Massive attack
Massive attack | |
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Massive attack on September 13, 2007 in Barakaldo |
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General information | |
origin | Bristol , England |
Genre (s) | Trip-hop , electronica |
founding | 1987 |
Website | massiveattack.co.uk |
Current occupation | |
Robert "3D" Del Well | |
Grantley "Daddy G" Marshall | |
former members | |
Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles (1988–1998) |
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
(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
(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
(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
(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
- ↑ Massive Attack and Burial Collaborate: "4 Walls" , Pitchfork Media, October 10, 2011
- ↑ a b Massive Attack Release Ritual Spirit EP , Pitchfork, accessed February 1, 2016
- ↑ Massive Attack and Japan - The Music for Disaster
- ↑ a b c d e f Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
- ↑ Awards: DE AT CH UK
Web links
- Official website (English)
- Official website (German)
- Massive attack at laut.de
- Massive Attack at Discogs (English)