MASSIVE ATTACK - BLUE LINES (1991) POLL

So tonight "Safe from Harm" came on shuffle, and my girlfriend asked if I was listening to "Beautiful Disaster" by 311. I had never heard the 311 song before, but I do see the resemblance (sadly) -- listen to the intro/bassline part:

the rapping on this is :(

okay woah ho! 311...that brings back weird memories. I was in love with someone who mentioned that famous 311 song. Can't recall it now. Not sure I want to know...

dont know if this has been discussed already but if you google theres a few old radio shows massive attack did for kiss fm in london around the time this album came out that are pretty great.

weird

Pete Tong granted restraining order against former Massive Attack singer

Radio 1 DJ Pete Tong has been granted a restraining order against former Massive Attack singer Shara Nelson.

The DJ told a West London magistrates court that the singer had harassed him with nuisance calls and told his colleagues that she was his manager, reports The Sun.

During the court proceedings, Nelson even gave her surname as Tong and claimed she had married the DJ and had his child. Tong confimed that neither of these statements are correct.

Nelson, who sang with Massive Attack on their 1991 hit single 'Unfinished Sympathy' and on a number of other tracks on their debut album 'Blue Lines', has been banned indefinitely from contacting Tong or his friends and family. She has also been issued with a 12-month community order and will have to complete 80 hours of community service.

A spokesman for Pete Tong declined to comment about the case.

http://www.nme.com/news/massive-attack/58583

Blimey!

that's just crazy

really sad :/

i guess you could say that for shara nelson it's all gone a bit...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EKdbLNH8J54/TZSn8Hn3ycI/AAAAAAAAAII/3-YGXPedQpI/s1600/pete-tong-007.jpg

lol. not a great picture of PT though. must be sad for him, knowing his life has gradually conformed to the idiom made out of his name.

i just want to say that i'm particularly happy about that joke

I dunno, two things:

1) I can't think of someone saying "Shara Nelson" without it sounding like PTong saying it.

2) The lyrics to "Unfinished Sympathy".

I guess he's not going to be playing it again, ever.

'they should introduce her to andy kershaw' - radio 4 gag writer who's almost crushing it

Bizarre and quite sad. Let's just hope he's safe from harm now.

weird shit

and sad

looks like with that restraining order....

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2008/02/15/massiveattack460.jpg

the hunter got captured by the game

Despite this turn of events, Tong may still require protection...

*insert no protection jpg*

http://www.easyweddingsearch.com/images/profile-pics/image.php/ACES-Wedding-Car-amp-Chauffeur-Services-image3-174657.jpg?width=100&height=100&cropratio=1:1&image=/images/com_images/ACES-Wedding-Car-amp-Chauffeur-Services-image3-174657.jpghttp://images.pricerunner.com/product/100x100/14723474/Rain-Mac-Adults-Packaway-showerproof-Mac-in-Bag-Black-XL-45-47in.jpghttp://www.aksonline.co.uk/MANAGE/ADMIN/STOREMANAGEMENT/PRODUCTS/IMAGES/thumbnails/ACShampooCombMed7208.jpghttp://www.talktalk.co.uk/shopping/images/er-season12-100.jpg

first the riots, now shara nelson...

the main thing is that now pete is safe from harm.

I can understand the restraining order, of course, but it seems a bit off to give someone community service and a year community order for a manifestation of mental illness.

i mean a relatively harmless one.

Meantime, as DL just reminded me on Twitter -- Blue Lines is twenty years old this year. UK release was April 91, US release was this month, twenty years back. I remember reading a couple of things about it and snagging a copy used shortly thereafter, fell in love with it from the get-go...

Deluxe reissue on the way apparently, though no details yet.

This was the last of the "classic" MA albums I bought.

No love for Lately??? I use to think that song was sexy as hell. Whatever happened to Shara Nelson? She just disappeared after her first album.

I use to LOVE this album back in high school. "Five Man Army" was the only MA rapping song where they were attempting to actually rap. Hehe. I still dream that MA, Tricky, Shara Nelson, and Horace Andy would reunite and perform the entire album.

Whatever happened to Shara Nelson?

haha dude, read upthread 15 posts

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

Oh shit that's crazy!!!

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

One of the easiest basslines to learn too

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.

the recent 33 1/3 recently published is instructive about the assembling

Yeah. Exactly where I learned this from. :)

ooh, I didn't know about that one. purchased!

Thanks for the 33 1/3 recommendation. Reminds me that Neneh Cherry was part of the scene. Another artist regarding whom I was shocked when I read about her and found out she was much older, and already had such a long career by 1990, then I would have suspected.

In fact, if Blue Lines is a culmination of Wild Bunch stuff that had been going on for years, there must have been some cognoscenti who regarded it as the end of an era, just as the rest of the world was seeing trip-hop as this new thing.

Frankly, it seems a bit old to be so passionate about a toy that you name it in every track.

― Melomane

Not sure about that maybe he was a pioneer lol, taking a stroll around reddit - which is filled with manchilds - you’re not sure if the comments come from 15 year olds or 45 year olds.

Shit I still obsess about Massive Attack every now and then and they were a band which were instrumental for me when I was 13/14. A pair of headphones seems like the sort of gadget you can obsess about at any age tbh.

Also I wouldn’t dismiss headphones as “toys”

I listened to US and Protection a ton back in the Napster days

ok, I’ve read the 33 1/3 book now. not my fave of the series and it misses some bits, but overall I’d recommend

not sure what to make of the headphones talk here, which seems ahistorical! portable radios were fairly widespread by the time the core of Massive Attack were kids, but the ability to listen to your own music, wherever you wanted, didn’t really appear until the sony walkman in 1979 (outside of Japan, post-1980) when 3d would have been a teen.

maybe it’s less comprehensible what a shift this was, but today’s headphone ubiquity probably traces back to that moment.

I would also recommend Bjork’s classic song Headphones. (Produced in collab w/Tricky!)

Happy 35th anniversary to one of the greatest ever.

I've been playing "Hymn of the Big Wheel" and "One Love" often.

This has to be one of my most-listened-to albums of the '90s, never got old.

They did a killer live version of Safe From Harm on MTV2 (Deborah Miller taking over on vocals)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7n9gMzMhZc