MASSIVE ATTACK - BLUE LINES (1991) POLL

i thought i'd posted here about the sad shara news but i guess i did it on twitter.

bob stanley wrote a really good piece in response - http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/aug/23/shara-nelson - i didn't know he'd written for her/she'd sung on tiger bay.

So sad. Not the type of comeback I was hoping for. :(

Hopefully she will get back on her feet.

the bassline on "lately">>>>>>>>>>>>>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDatbFGKa0g&feature=player_embedded

We wrote a song called One Goodbye in Ten together that I'm really proud of - Bob Stanley

and so he should be, what an incredible song that is.

If I had to rank everything on Blue Lines, it's like, I know Unfinished Sympathy would be 1st, but everything else would be tied for second place.

also that's really weird news about shara nelson that i had not heard before^

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81ZPmODHsmL._AA1500_.jpg

new remastered and er.. *remixed* edition on the way. package so far looks pretty thin compared to
say the Screamadelica reissue or recent 4 disc ultra-splurges but hey.

I'd order this if they had left off Hymn of the Big Wheel and Light My Fire. They both totally ruin an otherwise great album.

wtf "Hymn of the Big Wheel" is fantastic

and "Light My Fire" is on Protection

Hymn of the Big Wheel has some interesting things music-wise but the vocals feel too much like some sort of 'save the world and clap your hands' shit. I still wouldn't remove it from the record, though.

Are they reissuing Mezzanine and Protection too?

Ha, thought twice about Light my Fire but included it anyway. They're both scars on their respective albums. Really horrible decision to include them.

Including live tracks in studio albums always seemed like a bad choice to me. I can't think of any artist that has pulled it off right now.

By the end of Blue Lines they'd totally earned themselves a Hymn from the Big Wheel, reflective comedown that it is. Horace Andy's voice is beautiful, especially on the last verse when the beat drops out ("an acid drop of rain" etc).

Light My Fire on the other hand should've been cut. Heat Miser is a great last track, Spying Glass should start side 2. I always thought that's how the vinyl was, and Light My Fire was a CD bonus track.

nah it wasn't. i had the vinyl and it was present and correct
http://www.discogs.com/Massive-Attack-Protection/release/49880

Including live tracks in studio albums always seemed like a bad choice to me. I can't think of any artist that has pulled it off right now.

classic albums with (oddly enough) one live track on them.

Weird. It makes so much sense otherwise: both sides 21-22 minutes, starting side 2 with Spying Glass (way stronger track than Better Things), ending both sides with cinematic Craig Armstrong instrumentals...

Including live tracks in studio albums always seemed like a bad choice to me. I can't think of any artist that has pulled it off right now.

classic albums with (oddly enough) one live track on them.

― ┐(´ー｀)┌ (sic)

Cool thread! Had no idea that 'my iron lung' by Radiohead was a live track.

I'm intrigued by the idea of this being 'remixed'. wtf is that going to actually mean? I assume it wont be in the style of "[Starsailor song] (Two Lone Swordsmen Sounds Fuck All Like The Original Remix)" or anything.

ugh @ the reissue industry reaching my generation, money-spinning wheezes for nostalgia-addled old people with disposable income

NOSTALGIA IS THE EMPTIEST EMPTINESS FIGHT IT WHEREVER POSSIBLE

'intrigued' was a pejorative.

how dare people spend money on things they like, they should be ashamed

the first generation ever to be different from and better than all preceding generations!! somebody had better study these people

Money-spinning wheezes for nostalgia-addled old people with disposable income probably one of the few things keeping the music industry going right now. Releases like this always seem pointless unless the original mastering is really poor. Blue Lines certainly doesn't need it.

ugh @ the reissue industry reaching my generation, money-spinning wheezes for nostalgia-addled old people with disposable income

― lex pretend, Monday, 24 September 2012 12:48 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

NOSTALGIA IS THE EMPTIEST EMPTINESS FIGHT IT WHEREVER POSSIBLE

― lex pretend, Monday, 24 September 2012 12:49 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

don't really get how you can have been party (often approvingly!) to numerous discussions on here about trip hop being in the air with ware/delilah/etc and then your best effort for this is some thick empty grandstanding. whatever man

oh have ware and delilah got on to their reissues already? i didn't realise that

possibly life might be more interesting and less ultra-linear than new music is new, good, old music is old, bad

indeed it is

Money-spinning wheezes for nostalgia-addled old people with disposable income probably one of the few things keeping the music industry going right now. Releases like this always seem pointless unless the original mastering is really poor. Blue Lines certainly doesn't need it.

― Matt DC

it is real quiet, though.

its quietness is one of its big strengths IMO

maybe from an audiophile perspective or something, but i am more interested in my playing-it-together-with-other-crap perspective

i understand the beefs kinda but hymn of the big wheel is essential

lex which is worse comedy or nostalgia

it's not quiet.

then how come i have to turn it up to hear it?

The poor showing for "Daydreaming" in this poll upsets me.

It's probably not true but I always feel that these deluxe anniversary reissues are more aimed at giving the album's status as a "classic" the appearance of objectivity, so as to encourage people who never got around to buying it to finally lay down some cash.

Would be interesting to see some actual stats (though who would bother to compile) on the proportion of purchasers that have owned the album before vs first timers.

then how come i have to turn it up to hear it?

bcz your volume knob was too low in the first place

lex which is worse comedy or nostalgia

comedy

nostalgia is a natural emotion, i just dislike the way it's raged out of control in the wider culture lately

comedy is unnatural and abhorrent

Lex do you think nostalgia is actually getting more pervasive or are we just noticing it more as it eats into our own past?

Kinda uncertain myself. I do think that maybe a difference is that even today's kids seem open to the idea that the 90s were better than today, which is something I disapprove of even if that turn out to be correct.

well the nostalgia industry is certainly bigger

Are you guys actually trying to lure the Lex into an agreeing-with-Simon-Reynolds elephant track or is this just an amusing by-product of the conversation?

pretty sure 1960s pop kids weren't getting hype for deluxe Bing Crosby reissues

obv this needs its own thread and i really shd work

Don't think 2010s kids are that arsed about Blue Lines either.

i assume the industry is just targeting the people who never got out of the habit of actually paying for music. i'd guess overall the reissue industry, like the rest of the music biz, is contracting, but i have no figures to prove this.

xposts

I work with someone who actually paid the £200 or whatever for the Blur box set.

i think people do that kind of thing to prove something to the world, like they've "put their money where their mouth is" in terms of their interests. a bit like a football supporter buying all the merchandise.

yes tbf reissues probably aimed at "new" listeners in that respect, they're at least aimed at an audience that was roughly aware of the record when it originally came out.

i do feel that there are new conditions in the sale/marketing of "classic" albums in the 21st century that haven't previously applied. factors feeding this include
- the album as artefact
- a 30/40-something audience for whom pop culture is not radically different to what it was in their teens, in a way that was not the case for 1960s, '70s, maybe even '80s teens
- stuff LG mentioned about the mechanics of "acquiring" music in 2012
- a mainstream media discourse which has absorbed pop music in a way unestablished prior to, say, the mid-90s

just pondering out loud

probably not aimed at new listeners

bottom line for me is that popular music, its audience and its discontents, has been in a unique-ish position for the last 5-10 years. this nostalgia is not the same as nostalgia used to be.