Mezzanine (album)
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| Massive Attack studio album | |||||||||
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Circa Records Virgin Records |
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Title (number) |
11 |
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running time |
63:29 |
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| occupation |
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Massive Attack, Neil Davidge |
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Studio (s) |
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Mezzanine is the third studio album by the trip-hop band Massive Attack . It was released in April 1998 and is considered one of the most important publications in the genre of the "Bristol Sound".
About the album
Compared to its predecessors, Mezzanine has turned out much darker, which is partly due to the addition of heavily distorted electric guitars in some songs. The Musikexpress describes mezzanine as "a record of disturbing intensity". This new direction , moving away from hip-hop , is said to have been the reason why Mushroom, one of the three members, left Massive Attack shortly after the release of Mezzanine.
On the cover and in the booklet you can see collages that show the tiger beetle Manticora latipennis and other beetles.
Guest vocalists were again used for most of the songs, such as Cocteau Twins singer Elizabeth Fraser and reggae musician Horace Andy , who has appeared on every album of the group so far.
Copyright infringement
In the beginning of 1999 Massive Attack was sued by Manfred Mann for copyright infringement: Samples in Black Milk came from the title Tribute from the debut album of Manfred Mann's Earth Band and were used without Mann's consent. A total of 120 of 128 bars were identical, the complete drum and hihat structures as well as the bass line were identical. Finally, an out-of-court agreement was reached and the exact amount of the compensation was agreed not to disclose; a sum in the region of 100,000 British pounds was assumed.
Use in the media
Some of the songs, mainly Angel and Teardrop , but also Dissolved Girl and Inertia Creeps , are often used by audiovisual media , e.g. B. in television reports with depressing content reflecting the mood of the album. Also in films, including Matrix , Pi , Snatch - Pigs and Diamonds , The Flight of the Phoenix and Taking Lives , as well as in the series Dr. House , Prison Break and CSI: Miami these songs were used. Angel and Teardrop were also used for a commercial by Adidas and the trailer for the video game Assassin's Creed . An instrumental version of Dissolved Girl for the video game trailer for Uncharted: Drake's Fate .
Track list
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Angel ( Robert Del Naja , Grantley Marshall, Andrew Vowles, Horace Andy ) - 6:18
- Vocals by Horace Andy
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Risingson (Del Naja, Marshall, Vowles, Lou Reed , Pete Seeger ) - 4:58
- Vocals from 3D (Del Naja) and Daddy G (Marshall)
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Teardrop (Del Naja, Marshall, Vowles, Elizabeth Fraser ) - 5:29
- Vocals by Elizabeth Fraser
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Inertia Creeps (Del Naja, Marshall, Vowles) - 5:56
- Vocals from 3D
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Exchange (Bob Hilliard, Mort Garson) - 4:11
- Instrumental
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Dissolved Girl (Del Naja, Marshall, Vowles, Sarah Jay Hawley, Matt Schwartz) - 6:07
- Vocals by Sara Jay
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Man Next Door (John Holt) - 5:55
- Vocals by Horace Andy
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Black Milk (Del Naja, Marshall, Vowles, Fraser, Manfred Mann ) - 6:20
- Vocals by Elizabeth Fraser
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Mezzanine (Del Naja, Marshall, Vowles) - 5:54
- Vocals from 3D and Daddy G
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Group Four (Del Naja, Marshall, Vowles, Fraser) - 8:13
- Vocals by 3D and Elizabeth Fraser
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(Exchange) (Bob Hilliard, Mort Garson) - 4:08
- Vocals by Horace Andy
reception
| source | rating |
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| Allmusic |
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| Rolling Stone |
 
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| Pitchfork |
 
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| New Musical Express |
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| Music Express |
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Mezzanine has received almost exclusively positive reviews since its release. It now has the status of a classic in the trip-hop genre. Music magazine Rolling Stone ranks it # 408 out of the 500 best albums of all time , although the magazine only gave the album three and a half stars out of five at the time of its release. The New Musical Express voted mezzanine 215th of the 500 best albums of all time. In Pitchfork's selection of the 100 best albums of the 1990s, it ranks 95th. Spin magazine chose the album at 161 of the 300 best albums from 1985 to 2014. In the list of the 100 best British albums by Q , mezzanine reached place 15th
AllMusic described Massive Attack's return in 1998 with Mezzanine as "immediately announcing not only that the group was back, but that they'd recorded a set of songs just as singular and revelatory as on their debut , almost a decade back." And awarded the highest rating .
The album was also relatively successful commercially: In Germany, Massive Attack was awarded a gold record in 1999 , in England and Australia it reached number 1 in the charts, and in the USA it was the first Massive Attack album to enter the Billboard charts . It also achieved double platinum status in the UK for more than 600,000 copies.
Individual evidence
- ^ Review of Stylus Magazine , September 1, 2001
- ↑ a b Musikexpress , July 2008 edition, page 96
- ↑ laut.de : Biography of Massive Attack
- ^ New Musical Express, January 9, 1999, p. 4
- ↑ http://massiveattack.ie/wiki/black-milk/
- ^ IMDb : Filmography of Massive Attack
- ↑ Neil Davidge's discography
- ↑ YouTube. Retrieved July 8, 2020 .
- ↑ a b allmusic : Review of mezzanines
- ↑ a b Rolling Stone: Mezzanine Review , May 28, 1998
- ↑ Review by Nate Patrin (2017) on pitchfork.com (accessed February 9, 2018)
- ↑ Review by Keith Cameron on nme.com (archived) (accessed June 6, 2020)
- ↑ Rolling Stone : "The RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" , November 18, 2003
- ↑ The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time on nme.com (accessed June 6, 2020)
- ↑ Top 100 Albums of the 1990s on pitchfork.com (accessed June 6, 2020)
- ↑ The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years (1985-2014) on spin.com (accessed June 6, 2020)
- ↑ Q : "The 100 Greatest British Albums Ever"
- ↑ placement in England
- ↑ placement in Australia
- ↑ allmusic: placement in the USA