Dummy - Portishead (CD 1994)

Following the burgeoning rise of the early nineties alternative scene, the southwest UK city of Bristol became the home of a slowly growing movement combining down-tempo hip-hop beats with aspects of jazz, pop melodies and multi-textured samples. With the newly-dubbed trip-hop genre steadily growing in popularity, the debut release from the group Portishead, Dummy , went on to become a musical landmark and one whose brooding bleakness remains a powerful listen over a decade later. Dummy itself is certainly not an iPod album, nor one that would provide fitting accompaniment to socialising or..

I ve checked out the Portishead Dummy CD from my library several times, but I ve never bought a copy. After checking out yesterday, I m really not sure why I never purchased it because it really is worth it. Mysterons, the opening song, is very mysterious, and tells the listener immediately that this music is not the norm. The frequent, short drum rolls add to the tension the vocalist induces with her syrupy, light voice. Sour Times is one of my favorites on the CD. The beginning almost sends shivers up my spine. Throughout the song, there is a repeated bass chord that holds the song all...

Looking back through the reviews of this album, I was surprised to see that none of my favorite writers had done a write-up. 'Sup with that? Should I keep my love for Portishead a secret? Well, I just can't. I've been digging on "Dummy" for over ten years now, and my love for the album just hasn't diminished. Other CD's have come and gone according to the changing winds and tides of my musical tastes, but Portishead has managed to survive, like a plastic square version of Richard Hatch that refuses to leave the island. The difference, of course, is that Richard is a sweaty, tax-evading...

Delicate but dark, "Dummy" is rightly considered to be one of THE essential albums of the 1990s. Named after their small hometown in southern England, Portishead consisted of onetime Neneh Cherry producer Geoff Barrow and, of course, singer Beth Gibbons. It is the latter's vocals, which can only be described as the sound a heart makes when it breaks, that elevated the band from other offputtingly pretentious trip-hop outfits and made this album a bonafide classic. Think Dido meets Sade meets Billie Holiday and you're only half way to imagining the potency of Gibbon's anguished wails. All the..