*MEG Recommends:
Massive Attack / Blue Lines
To compliment the fabulous Meath Event Guides recommended movie reviews we’ve decided to add a retro album review section where we will guide you through musical pinnacles of the distant and not so distant past. They are all, in our very humble opinion, very necessary delights for your aural pleasure. First up is Massive Attacks Blue Lines album from 1991.
I first heard Blue Lines after their more well-known album Protection. I thought music couldn’t get any better than Protection, then I heard this. Blue Lines came from an era where American hip-hop was the dominant force in music but along with this album came Hip-Hop from a British perspective.
It’s a unique take on an establised American genre. The album featured sampling, vocals, breakbeats, soul, guest vocalists as well as mc-ing from the three main band members 3D, Daddy G and Trick kid.
The album opens with the track Safe from Harm with vo-cals by Shara Nelson and from the off it is an emotional, engaging audio experience. The vocals are stunning, the sentiment on each track enlightening and, although highlighting some grim urban issues always joyful to listen too.
The album mixes soul, funk, hip-hop and dance. The album brings dance-music back from the physical experience of the rave scene where it was all about beats and feet and has made it dance music for the head. It was music for after the club, for chillng and contemplating. The track Five-Man Army being the ultimate testimony to that.
The album features stand-out track Unfinished Sympathy regularly lauded as one of the best tracks of all time with vocals again by Shara Nelson. The closing track on the album, Hymn of The Big Wheel, has as much resonance today as it did in 1991 in its lamentations about global warming and climate change with plaintive vocals by other guest vocalist Horace Andy, who also features on subsequent albums by the band.
To use a cliché (hell why not?) your life is not complete until you have heard this album as your guide I tell, nay command you to listen now and send the thanks in the post to… Enjoy!
Review by: Meabh Barron
