Everyone our age has this album in their collection. And if they don't, they either didn't have any taste or made it through the nineties without trying to impress a girl.
Rolling Stone call it a bizarre love triangle between a girl, a guy and a sampler. Spot on, but doesn't quite explain the haunting sexiness of Beth Gittons' voice or the slow funky beats of Geoff Barrow. Portishead's debut album from 1994 is simply beautiful. It's hard to write about this album without resorting to cliches. Like their Bristol counterparts Massive Attack, Portishead revolutionalised British music mostly for the better, but you must also admit, oftentimes for the worse. Who knows what came first? Cafes or cafe music.
The album is a slow grind of hip hop beats, combined with smooth jazz and soaring vocals. It's funky and contagious and it gets at you in a quiet, but compelling way.
There are definitely highlight tracks, such as Wandering Star and Numb, but this album is far more than the sum of its parts. I'm not sure anyone has ever listened to the tracks individually. It was always the album that you put on at the end of the night when most people had left the party and those who hadn't were draining any remaining bottles lying around the house. Or when you got home and frantically searched through the CD stack for an album that would aid your seduction efforts. This was always a safe bet because girls love it.
Although the risk is that when you get to a song like Roads, which is a tortured song of regret with exquisite vocals from Beth, you both end up feeling sad and raking over memories and disappointments.
The final track, Glory Box is the pinnacle of woe is woman, why don't boys appreciate me for who I am, only my girlfriends understand me etc etc... And many a time it has been ruined by young girls screeching in their bedroom, straining, yet failing, to reach Gitton's voice. Lemon stollies, you have a lot to answer for.
This album sounds as delicate, dark and edgy as it did back when you listened to it every weekend. Pour a glass of heavy red, dim the lights and let it wash over you.
I always get Portishead and Massive Attack confused. I've seen both of them live, and neither by choice. It would take *a lot* of lemon stollies for me to sing Glory Box. I don't think you could drink that many lemon stollies and survive.
ReplyDeletePS - It would be amazing if You Am I made an appearance out of the basket. Just saying.