Massive attack

Massive attack
Massive attack on September 13, 2007 in Barakaldo
General information
origin	Bristol , England
Genre (s)	Trip-hop , electronica
founding	1987
Website	massiveattack.co.uk
Current occupation
Singing , production , music programming , keyboard , sampler	Robert "3D" Del Well
Keyboard , production , music programming , sampler , vocals	Grantley "Daddy G" Marshall
former members
Production , keyboard , music programming , sampler	Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles (1988–1998)

Massive Attack Logo from the Blue Lines album

Massive Attack is a British trip-hop - band from Bristol . Alongside Tricky , Smith & Mighty and producer Nellee Hooper, she emerged from the artist collective The Wild Bunch in her hometown in the late 1980s and is considered to be one of the style-defining bands in her genre.

Band history

Founding members of Massive Attack are Robert "3D" Del Naja , Grantley "Daddy G" Marshall, and Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles. In 1990 they released the first single Daydreaming . After a few more singles, the debut album Blue Lines was released in 1991 , on which Tricky , an old friend from The Wild Bunch times, also played. The music on this album is characterized by a consistently relaxed, slowly grooving beat , the use of samples from jazz rock (including from Billy Cobham , Tom Scott and the Mahavishnu Orchestra ) and the use of various singers; including Shara Nelson ( Unfinished Sympathy and Safe from Harm ) and Tracey Thorn ( Protection and Better Things ).

Shortly after the appearance of Blue Lines , the group renamed itself to Massive due to the Gulf War , as the phrase Massive Attack was used in the course of war reporting for area bombing. The name initially led to confusion; a US tour flopped. In 1994 the band changed the name back to Massive Attack . Even in later years Massive Attack protested against military action, especially in connection with the Iraq war . Again under the old name, the second album Protection was released in 1994 with Tracey Thorn , Nicolette and Horace Andy as guest singers. With Weather Storm and Heat Miser it contained two instrumentals for the first time. Both were composed by Craig Armstrong , who was also responsible for the string arrangements for the song Sly . At the same time, Tricky ended the collaboration with the band and started a successful solo career. No Protection was established in 1995 as Protection - Remix by Mad Professor published. In the same year, the band took part in the Help album for the benefit of Bosnian war victims with the song Fake the Aroma (essentially a new version of the piece Karmacoma by Protection ). Two of Protection's songs can be heard in the film 187 - A Deadly Number .

1997 came out an EP called Risingson . This song was the first single from the 1998 album Mezzanine and showed the new direction of Massive Attack. The album is characterized by the first use of electric guitars, slow beats and dark sounds. Guest singers were Elizabeth Fraser (formerly Cocteau Twins , among others on the song Teardrop ), Horace Andy and Sara Jay. The fans were partly disappointed; nevertheless the album was a commercial success and received very positive reviews. Vowles got out in 1999 because he too did not agree with the musical development of the band. In addition, Massive Attack had contributed a song to the film Pi by Darren Aronofsky in 1998 .

At first it was quiet around the band again until the beginning of 2003 the album 100th Window was released, which was written almost single-handedly by Robert Del Naja and producer Neil Davidge . "Daddy G" got out at this time to take time out for his family. On the following tour to 100th Window he came back. The album is a consistent further development of mezzanine and contains complex, electronic soundscapes and a melancholy atmosphere. Robert Del Naja did the vocal part himself, and Sinéad O'Connor and Horace Andy were also guest singers. For the first time a Massive Attack album contained no samples. In 2005, the band released a complete soundtrack for the first time - for the feature film Unleashed - Unleashed .

In 2006 a Collected Best of CD was released, which contains songs from fifteen years of band history and a new piece with Terry Callier . In addition, a special edition was released which, in addition to the normal CD, also contains a dual disc with unreleased material, remixes and videos. The release of the CD was supported by an extensive tour, during which Elizabeth Fraser supported the band for the first time as a guest singer.

In 2007 things got a little quieter for the band, as they also finished soundtracks for the documentaries In Prison My Whole Life and Battle in Seattle at the same time as the completion of the fifth studio album . In 2008 Massive Attack were back on tour, where they presented new guest singers as well as new songs. The highlight of the 2008 tour was leading the Meltdown Festival , where Grace Jones made her comeback.

In February 2010 the fifth studio album Heligoland was released . In addition to Robert Del Naja and Daddy G, who is involved in an album production for the first time since mezzanine, the album also features Horace Andy , Damon Albarn , Guy Garvey from Elbow , Hope Sandoval , Tunde Adebimpe from TV on the Radio and Martina Topley-Bird as To hear singer. Robert Del Naja relied on the proven team around Neil Davidge for production, while Daddy G received support from the British production team The Robot Club . The track Paradise Circus was released in October 2011 in a remix version by Burial together with the new song 4 walls as a 12 ″ single.

After a break of several years, the EP Ritual Spirit was released on January 28, 2016 . Guest musicians are Tricky ( Take It There ), the Young Fathers ( Voodoo In My Blood ), Roots Manuva ( Dead Editors ) and Azekel ( Ritual Spirit ).

meaning

Massive Attack influenced the entire trip-hop genre and with it bands like Morcheeba and Portishead . Both the debut album Blue Lines and the 1998 album Mezzanine are listed by the US music magazine Rolling Stone in its list of the "500 best albums of all time". Also known are Massive Attacks music videos, which are constructed in a similarly sophisticated way as the music itself. For example, the video for Unfinished Sympathy from the Blue Lines album, shot by Baillie Walsh, comes without a single cut ( one-cut video ) - that is, you can see a single moving shot from start to finish. Another one-cut video filmed by Michel Gondry is the video for Protection . The video for Teardrop , shot by Walter Stern, which shows a child singing in the womb, won the 1998 MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Video.

Others

The song Teardrop runs as background music in the intro of the TV series Dr. House , RTL uses a specially composed song due to license disputes, but it is very reminiscent of Teardrop . The original can be heard on the DVD episodes released in Germany, as well as in the commercial for the video game Assassin's Creed . The song can also be heard in an episode of the Prison Break series . In the first Matrix film you can hear the song Dissolved Girl . Angel can also be heard in many soundtracks, especially the bass-heavy, instrumental first minute (e.g. Snatch - Pigs and Diamonds , in the opening credits of Firewall , as a leitmotif in the film Stay , or in episode 22 of season 4 of the series The West Wing ). The song Angel can also be heard in the commercial for Far Cry 2 , a Hugo Boss commercial with Ryan Reynolds and an Adidas commercial with Zinedine Zidane. The song Inertia Creeps was used in the movie Stigmata .

The Perfecto-Mix from Unfinished Sympathy is used as the title melody for the series Zwei on Kallwass on Sat.1 , and also in the instrumental version regularly as inter-music for the information in the morning on DLF . The song Teardrop also runs again and again on the ARD series Sternenfänger .

Unfinished Sympathy is also used in the movie "Sliver" starring Sharon Stone and William Baldwin.

The theme music for the British crime series Luther is Paradise Circus from the Heligoland album .

On December 11, 2011, her song Splitting the Atom premiered on the American HBO series Luck with Dustin Hoffman as the theme music.

The instrumental track "Superpredators" can be heard in the opening and closing credits of the feature film The Jackal with Bruce Willis and Richard Gere.

The name "Massive Attack" has a double meaning: literally translated from English it means "massive attack". In the Jamaican-Creole language , Massive stands for audience , the band name for “attack on the audience”.

Discography

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1991	Blue lines	DE31 (17 weeks) DE	AT5 (12 weeks) AT	CH26 (7 weeks) CH	UK13 × 2 Double platinum (88 weeks)UK	-	First published: April 8, 1991
1994	Protection	DE63 (8 weeks) DE	AT21 (6 weeks) AT	CH29 gold (3 weeks)CH	UK4th platinum (16 weeks)UK	-	First published: September 26, 1994
1998	Mezzanine	DE6th gold (42 weeks)DE	AT3 gold (16 weeks)AT	CH6th platinum (24 weeks)CH	UK1 × 2 Double platinum (54 weeks)UK	US60 (7 weeks) US	First published: April 20, 1998
2003	100th window	DE3 (14 weeks) DE	AT4th gold (15 weeks)AT	CH1 gold (16 weeks)CH	UK1 gold (6 weeks)UK	US69 (6 weeks) US	First published: February 10, 2003
2010	Heligoland	DE4 (10 weeks) DE	AT5 (9 weeks) AT	CH2 (14 weeks) CH	UK6th gold (7 weeks)UK	US46 (3 weeks) US	First published: February 8, 2010

Compilations

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2006	Collected	DE24 (10 weeks) DE	AT13 (10 weeks) AT	CH4th gold (18 weeks)CH	UK2 × 2 Double platinum (33 weeks)UK	US198 (1 week) US	First published: March 27, 2006

EPs

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1992	EP	-	-	CH35 (1 week) CH	UK27 (4 weeks) UK	-	First published: February 10, 1992

More EPs

• 2016: Ritual Spirit

Soundtracks

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2004	Danny the Dog	-	-	CH92 (1 week) CH	UK70 (1 week) UK	-	First published: October 11, 2004

Remix albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1995	No protection	-	-	-	UK10 × 2 Double platinum (62 weeks)UK	-	First published: February 17, 1995 with Mad Professor

More remix albums

• 2013: Dionigi

More albums

• 1998: Singles 90/98
• 2006: Bite Size
• 2006: Selected
• 2009: Splitting the Atom
• 2010: Atlas Air

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1991	Unfinished Sympathy Blue Lines	DE17 (16 weeks) DE	-	CH9 (12 weeks) CH	UK13 gold (9 weeks)UK	-	First published: February 11, 1991 feat. Shara Nelson
	Safe from Harm Blue Lines	DE33 (9 weeks) DE	AT23 (6 weeks) AT	CH15 (4 weeks) CH	UK25 (6 weeks) UK	-	First published: May 27, 1991 feat. Shara Nelson
1994	Sly Protection	-	-	-	UK24 (4 weeks) UK	-	First published: October 17, 1994
1995	Protection Protection	-	-	-	UK14 (4 weeks) UK	-	First published: January 9, 1995 feat. Tracey Thorn
	Karmacoma Protection / Maxinquaye	-	-	-	UK28 (4 weeks) UK	-	First published: March 20, 1995 feat. Tricky
1997	Risingson mezzanine	-	-	-	UK11 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: August 5, 1997
1998	Teardrop mezzanine	DE52 (9 weeks) DE	-	CH75 (3 weeks) CH	UK10 platinum (13 weeks)UK	-	First published: April 27, 1998 feat. Elizabeth Fraser
	Angel mezzanine	-	-	-	UK30 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: July 13, 1998
2003	Special Cases 100th Window	-	-	-	UK15 (2 weeks) UK	-	First release: February 24, 2003 feat. Sinéad O'Connor
2006	Live with Me Collected	DE74 (4 weeks) DE	AT58 (2 weeks) AT	CH64 (5 weeks) CH	UK17 (4 weeks) UK	-	First release: March 13, 2006 feat. Terry Callier
2009	Splitting the Atom Heligoland	-	AT74 (1 week) AT	CH68 (1 week) CH	UK64 (1 week) UK	-	First release: October 4th, 2009 feat. Horace Andy
2010	Paradise Circus Heligoland	-	-	CH41 (1 week) CH	-	-	First published: January 11, 2010 feat. Hope Sandoval
2016	Ritual Spirit Ritual Spirit	DE96 (1 week) DE	-	-	-	-	First published: January 28, 2016 feat. Azekel

swell

1. ↑ Massive Attack and Burial Collaborate: "4 Walls" , Pitchfork Media, October 10, 2011
2. ↑ ^{a b} Massive Attack Release Ritual Spirit EP , Pitchfork, accessed February 1, 2016
3. ↑ Massive Attack and Japan - The Music for Disaster
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
5. ↑ Awards: DE AT CH UK

Web links

Commons : Massive Attack  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website (English)
• Official website (German)
• Massive attack at laut.de
• Massive Attack at Discogs (English)