jamaican singer has been the only outside vocahst to feature on every Massİve Attack albüm.
BLUE LINES - Download mp3 high quality
One of the most straightforward hip-hop cuts on Blue Lines, the title track is rapped över a well-used 1 974 break by Tom Scott And The LA Express. They're not credited and neither are The Blackbyrds. Primarily a duet of 3D and Tricky, with some bîzarre lyrîcal references: "(Take a walk) Billy, don't be a hero", "(Excommunicated from) the brotherhood of man", the "sound of silence" and "walking on sunshine" cou İd ali be pop references from Del Naja's youth. 3D also references his g raf fiti days, which he largely gave up for Massive Attack.. .or maybe didn't, if you're a Banksy conspiracy theorist
BE THANKFUL FOR WHAT YOU'VE GOT
İt was Daddy G's idea to cover this 1974 R&B tune by one-hit wonder Wılliann DeVaughn. Tony Bryan, who appeared on Massive Attack's pre-albu m 1990 single Any Love, returned to sing. The track was remixed for US release, by Chris Stokes and Cyrus Melchor of New Jack Swİng trio Immature, but never commercially released. 3 D thought the soul cover was a bit too musically straightforward for Massive Attack but felt an affînity for the lyric. He told NME\ "İt s a sentiment for the 90s, What's the point in killing people for theİr Nikes? We?e living in a time where nobody can be satisfied with what they've got because of the medîa. You're bombarded wıth stuff to desire."
FIVE MAN ARMY
B/ue t/nes' biggest dub track. Based on the 12" dub mix (by Lewin Bones Lock) of FiveMan Army (1982) featuring Dillinger, Wayne Wade, Trinity, Al Campbell and Junior Tarrılin. With Andy, Tricky and Williams, tfıere are also five vocals on Massive s track. The 1972 Al Green drum lick was sampled around the same time by Eric B & Rakim on Mahogany [ 1990). G references the Wîld
Bunch tour of Japan and İt closes with Horace Andy reprising Money Money and the title track of his 1969 Studio One debut LP, Skylarking.
UNFINISHED SYMPATHY
Nelson was responsible for the words and vocal melody of Blue Lines most ambîtious recording and its biggest hit |No. 13 in the UK, No. 1 in Holland}. "Bits of the melody came into my mİnd," she told Spin. "I couldn't shake it, so I took a break from recording, had a cup of tea, stood in the corner and started singing it to myself to see if I could piece it together."
The strings were the idea of co-producer Jonny Dollar, who first played a synthesised version, then brought in a 40-piece string section conducted by string arranger Will Malone that was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London.
Strangely, the song has no bassline, instead using the orchestra's double basses and the propulsion of the gradually unfurling string arrangement 3D later recalled: "İt was an exercise ın deconstructİon - a song that came wİth verse-bridge^chorus, these three classic songwriting structures, but we ended up leavİng the chorus out and leaving a big space behind, and getting Will Malone to score the strings and build this giant swell of music, because it suddenly had space, This is what gave the song its expanse."
Ironicolly, Mushroom later complained of Nellee Hooper s remİx of Unfinished Sympathy, sayıng, somewhaf ironically: "You don't hear of people remİxing Led Zeppelin or the Mahavishnu Orchestra/' But maybe his memories of it have never been aII that fond? While stili being largely bankrolled by McVey/Cherry's Cherry Bear Organisatıon, since Massive hadn't budgeted to pay for a 40-piece orchestra at Abbey Road, Mushroom had to seli his Mitsubishi Shogun.
DAYDREAMING
The demo of Dayc/ream/ngf got Massive Attack signed to Circa Records (also Neneh Cherry's İabe!) a nd was released as a single in 1990. On it, 3D and Tricky fuse lyrîcal ideas on past house parties, drugs and 1 980s urban life. Of the boped sample, from his 1984 LP Echoes, Wa!!y Bada rou (of Island Records' Compass Poînt Ali Stars} said: "It was done with my negotiated consent I got properly credîted, so I can't see that it could ever be a rip-off+ Given the magnitude of their success afterwards, İt sure looks like something one can only be proud to be a part of."
LATELY
Again, the main sample dominates the musİc, while Mushroom's DJing skills for beat-matching and scratching come to the fore. it ıncludes a sample of Lowrell Simon's Mellov/ Mellov/ Right On, which hit No.37 in the UK charts in 1979.
HYMN OF THE BİG WHEEL
Neneh Cherry co-wrote this track largely with 3D: they'd worked together on her Manchild single. 3D told NME in 1991 that it "does build a btgger oicture than the rest of the tracks on Blue Lines oecause the rest are kind of unfocused - they just drift around in their own way rather than paınt an obvious picture* We're as worried about things like pollutİon as everyone else, its just we don't want to write about it so obviously. We ain't got no solutions to the problems. Just questions, y'know?"
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