#5 Massive Attack – Mezzanine
Is music dominated by critically-accepted era’s that have imprinted themselves on a music scene or do we create those eras based on our lives events? 1998 for example, turned out to be a good year for me in terms of albums hitting my top 10 listing (R.E.M.’s ‘Up’, Neutral Milk Hotel’s ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’, and Massive Attack’s ‘Mezzanine’) but what does this say about me?
One of these is clearly considered one of the best releases over the past 20 years (Neutral Milk Hotel), a second is critically acclaimed (Massive Attack) and Up has somewhat has a maligned career among critics.
The band ‘Massive Attack’ is the evolution of the “Wild Bunch”, a musical collective of DJ’s that formed in the mid-80s in Bristol, UK club scene. Three of those performers, Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall, and Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles went out to form the band. Their music had incorporated a wide variety of inspiration from Hip Hop, Jazz, Rock , Reggae and Soul/R&B. It was these genres of music that unexpectedly brought me to appreciate the band from the first time I listened to them.
There is something mysterious and dark about ‘Mezzanine’, an album that for me always seemed to have some level of urban seediness to it. It felt like a Wicker Park bar, with mood lighting and instrumental music.
It might just be the fact that I have lived in the city for the past 20+ years and see the lights and sights of the city as the backdrop for the music on the album. It might also have to do with the fact that the first time that I listened to it, I had never experienced music quite like that.
Mezzanine might be the sexiest album ever released. The seductive nature of ‘Inertia Creeps’ takes over before the slow embrace of “Exchange” creates that perfect 3 in the morning moment after a night on the town. The entire album feels more of a departure from their earlier releases, embracing a much more ambient sound rather than some of their more jazzy sounds from their previous two full length albums (Blue Lines and Protection).
In terms of the genre of Trip-Hop itself, I would say it was the strongest of all releases, even moreso than Portishead. The album for me is so visual. It’s midnight on a cold, moist fall evening in Chicago. The album blended the perfect moments of rock, soul and hip hop, the layers at which songs like “Man Next Door”, sampling “10:15 Saturday Night” by The Cure and “When the Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin, a weird combination on paper but clearly works on the album.
With all the sampling, guest musicians and such, it is still as if every note and sound was perfectly placed like a symphony.