100 Best Albums
- JAN 1, 1994
- 11 Songs
- Dummy · 1994
- Dummy · 1994
- Dummy · 1994
- Dummy · 1994
- Dummy · 1994
- Dummy · 1994
- Dummy · 1994
- Dummy · 1994
- Roseland NYC Live 25 (Remastered 2023) · 1998
- Dummy · 1994
Essential Albums
- Eleven years following their self-titled second album, Portishead’s Third is an inventive, challenging song cycle that never settles for easy listening. The time off was no vacation. Principal producer and writer Geoff Barrow was decidedly unhappy over the group’s comfort zone, disturbed that the ensemble’s experimental ways were so easily co-opted by others and fitted as a lifestyle soundtrack for a sophisticated, affluent class. With Third, the challenge was on to reinvent the group’s spooky trip-hop, film-noir magic as something far more extreme. “Magic Doors” and “Plastic” both clock in at the conventional three-and-a-half minute mark, yet in their compact structures the tunes cut-up and break down in unexpected jolts with beats slowed to crawls and Beth Gibbons’ eerie vocals tortured into free-fall. The minute and a half of “Deep Water” is a shockingly tame ukulele ballad with a barbershop quartet mocking Gibbons’ depressive observations, but elsewhere the emphasis is pure tension. The disruptive grooves of “Silence” set the ominous path. Songs shut down abruptly, or clang on with battered electronics (“Machine Gun”). Intense.
- 100 Best Albums Few debuts have arrived as distinct and fully formed as Portishead’s 1994 debut, Dummy. Running at just under 50 minutes, the album’s 11 tracks are compact yet imaginatively spacious, a downtempo template for the eerie and disquieting sound that would go on to become known as trip-hop. Released amid the macho Britpop posturing of Oasis and Blur, Dummy lurched like something out of the depths. Named after a 1970s British TV drama about a deaf woman who becomes a prostitute, the record is replete with turntable scratches, shuddering drums, and scrapes of fragmented guitar, all of it anchored by vocalist Beth Gibbons’ crystalline falsetto that typically sings not of love or joy, but of “the blackness, the darkness, forever” in “Wandering Star.” When the members of Portishead first met in 1991, there were few hints as to the type of music they’d go on to make. Comprised of the 26-year-old West Country singer Gibbons, a ponytailed 19-year-old hip-hop fanatic named Geoff Barrow, and 34-year-old jazz session guitarist Adrian Utley, the trio came together at the height of the British acid rave scene to make tracks squarely aimed at the anxiety spiral of a comedown. Based in Bristol, Portishead followed in the footsteps of Massive Attack, the local purveyors of mood music. But while Massive Attack’s music tended towards heart-soaring crescendos, Portishead’s songs lived in the tension before release. Standout tracks like “Sour Times,” “Wandering Star,” and “Glory Box” lull the listener into a trance of cinematic string swells, crisp drum grooves, and Gibbons’ velvet vocals. It’s subtle, enduring work that has since become so ubiquitous it has birthed imitations from artists like Morcheeba, Mono, and Sneaker Pimps, and even led Dummy to be miscategorized as background, pacifying music. But don’t be fooled: This is a stylish album that luxuriates in discomfort—a finely wrought debut that’s as capable of soothing the listener with its warm melodies as it is of jarring them with its dark sonic palette. Dummy is a record for night-dwellers, everywhere and always.
Albums
- 1997
- 2015
Artist Playlists
- From trip-hop pioneers to widescreen specialists.
- The Bristol, UK sound that shaped a generation.
- Where Public Enemy met Nina Simone.
Singles & EPs
More To Hear
- The trio’s unsettling and cinematic masterpiece.
- The Bristol group revisit their game-changing 1994 debut, Dummy.
- The singer-songwriter selects the 5 Best Songs on Apple Music.
- The singer picks the 5 Best Songs in Apple Music.
- The guitarist guests, playing the Ramones and Portishead.
- The songwriter and musician explains how he keeps music fun.
About Portishead
With the English group's enthralling music and enigmatic nature, Portishead set the template for the many acts influenced by its moody trip-hop sound as well as those eager to project the same shadowy allure. Formed in Bristol, England, in 1991 by singer Beth Gibbons and producer/multi-instrumentalist Geoff Barrow (guitarist Adrian Utley joined soon after), Portishead forged a unique sound by combining Gibbons' emotive, mournful vocals, hip-hop-style beats, samples of vintage jazz, funk, and movie scores, and the contributions of other musicians. Even more crucial to the group's influence and impact was the sense of mystery that pervaded Portishead's 1994 debut, Dummy, and 1997's equally compelling Portishead. After these early successes, Portishead's lengthy and painstaking creative process—and the members' involvement with many side projects—led to larger gaps between releases and tours. But the group demonstrated its ability to breathe new life into its own much-imitated sound on later efforts such as 2008's startling Third and an eerie cover of ABBA's "SOS" for the 2015 film High-Rise.
- ORIGIN
- Bristol, England
- FORMED
- 1991
- GENRE
- Electronic