Massive Attack - 'mezzanine'

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.

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.

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.

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

xp

holy shit but 'angel' is so good

Best use of trip-hop in a prime-time crime drama. : )

I love mezzanine mostly because I first heard it on a low-fi, busted-out stereo system in a friend's econoline van. It was literally stuck in his cassette deck. I really liked that mix of it.

When I bought it on CD, it seemed too big and glossy, so I sold it. Then I bought it again because the songs are great.

Hoos might now like Blue Lines better.

funnily enough, Blues Lines has nearly always been my *LEAST* favorite of the four albums...

Yeah same here. 'Mezzanine' totally owns the rest of their output. Great grea album.

Always found Mezzanine's desperate reach for "darkness" hilarious. 'Risingson' is classic, but it doesn't count.

All Mezzanine fans dislike Blue Lines.

This isn't true; I love both but love Blue Lines more.

Damn.

like the first three all about the same, if people can HANDLE that truth.

Passive Attack. They had a knack of shedding members in order, from most to least inspired. Mezzanine was horribly overworked and insubstantial. No songwriting skills whatsover. It was where their complete lack of humour and empathy was revealed for anyone who missed it before, but it was always a problem. Man, the pretentious 30-something airheads who inflicted 'Blue Lines' on every vapid dinner party ever held in Sydney in the early 90's. They were responsible for one of the worst gigs ever shoved sideways at an acritical fine dining crowd at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney some time in the early 90's. What a waste of $50. How did they hookwink so many people for so long? Easy. Shara Nelson - the only reason they mattered at all. All her songs with the band are classics, but what in the band's repertoire can hold a candle to 'Unfinished Sympathy'? The lyrics, the voice... and 'Safe From Harm'...words do not suffice, they really don't. One of the all time great soul singers. The Mad Professor and Horace Andy were no slouches either, but Shara Nelson WAS Massive Attack, and how shameful it is that her name has been erased from the history of this band. She hasn't been mentioned once in this thread. Unbelievable. Gobsmacked.

They should have quit right after Mezzanine. I mean, ffs, 100th Window? Way to spoil all the rest. Mezzanine was pretty good, not earthshattering goodness like Blue Lines was. But then BL wasn't really consistent, which, in my crappy memory, Mezzanine was. I don't know, BL and Protection seem so... patchy but in a way I really don't care.

Shara Nelson WAS Massive Attack

What? She was a great discovery, an instrument. Never would I say she was MA. This is crediting a singer too much. And also Unfinished Sympathy is great but it doesn't make/define MA.

ban moley :-D

I always like it when people (including this poster) accuse a band of crapnessdue to fanbase they had.

i mean, never before have i seen a post contrive to mangle good sense, argument, grammar and objectivity in such a spectacularly comprehensive fashion!

I still think of Blue Lines as flawless. Mind you, I was living in Bristol at the time, so may've been overcome by exotic clouds wafting out of St Pauls.

Protection has some dross and Mezzanine is, yes, humourless. 100th Window is just banal.

the title track (mezzanine) is fantastic. i'd always overlooked that song till recently. really nice hollow sound with perhaps the most subtle and effective methods of capturing mood on the entire record.