Massive Attack - 'mezzanine'

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I don't think they were ever dance music at all, really.

I love love love the first track on 100th Window but then the rest of the album is a bit like a repeated, slightly less convincing re-iteration of that first track.

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, 2 October 2004 15:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Massive Attack=dire and embarassing.

If you only count the last album, then yes, I fully agree. But up until Mezzanine: classique. I don't think Mezzanine holds up as well as the previous ones, strangely/maybe because of the punk influence being a bit too overt. Or at least that's what my addled brain makes of it. :-)

jesus nathalie (nathalie), Saturday, 2 October 2004 16:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Alex - 100th Window seems to be exclusively about textures, which in an approach I personally don't find very interesting. I can admire it, and I occaisionally listen to the odd track off it, but listening to the whole album is just interminable.

Wooden (Wooden), Saturday, 2 October 2004 17:11 (twenty-one years ago)

By the way, good live dance acts = Reprazent, Basement Jaxx, Freestylers. I'm sure there are more.

Wooden (Wooden), Saturday, 2 October 2004 17:21 (twenty-one years ago)

i am used to minimal/ambient music like discreet music and music for airports. there is much more happening in 100th window. there is a swirl. i listened a lot to it walking at night on the countryside in that winter. haunting and very powerful in that depraved setting. it's all relative. thinking about repetition most of dance music (as tim would define it) is much less varied. the way massive attack use beats seems to me much more interesting than most of that house/techno/electro stuff. where i often feel the beats as physical attacks on my head. 100th window is definitely not an album for the 21st century. not for short time-span attentionists.

alex in mainhattan (alex63), Saturday, 2 October 2004 17:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, it just lacks dynamism for me. I don't think I'm dismissing it unjustly, I've listened to it through 5 or 6 times.

Wooden (Wooden), Saturday, 2 October 2004 18:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I loved Mezzanine at the time, and I love it still. I bought into the dark dreary mechanical dystopia cliche, and it works. I love the Liz Fraser tracks unabashedly. CLASSIC.

I like 100th Window; I never find the right time to listen to it, however, and as soon as I do, I'm sure it'll be one of my favourites.

derrick (derrick), Saturday, 2 October 2004 18:45 (twenty-one years ago)

"...seems to be exclusively about textures, which in an approach I personally don't find very interesting."

Too bad. Your loss, man!

latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 2 October 2004 19:35 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm not referring to 100th Window though, just the comment about texture-oriented music.

latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 2 October 2004 19:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't care for 100th Window either. I like Mezzanine a lot - not as much as Blue Lines, which is one of my two or three favourite albums ever, but enough that it made my top 20 from the '90s in that poll.

I've several Massive Attack live bootlegs that I play pretty often. They did a great extended Group Four when Mezzanine was current, very potent.

Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 2 October 2004 22:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I find anything since Blue Lines and Protection just really...calculated sounding. Goth hop / that boring dude took over (or was left over) and he's just not enticing on any level. I guess Mezzanine is better than 100th Window, but only just. I really don't understand the myth of Massive Attack. Two good singles, 1.5 good albums...they were just lucky cos they had Tricky before he went mad / bad.

paulhw (paulhw), Saturday, 2 October 2004 22:55 (twenty-one years ago)

"...seems to be exclusively about textures, which in an approach I personally don't find very interesting."

Too bad. Your loss, man!

-- latebloomer (posercore24...), October 2nd, 2004 8:35 PM.


I realise that texture is an extremely important factor in music, but if an artist concentrates solely on texture at the expense of other elements the music can slip very easily into self-indulgence in my opinion. That's all.

Wooden (Wooden), Sunday, 3 October 2004 00:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Martin, is that the Royal Albert Hall concert that featured the inimitable Liz Fraser?

Leeeter van den Hoogenband (Leee), Sunday, 3 October 2004 00:36 (twenty-one years ago)

"i often feel the beats as physical attacks on my head"

best alex in mainhattan post ever!

You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Sunday, 3 October 2004 01:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I once took care of a friend's parrot, and it seemed to love this album. It bounced up and down and seemed really happy whenever I put it on. (On the other hand, it hated Stevie Wonder.)

The parrot's dead now, and I haven't played the album in years.

Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Sunday, 3 October 2004 02:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah it is Leee, June '98. I don't much care for Liz Fraser myself.

Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 3 October 2004 10:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Inspired by this thread I just gave '100W' a spin. Works probably better as mixtape breeder.
And just how awful are those Sinead lyrics?

Baaderoni (Fabfunk), Sunday, 3 October 2004 10:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I love Mezzanine; for me, it's the best Massive Attack record. That said, I didn't like it for about two years after it came out; I wasn't in the mood for it at all.

I love the first two as well. 100th Window is OK, but haven't listened to it much. Mezzanine may be darker, but I don't quite get the goth thing! It surprises me that the general feeling is that it's not up to scratch. I tend to think the first few tracks are the worst (overexposure most likely).

Keith Watson (kmw), Sunday, 3 October 2004 10:28 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, I think it's overexposure that killed it. Bjork, too; we'd be so much more excited about her records if we didn't hear about them all the time. If Mezzanine had been kept quiet, it'd be that much more interesting to hear, without too much overbearing cultural context(i.e. 'man, this is sooo 1998!')

derrick (derrick), Sunday, 3 October 2004 19:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, so you're all British. That's the problem.

Sansai, Monday, 4 October 2004 00:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Tim OTM re; first track on 100th Window, Wooden OTM re; "Better Things" (Although I think the rest of Protection is good, bar the thing at the end (wtf is the story behind that anyway?).

The first four tracks of Mezzanine are fucking incredible, really atmospheric and powerful and dynamic too, but after that I switch off completely.

Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 4 October 2004 11:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Black Milk is the best track on Mezzanine - i like the whole album tho tho tended to skip Group 4 (good as it is).

to describe MA as 'dire and embarassing' makes no sense to me. Ronan's complaint seems to boil down to taking offence to them being labelled as dance music when you can't dance to it. if that's true then i agree it is stupid but you can hardly blame the band for this. one man's 90s is another man's heaven. one man's boring is another man's hypnotic/mesmeric/sublime/dreamnoize...

Brigadier Rainham Steele, Mrs (blueski), Monday, 4 October 2004 11:57 (twenty-one years ago)

paulhw refers to this 'calculated' thing as bad. don't see why that should be. i like the meticulous nature of 100th Window in many places, and a few tracks ('Butterfly Caught', 'Special Cases', 'Antistar') are as good as anything on Mezzanine.

Brigadier Rainham Steele, Mrs (blueski), Monday, 4 October 2004 12:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Ronan is rockist about dance music in an inverted way. Is he danceist? If you can't dance to it and it is called 'dance' for whatever etymological reason (IN THIS CASE BECAUSE IT HAS NO GUITARS OR SOMETHING AND MAYBE THEY DO SOME SCRATCHING AND THE BASS IS GOOD YAH WHAT WHAT YAH) then it's automatically no good. I had Blue Lines on the other afternoon and it's a fucking outrageously great record.

Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 4 October 2004 12:11 (twenty-one years ago)

"like to go to America when I get a VISA caaaard - cos gettin' a VISA card nowadays isn't hard?"

Brigadier Rainham Steele, Mrs (blueski), Monday, 4 October 2004 12:12 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm still troubled by the whole 90s backlash among a few people lately tho. i don't know if it really is a kneejerk reaction based on trend-chasing or it really is felt that these are actually terrible records conceptually/musically/technically/lyrically etc. we're talking about - which is a view i cannot share, regardless of how unfashionable a lot of acts from the 90s may now seem.

Brigadier Rainham Steele, Mrs (blueski), Monday, 4 October 2004 12:15 (twenty-one years ago)

nick otm re: the first 4 - possibly my favourite opening salvo on any album ever - and it's one of my favourite albums for those four tracks *alone*. there's still plenty of good stuff after that as well - the last couple of tracks (prior to the exchange reprise) are maybe a bit too blank and washed-out, so could have finished earlier maybe.

weasel diesel (K1l14n), Monday, 4 October 2004 12:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I reckon the "Black Milk"/"Mezzanine"/"Group Four" succession is as strong as the first four tracks, if less pop. I love the thickness of some of those tracks, it's like floating down a river of treacle.

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 4 October 2004 13:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember the second half of "Mezzanine" (song) being great, but can't recall the rest of the second half of the record at all.

Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 4 October 2004 14:00 (twenty-one years ago)

it's like floating down a river of treacle OTMFM!
One of those albums where the cover art captures EXACTLY the content.

Baaderoni (Fabfunk), Monday, 4 October 2004 14:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Of course "a river of treacle" describes a lot of bad trip hop pretty accurately too....

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 4 October 2004 14:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I have visions of black tar slowly dripping

Baaderoni (Fabfunk), Monday, 4 October 2004 14:10 (twenty-one years ago)

"Angel" is slow motion apocalypse. It's like the bomb first drops, then goes off, then has to fight its way through, indeed, tar or something similar.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 4 October 2004 14:28 (twenty-one years ago)

It's the difference between being inside, and looking at a river of treacle.

Jedmond (Jedmond), Monday, 4 October 2004 16:02 (twenty-one years ago)

seven months pass...
ned otm concerning the opening song angel. but the rest of the album sounds as if it was made after the bomb exploded. the tension is gone and the music just plods along. even the liz fraser songs. i listened to it on saturday night and god was i disappointed.

alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 30 May 2005 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to really love it; now I just listen to "Angel," "Man Next Door" and the one that goes "toylike people make me boylike," which is Eno-worthy.

Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 30 May 2005 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

it seemed so huge in the spring of 1998. so devastatingly dark and powerful. i can't believe it was the same album i listened to on saturday. man next door is just a sad sample song. i even wanted to shout give me back robert smith's wailing when i heard it.

alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 30 May 2005 19:52 (twenty-one years ago)

All this talk and no mention of Dissolved Girl! I did so much of my senior year photography thesis listening to that track on repeat.

These days I'm mildly addicted to Hymn of the Big Wheel, but I'll still happily listen to all of Blue Lines and Mezzanine. I bought 100W, listened to it a few times, and sold it to Easy Street... I just couldn't get into it. It fell really flat for me, and yeah- those Sinead lyrics were beyond dreadful. I played it in my friend's car once and spent most of the song apologizing for the lyrics.

lyra (lyra), Monday, 30 May 2005 22:37 (twenty-one years ago)

"Teardrop" approaches being the best single Massive Attack ever released.

The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 13:48 (twenty-one years ago)

"exchange" is actually the 'mezzanine' song i go back to the most.

rajeev (rajeev), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 13:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I think "Teardrop" probably is the best MA single ever, although I'm too young to remember any impact "Unfinished Sympathy" might've had.

Nick H (Nick H), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 17:49 (twenty-one years ago)

"Unfinished Sympathy" hit me like a sledgehammer when it came out and "Safe From Harm" was like another larger sledgehammer swooping in to hit my mom as she rushed over to cradle my prone, broken body. "Teardrop" is the molten lava that pours over our supine forms, imparting third-degree burns and an ungodly amount of charring.

The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 18:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Dan likes it HOT.

Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 18:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I love Mezzanine; I said that above. I love the first three Massive Attack albums apart from "Hymn of the Big Wheel", which I think is rubbish.

Teardrop is difficult to listen to, despite being brilliant. The BBC used it all over the place for years (still do), so it's a bit overexposed, for me. I like the second side of Mezzanine the best; again, it's probably overexposure to the songs on the first side. "Dissolved Girl" is amazing, particularly the bassline. In fact, that could go on that thread about songs that are great because of their basslines.

KeefW (kmw), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 18:37 (twenty-one years ago)

"Dissolved Girl" is amazing

ABSOLUTELY. I remember people were dogging this song left and right when the album came out and I really didn't get it because it's so claustrophobic and pleadingly awesome.

The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 18:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Dan likes it HOT

Or he's Anakin S., with more limbs.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 18:43 (twenty-one years ago)

this is the best Massive Attack album by such a long way! I love the textures and this mood hanging over it all. Everyone otm re: 'Dissolved Girl', too.

The Lex (The Lex), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 18:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Amazingly, I don't think I can find a thread about Mo'Wax records... Am I missing something?

KeefW (kmw), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 18:51 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm sure there's one, hold on.

jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 18:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I must say, the impact of "Angel," "Risingson," "Teadrop," and "Inertia Creeps" is Maxinquaye-era Tricky's only competition in the menacing trip-hop sweepstakes.

Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 19:01 (twenty-one years ago)

BanksDOYOUSEE!?

I got dragged to one of those museums in Amsterdam, and it was crowded and laaaaaame.

Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 15 March 2026 15:09 (two months ago)

Nathan Barley had his kitsch bang to rights 20 years ago

Mollusk, Virginia (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, 15 March 2026 15:17 (two months ago)

the only official Banksy museum is Banksy's Black Country Museum which is mostly just big murals of pints of mild

podcast Diderot (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 15 March 2026 15:36 (two months ago)

figures he’s a real ale guy

Mollusk, Virginia (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, 15 March 2026 15:45 (two months ago)

If I’m lucky, I’ll see them with Liz Fraser tomorrow. She’s been performing with them a few times on this tour, apparently they do a mean Song to the Siren now

― Mule, Wednesday, 12 June 2024 11:15 (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Seeing Teardrop live with Liz had me in floods

chap, Sunday, 15 March 2026 18:08 (two months ago)

tl;dr version of that article is that the Reuters writers decided he's chums with Robert Del Naja but, as previously reported some years ago, he was Rob Gunningham. Banky has since changed his name to a more generic one

mh, Sunday, 15 March 2026 18:34 (two months ago)

https://i.postimg.cc/tJZ98k8H/IMG-7045.jpg

uploading this content requires perseveration (sic), Sunday, 15 March 2026 18:53 (two months ago)

never been a huge fan of Traedrop

Mollusk, Virginia (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, 15 March 2026 20:01 (two months ago)

Teardrop even

Mollusk, Virginia (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, 15 March 2026 20:01 (two months ago)

never been a huge fan of Traedrop

thx for the heads up

beard papa, Sunday, 15 March 2026 21:28 (two months ago)

xps, not just chums as in, hangs out with on occasion; Del Naja is alleged to have actively traveled with and helped Banksy tag buildings miles from the Ukrainian warfront.

Indexed, Monday, 16 March 2026 20:42 (two months ago)

yup. I also get frustrated with long form coverage that doesn’t acknowledge that it’s basically an artist studio model at this point. Few high end artists are traveling before a show to set up the gallery, and I think it’s probable that some of the stencil work was “installed” by others, like del naja

mh, Monday, 16 March 2026 20:46 (two months ago)

article also doesn’t acknowledge Banksy’s art is crap

Mollusk, Virginia (Boring, Maryland), Monday, 16 March 2026 21:09 (two months ago)

No need to stress the obvious

podcast Diderot (Noodle Vague), Monday, 16 March 2026 21:12 (two months ago)

didn't people figure this out ten years ago

frogbs, Monday, 16 March 2026 21:15 (two months ago)

In the same way that every Banky picture is the same, every few months we must rediscover the closely guarded secret of who Banky is

podcast Diderot (Noodle Vague), Monday, 16 March 2026 21:17 (two months ago)

Banksy should have people bid on revealing his identity. And then he should give the highest bidder a mirror that says "do you see?!" on it.

Josh in Chicago, Monday, 16 March 2026 21:33 (two months ago)

wonder if this is the prime time to sell a little Banky booklet I was given what must have been 20 years ago. looks like there’s some ebay potential

mh, Monday, 16 March 2026 21:35 (two months ago)

like what “identity” is there left? his parents’ names? current mailing address?

mh, Monday, 16 March 2026 21:36 (two months ago)

Put it through a shredder first and you'll probably get about 20 times as much xp

groovypanda, Monday, 16 March 2026 21:46 (two months ago)

two months pass...

they announced an arena tour here in two months with pretty expensive tickets. i'm a bit surprised and confused because i wouldn't have thought they're big enough for that here, especially at such short notice, i'd like to go but idk if i can justify the price

i looked up what they're playing recently and they've been covering seo taiji??? idk what they're up to at all

ufo, Sunday, 31 May 2026 23:28 (one week ago)

I'd go just to hear this (if they're still doing it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGCk-_cz00U

piscesx, Monday, 1 June 2026 00:09 (one week ago)

doesn't seem like they're still doing that one

ufo, Monday, 1 June 2026 00:17 (one week ago)

is "here" Australia ufo? I was surprised at the big venues too

there's no info on the touring party - I see that Liz Frazer has been guesting at recent shows, I guess I am a little intrigued by that but seeing her sing in a vibe-free room in Homebush isn't really the dream

Cod:Shellfish (emsworth), Monday, 1 June 2026 00:19 (one week ago)

last time they did two shows to 6k a night on the opera house steps, 50 steps from buses and 8 mins harbour stroll from trains, or an amble from dinner or drinks or a picnic

I really doubt that 21,000 ppl are going to want to pay $180 each to go to a sport shed in the middle of nowhere, sixteen years later

uploading this content requires perseveration (sic), Monday, 1 June 2026 01:20 (one week ago)

(sixteen years of no or low-profile activity later, I mean)

uploading this content requires perseveration (sic), Monday, 1 June 2026 01:21 (one week ago)

yeah, australia

liz fraser and horace andy have been consistently part of the touring lineup since 2019 when they did the mezzanine anniversary tour, i expect they'll both be there again since they're part of the recent shows too

ufo, Monday, 1 June 2026 01:23 (one week ago)


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