1991 will be forever known as the year the music world shifted on its axis. A lot was still to happen—Nirvana hadn't yet cracked open grunge with 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and Nevermind, and hip hop was still a relatively new genre, slowly gaining commercial recognition. When the laid-back collective now known as Massive Attack managed to rouse themselves to unleash their debut album Blue Lines, no one guessed it would become viewed as a milestone in British dance music or historically regarded as the prototype of trip-hop. While it nodded to older genres like funk, jazz fusion, old-school hip-hop, and dub reggae, it sounded like the birth of something entirely new: a merging of the rootsy and the sophisticated, the soulful and the state-of-the-art, the past and the future. The album is bright, clear, and sharp, with standout songs that sound utterly unlike anything before or since, seamlessly blending propulsive beats, brooding melodies, and dark atmospherics.
Massive Attack’s roots go back to the mid-1980s, when Robert "3D" Del Naja, Grantley "Daddy G" Marshall, and Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles came together to form The Wild Bunch, a Bristol sound system that’s now legendary. They teamed up with others who shared their musical passions, such as producer Nellee Hooper (Soul II Soul, Björk), DJ Milo Johnson, and Adrian “Tricky” Thaws. Blending a love for graffiti art with a mix of downtempo beats and mellow vocals, the collective helped shape and push forward Bristol’s underground music scene. As 3D, who used to be a graffiti artist, mentioned in a 2008 interview with The Telegraph:
“Bristol’s always been great at the underground—whether it’s art or music. It’s like a town pretending to be a city. Local bands grew before hitting the national stage, and because there was no big media or music industry presence, people did it for themselves. There was nothing forced about it—everyone just learned on their own, competing to be the top dog in a small pond.”
By 1988, 3D, Daddy G, and Mushroom evolved into Massive Attack, likely looking to step out from Bristol’s tight-knit creative bubble. As 3D told Humo magazine in 2003, the name came from a “groovy warehouse party in Bristol that we were really into.” That same year, they dropped their debut single, 'Any Love', produced by fellow Bristol talents, Smith & Mighty. A couple of years later, in 1990, they landed their first record deal with Circa Records, thanks in large part to the support of their close friend Neneh Cherry, who had just made waves with her own debut album Raw Like Sushi in 1989.
From the beginning of their career through to their more recent work, Massive Attack has consistently steered clear of self-promotion and the typical celebrity trappings. They’ve never featured their faces on the front covers of their albums or singles, signalling a clear preference for letting their music, rather than their image, speak for their artistry. It also seems they’ve been keen to maintain a level of professional integrity.
The title of “Bristol Sound ambassadors” has never quite sat comfortably with the group either. As 3D bluntly remarked in an April 1991 interview with NME, “There’s this myth about a Bristol sound, but half our album was recorded in London, and the video for ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ was shot in LA.”
Regardless of its geographical origins, their debut album Blue Lines, which features the iconic 'Unfinished Sympathy', was a game-changer when it dropped. Alongside Soul II Soul’s Club Classics Vol. One (1989), The KLF’s White Room (1991), LFO’s Frequencies (1991), The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (1991), and Primal Scream’s Screamadelica (1991), Blue Lines helped lay the foundation for the rise of British dance music at the close of the 20th century. Its seamless blend of hip-hop breakbeats, carefully curated samples (from artists like Billy Cobham, Funkadelic, Al Green, and Isaac Hayes), deep dub grooves, introspective lyrics, and soulful guest vocals honoured its influences while still carving out a fresh and unique sound, unmatched by anything else at the time.
Recorded between Bristol and London in late 1990 and early 1991, Blue Lines was released under the group's Wild Bunch label, through Virgin/Circa. The album wasn’t just a product of Massive Attack's creative vision but also owed a lot to the persistence of a close supporter. As Daddy G admitted to The Observer in 2004:
"We were lazy Bristol twats. It was Neneh Cherry who kicked our arses and got us in the studio. We recorded a lot at her house, in her baby's room. It stank for months and eventually we found a dirty nappy behind a radiator. I was still DJing, but what we were trying to do was create dance music for the head, rather than the feet. I think it's our freshest album, we were at our strongest then.”
With executive production from Cherry’s husband and musical partner, Cameron "Booga Bear" McVey, the album was co-produced by the group and the late Jonny Dollar. Due to sensitivities around the Gulf War, the album and the 'Unfinished Sympathy' single were initially released under the abbreviated name "Massive," as suggested by McVey. However, after a ceasefire was declared in late February 1991, the full name, Massive Attack, was restored for later pressings.
Before Blue Lines was officially released in April 1991, the band dropped two singles, both featuring the powerhouse vocals of Shara Nelson, a new collaborator at the time. Though their professional relationship would be short-lived due to later disputes, her contributions stood out across the album's many highlights. The first single, 'Daydreaming', a percussion-heavy track, was released in October 1990. According to 3D on the band's forum in 2002, this demo helped them secure their first major label deal:
“Virgin/Circa was the most interested at the time, but the industry was cautious. I played a rough vocal idea with Tricky, which became 'Daydreaming.' After we demoed it, people went wild. Everyone wanted us. We went with Circa, released 'Daydreaming,' and then completed the album.”
Nelson’s vocals on the track echo hints of Aretha Franklin's 1972 track of the same name from Young, Gifted And Black, but it’s the back-and-forth between the raspy voices of 3D and Tricky that powers the track. The song lays out the group’s vision, with 3D mentioning “lyrics on the dance floor that raise your spirit” and Tricky proclaiming “hip-hop ya don’t stop.” The track mixes in pop culture and political references, from Thatcherism in the ‘80s ("Maggie this Maggie that Maggie means inflation") to nods to Fiddler on the Roof (“If I were a rich man”) and The Beatles ("Here comes the sun, little darlin’").
The second single, 'Unfinished Sympathy', however, became the song that set Blue Lines apart from everything else—and it still does. Based on a melody Nelson had been developing, it was released in February 1991 and immediately attracted attention. Now regarded as one of the greatest dance tracks ever, the song stood out for its lush orchestration, with a 40-piece orchestra recorded at Abbey Road Studios. Despite its grandeur, the band later admitted that hiring the ensemble was an unexpected expense, pushing them beyond the album’s initial budget. “We had to sell the car to pay for it,” 3D recalled in an interview with NME. Beyond the orchestral arrangement, the track’s emotional core comes from Nelson’s vocals, as she explores the yearning and fascination she feels for a distant lover. Her delivery blends raw vulnerability with poised control, making the song even more powerful.
The album’s opener and third single, 'Safe From Harm,' showcases one of the record’s most haunting and dramatic soundscapes, built around a bass line sample from jazz fusion legend Billy Cobham’s 1973 track 'Stratus'. 3D explained:
“Working with a sample like that you can’t go wrong. Even as a loop with no vocals in it, as soon as you loop that up and listen to it your going ‘yeah’. It just has a total groove. That also encapsulates what it was about in those days of just grabbing four bars from someone else, stealing it, looping it, that whole anarchic way of just building a song on some sort of extended beat or something, and that’s what it was about. That track in particular really does capture that spirit, I think”
Its signature drum break is sampled from Funkadelic's 'Good Old Music' (1970). The atmospheric production sets the stage for Nelson’s commanding vocals, where she promises to protect her “baby” from the chaos of the world, delivering the fierce warning, “if you hurt what's mine, I’ll sure as hell retaliate.” It was one of the first tracks recorded for the initial sessions for Blue Lines and clearly is the consummate opening track for the group, having also used it as track one on their 2006 best-of compilation, Collected.
While Nelson’s presence is felt throughout Blue Lines, reggae legend Horace Andy also leaves a lasting impact on three tracks, most notably the album's closing song, 'Hymn Of The Big Wheel.' In this track, Andy reflects on life’s cyclical nature and the struggle to maintain innocence amid worldly destruction. His most poignant lines confront the environmental damage caused by industrialisation: “We sang about the sun and danced among the trees / And we listened to the whisper of the city on the breeze / Will you cry in the most in a lead-free zone / Down within the shadows where the factories drone.” Despite the bleak outlook, the song ends on a hopeful note, with Andy expressing faith in the sun’s ability to heal and renew: “The ghetto sun will nurture life / and mend my soul sometime again.”
Elsewhere, highlights abound, including the dub-infused 'Five Man Army,' the smooth groove of 'Lately' featuring Nelson on vocals, and the title track 'Blue Lines,' which cleverly samples Tom Scott & The L.A. Express’ 1974 song 'Sneakin' In The Back.' Their cover of William DeVaughn’s 1974 hit 'Be Thankful For What You Got' remains faithful to the original, though it stands out as the most derivative moment on an otherwise forward-thinking album. Featuring vocals from sometime-Wild Bunch collaborator Tony Bryan, the song was chosen by Daddy G, who wanted to cover a classic. It was one of the first songs recorded for Blue Lines, though 3D initially resisted its inclusion, feeling it sounded too “soft and retro.” Nevertheless, he reflected in 1993:
“It’s a sentiment for the Nineties. What’s the point in killing people for their Nikes? We’re living in a time where nobody can be satisfied with what they’ve got because of the media. You’re bombarded with stuff to desire all the time”
In the decades since Blue Lines was released, Massive Attack has weathered internal conflicts, departures, and reunions to build one of the most influential discographies of recent times. Albums like Protection (1994) and Mezzanine (1998) further solidified their place in music history, completing what many consider a trio of iconic works. Though they’ll likely always be associated with the "trip-hop" label, the media-constructed term didn’t formally enter the musical lexicon until June 1994, when Mixmag journalist Andy Pemberton coined it in reference to 'In/Flux,' one of DJ Shadow’s earliest singles. But it’s Blue Lines that is indisputably the first full-length of its kind, paving the way for two more acclaimed debut albums in that vein—Portishead’s Dummy (1994) and long-time collaborator Tricky’s Maxinquaye (1995)—as well as the more refined beats of acts like Morcheeba and Zero 7.
By the end of the decade, trip-hop’s impact was profound and far-reaching. Artists like Moloko, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Kylie Minogue, Radiohead, and Björk embraced its feelings and vibrations. Its influence can be heard in everything from The Matrix soundtrack to Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz, Gotye, Lana Del Rey, FKA Twigs, AIR, The xx, Unkle, Hot Chip, Burial, Beck, Fatboy Slim, Deftones, Fontaines D.C., and beyond. Yet, Massive Attack’s music transcends simple categorisation. Their work isn’t just part of a genre—it’s a lasting testament to the power of great music, pure and simple. Blue Lines is a classic in every sense: a dance album you can’t dance to, a club classic for when the clubs close. Ultimately, it remains one of the most compelling and influential albums of all time—an absolute masterpiece.
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