Best Tricky Album Poll

Maxinquaye, definitely if predictably. PMT was when he started raging, eg Vent, which I blame on his love of average 90s alt-rock, although it's still two-thirds genius. Nearly God only works half the time, but when it does it's phenomenal - recently became obsessed with Martina's cover of Black Coffee, with its piano chords of doom. Angels is still too much like hard work though I admire the sticky, corrupted swamp-blues vibe. Juxtapose has some great tunes but no atmosphere and - an enduring handicap - no Martina. Blowback is an intermittently inspired lucky dip. Vulnerable is boring as hell. Knowle West Boy is a step in the right direction. Maxinquaye's the only one that grips me from start to finish. I remember being blown away by Aftermath, even moreso by Ponderosa, and counting the days till the album came out.

'vent' is pretty incredible though, the paranoia has a real focus there. and it's about a girl who's stealing his asthma medicine! martina's echoing vox work so well - "i'm the one/who steals his ventolin" - will also rep for 'tricky kid', 'christiansands', 'lyrics of fury' and at least a couple more from PMT.

my fav thing on nearly god is 'i be the prophet', so stately and scary. i'm v attached to that album. how out of place is the weirdly jaunty neneh cherry track which reappeared on her album a year later! and how weird that a track like 'poems' reached the top 30.

i mean yeah maxinquaye is the best but i think i should vote for one of those two.

the only other ones i've heard all the way thru are blowback - better than i was expecting! cd is long lost (tho) - and knowle west boy - RETURN TO FORM! trumpeted the press release. it was fucking abysmal.

True. The PMT tracks you mention are all phenomenal, as are Makes Me Wanna Die and Bad Dream. It's just a notch below Maxinquaye for me.

Just listening to Bad Dream now. The way Martina says "What can I say? I was having a fucked up day" in this completely callous, dead-eyed way - wow.

my favorite songs are on Juxtapose (eg. 'For Real') but it's true that it lacks sth as an album.

the grooves on maxinquaye seem a bit ramshackle compared to PMT. everything seems more fuller and better developed on PMT. i dont mind the rage. agree with lex, it had a focus and wasnt just for its own sake. i dont know if i still have it on tape but there was a concert c4 showed around the time of pmt that was amazing.

there's quite a lot of shit on PMT too (tho) - can't remember exactly what b/c for the past decade i've only cherrypicked the tracks i like off it

could never decide whether its cover was great or hideous, either

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Bk-wO-1564s/SZCW7rSF0yI/AAAAAAAAAj0/3eg-1H-Mbuk/s400/1996premillenniumtensioyw2.jpg

it took me a really long time to notice what he did there on the cover - when I did it went from great to hideous

same here. but this is worse -
http://theruffdraft.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/durrty-goodz-ultrasound-2009.jpg

this is so not a contest

Maxinquay>>Nearly God>Angels with Dirty Faces>>>>>>>>>PMT>>>>>>> the rest.

Maxinquaye, but "Poems," the Alison Moyet tune, "For Real," and "She Said" are all brilliant.

Just listening to Bad Dream now. The way Martina says "What can I say? I was having a fucked up day" in this completely callous, dead-eyed way - wow.

wow yes. just going back to it now and this is incredible.

this is also the perfect album for being ill to.

PMT for me without question. Not only is it more focused than Maxinquaye, it's also more consistent - all the songs sound like part of one album. The only track I still listen to off Maxinquaye is "Hell is Around the Corner." Never liked Angels with Dirty Faces, never heard Nearly God, and everything since Juxtapose (which is funny in a pissed-off-nerd-hits-the-strip-club kind of way) has been crap. Knowle West Boy was one of the worst albums of last year.

first inclination was maxinquaye but i haven't heard PMT in a long time, seems to me tho right now to be the more interesting one. need to give it a listen. i remember tho there are some incredible tracks on PMT

PMT falls apart in its second half, despite the ace Eric B & Rakim cover. Otherwise the Vent-Christiansands-Tricky Kid-Bad Dream-Makes Me Wanna Die whammy is the best music of his career.

I agree with Alfred; this was a cd I got used to programming in my own sequence. I vote for PMT anyway, because Maxinquaye seems to me to fall off in the same way, and PMT's first half is stronger.

just relistened to PMT for the first time in ages and it's really just the middle that falls apart - the dodgy sex drive/bad things section. it closes strongly, 'piano' is kinda beautiful esp after the claustrophobia which has preceded it.

I can't imagine NOT voting for Maxinquaye. PMT and Nearly God are great but COME ON.

Point taken about the swampy vibe of AWDF, but, boy, is that album a drag. Juxtapose's "For Real" condenses forty minutes of experiments into one giant guitar and sitar hook.

PMT>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Maxinquaye

maxinquaye, probably just cuz it's the first. pmt is tougher and more focused, but i like the haziness of maxinquaye. love them both, tho.

If this poll renders any answer other than Maxinquaye, I'm afraid I'm going to have to call the fearsome Logic Gestapo to come and execute everyone responsible.

The Japanese vinyl edition of Maxinquaye has a cover of Heart's "Alone," Alex! Did you know?

ha

PMT

PMT = just the right mix of ominous agitation & pop sense/groove/accessibility

"'piano' is kinda beautiful esp after the claustrophobia which has preceded it."

best track on the album by some distance.

Sympathetic to all the pro PMT/Nearly God arguments here, but reluctantly gotta say Maxinquaye. Less for the (yes, fantastic) singles and more for the amazing tracks buried near the end of the album - "You Don't" and "Feed Me".

listened to pmt again last night. its still the best one. maxinquaye i think people will go for as its more 'important', the 'first', and reps a certain era more than pmt, but trickys production got a lot better after his debut. pmts thicker/'phatter'/funkier and like someone said upthread, more consistent and cohesive as an album. maxinquaye has dated a bit more too. the only track i dont like too much on pmt is makes me wanna die just cos theres times where it feels like the vocals are slightly out of key.

according to wikipedia, max went to no 3 in the uk charts, but pmt only got to 30. angels and juxtapose both went higher!

I think I like PMT best because it has the same ugly vibe as There's a Riot Goin' On.

no qualms whatsoever with Maxinquaye production. practically perfect (murky samples and all).

I am voting Maxinquaye almost solely because "Overcome" is my favorite Tricky song by a ludicrously wide margin.

pmts just denser overall, which i tend to like in any album.

Ooh, haven't heard this in years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_khmSBRpkY8

I really really miss the tapes I used to have of a couple of Tricky shows from early 97. They're the only 2 tapes I miss out of the 1000s I had, and I've never seen the recordings online anywhere. Full of stuff like this, anyway.

For some reason Maxinquaye has never clicked for me but the Vent-Christiansands-Tricky Kid-Bad Dream-Makes Me Wanna Die whammy is the best music of his career rings totally true for me

Thanks to this poll, I've got "For Real" on my iPod. Tricky is the only guy whose wow-I'm-famous ruminations totally fascinate me.

Another PMT vote here. I like Maxinquaye OK, and the cover of Cold Steel was the track that got me to pay attention to Tricky. But I started listening to him after PMT had come out, so I didn't experience Maxinquaye as something unprecedented, and emotionally for me PMT was the more compelling album, even if it has a drowsy stretch in the second half (as many have noticed). Now that Tricky is irrelevant, PMT is the only one I ever listen to. Yes, the first five track sequence is amazing, as is Piano.

There are parts of Vulnerable that I really like, too. As a whole, it's boring, but there was a great EP buried in there.

This thread is very comforting. I thought I was the only person in the world who never got why Maxinquaye was so much better than PMT.

The PMT cover art is truly horrendous.

its nice if you dont actually look at it carefully which is what i did for years.

nice to see so many pmt fans though. does anyone remember the channel 4 docu on tricky? i used to have on audio tape several live tracks from there (i think, though that might have been another concert show on tv, not sure now) that were superb. he made the studio-live transition so well.

Don't know about Channel 4, but the first time I heard Tricky it was a "Sessions on 54th Street" (?) show on PBS. Tricky, Martine, and band, around the time Pre-Millenium Tension came out. On a double bill with Ani Difranco. They did Cold Steel, Christiansands, and I don't remember what else, but I was transfixed. I spent several years chasing trip-hop before that enthusiasm ran out.

I select Maxinquaye partially because I bought it the week it came out due to me loving Tricky on Massive Attack's first album (for some reason, I hadn't heard Protection; probably I was annoyed that Shara Nelson didn't sing everything on it and pointedly ignored it). Hearing "Overcome" for the first time completely blind to "Karmacoma" was an absolutely flooring experience; I knew the song had to be a reinterpretation of shared lyrics but I really wasn't expecting the raw sexual power of that beat. To this day, I think that is one of the lustiest, most carnal songs I own (and I do think "Karmacoma" sounds kind of fussy and silly in comparison).

When the rest of the album continued to get better and better, I was completely hooked. Pre-Millenium Tension is a great album but came nowhere near the impact of Maxinquaye (or Nearly God) on me.

Here's a couple of those West 54th performances mentioned upthread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RVObkXuZ-U&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBpSJ-Lt94A

if anyone has that shepherds bush concert from 1997 (i googled and apparently it was shown right after the docu) i would be most grateful.

Anyone care to explain me what the chorus of Christiansands means? I get the rest of the song is breaking down a relationship but I have never been able to make sense of the chorus within the context of the song.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I think I like PMT best because it has the same ugly vibe as There's a Riot Goin' On.

I didn't know about that, is there an uglier vibe than "Nearly God?"

It's an ugly (but very great) drug album.

New single sort of veers into hip house territory and I’m liking its vibe.

Odd how much Xgau rates him kindly. I might use this Sunday to relisten to his full discography. I haven’t paid much attention to his work from the past 20 years or so.

Nor I – I’ve always found most of what I heard following Maxinquaye to be a mess of blown out vocals and tuneless grooves.

One question ... was Martina’s vocal on “Ponderosa” her putting on a Robert Wyatt thing? The accent and lyrics are totally different here and seem like a direct, if left field, reference.

Fall to Pieces sounds quite good. I've also barely heard any post-90s Tricky, but revisiting Pre-Millennium Tension earlier this year inspired "there's no way this artist could have stopped making interesting music!" type thoughts, and this one at least is bearing out the idea.

I've given Pre-Millenial Tension so many chances, because I feel about Maxinquaye the way you feel about PMT. Then again, my problem with PMT is not that it's not interesting, but that it's impenetrable. But I've been thinking about giving it another shot since it's been some years

Nearly God is the one I like the best after Maxinquaye.

I think PMT was just in the air at the right time, growing up (sisters played it, well before I was ready for it on my own).

I think PMT has the same problem that Maxinquaye that it feels frontloaded, but where Maxinquaye still has good moments in its second half, PMT falls apart from Ghetto Youth onwards. It has some interesting ideas but they feel very undercooked to me.

However if you take into consideration that Nearly God and PMT were released in 1996 I don’t feel harsh about both records. They’re not perfect but if you take the best cuts from both into perhaps a 10 track album you honestly get an even better album than Maxinquaye

Also I don’t know what’s the story behind it but the Weekend Mix of She Makes Me Want to Die is the version I was most familiar from and the one I like the best. No idea if it was an official remix, it seems it’s not but I remember it was more popular than the actual album one. I might be misremembering but I think even the music video that they played on mtv had the remix? Last time
I checked on youtube the remix has more views than the original one.

I was the most familiar with*

New one's sorta reminding me of Lisa Germano's No Elephants, another super melancholy album that benefits from somewhat counterintuitive sequencing.

Might as well play god and choose the 10 songs I’d use to make a better 1996 Tricky album:

Vent
Christiansands
Tricky Kid
Bad Dreams
Makes me Wanna Die
Together Now
Poems
I Be The Prophet
Black Coffee
I Sing For You

New album is interesting... a bit all over the place as usual - I agree the counterintuitive sequencing works - and half of it doesn’t have that trademark Tricky sound - not necessarily a bad thing - but it also has some of the best work he has done in years. It sounds like he actually cared about this one and put in the extra time and work before releasing it.

xpost LOL at just replacing the second half of PMT with Nearly God tracks but that is consistent with my recollection of PMT.

I think I'll give Moka's tracklist a shot - never listened to Nearly God anyhow

Nearly God >> PMT

PMT >> Nearly God >> Maxinquay.

Excited to hear the new one.

Maxinquaye is all-time for me, but I've never managed to get into his subsequent material. I doubt I've tried hard enough, though.

PMT was definitely his peak (and the live show, performed in near-total darkness, was stunning). I love that record and nothing he's done since has come close.

I've never heard Nearly God and it's not on Spotify in the US.

I felt at the time that PMT=Nearly God, sort of like two sides of the same coin (a la Achtung and Zooropa, or Laid and Wah Wah). I've never been able to figure out how he could come out of the gate so strong, with three awesome records, and then just sort of ... deflate.

Love PMT, and feel like it's an unrecognised stylistic godfather of the melancholy/dark/emo hip-hop that has come out in recent years.

Tricky Kid one of my favourite 90s tracks by anyone, and one of the most convincing conjurings of the experience of drug-induced paranoia, with those repeated lyrics, overlapping vocals and constant brooding menace.

Agree it does sag in the second half, mainly because Side 1 is so jaw-dropping and impossible to adequately follow. Might have worked better as an EP. Wish there was an official release of the near-darkness live show from that era, would love to watch that.

Nearly God is one of those albums I would like a lot more in isolation but it's so connected to PMT for me that it sometimes feels like an unnecessary coda with the exception of "Tattoo", which is the aural equivalent of being stuffed into a small box and slowly suffocated with a pillow (to be clear, I fucking love it)

There's only the narrowest gap between them but I love them pretty much in the order that I first heard them: PMT > Nearly God > Maxinquaye. PMT was more-or-less a blind buy (I'd read the hype for Maxinquaye but otherwise had only heard some of the tracks he'd produced) so it blew my brain all the way out of my ass.

You know, I'm positive I saw Tricky on the PMT tour, but I don't recall it being that visually impressive, let alone performed in near darkness. Vs., say, the Fever Ray tour that was performed in a dark, smoke-filled room with the group in bizarre costumes that you could barely make out in the murk. Now *that* was memorable. Here's a cool clip from what was probably the show I saw:

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

Nearly God is a strange one for me, I think it’s the Tricky album I’ve heard the most. It’s probably his most consistent record and pretty much every song works for me, but at the same time it’s kind of a drab to listen to if you’re not in the mood for it. There’s a lot of 5/6+ minute songs and it’s more often than not like a an aural bad trip.

In low doses or if you’re in the mood for it, I think it contains some of his songs with the most replay value (poems in particular is imho a top 10 song of his) and it is interesting if only because it creates and explores what could have been a new sort of avant-garde path for trip-hop.

I don’t know if hearing it for the first time in 2020 changes the perception of it. Here’s that playing god tracklist I posted upthread: https://open.spotify.com/album/5NYiyNqu9Joe1qtgJN01w3?si=tv9uxJG0SdWx_XTC6cXs9g

Think of it a small sampler since it’s missing the Siouxsie cover and the Bjork tracks which are worth the listen. It’s under Nearly God not Tricky on spotify maybe that’s why you can’t find it in the US? The Ruff Guide / best of compilation has an edit of Poems, I Be The Prophet and Bubbles off of Nearly God.

love the trance rock of him live in the late 90s. The Shepherd's Bush performance which was broadcast on Channel 4 sometime back then is awesome. Tricky looking pretty much possessed at times.
want some more of that stuff.

His trance rock verges on krauty stuff in places. I like it muchly.

I like Nearly God a lot too.

I haven't really paid a lot of attention to Tricky post-PMT. I didn't like Angels With Dirty Faces much and I think I stopped after that. then Knowle West Boy got some good reviews and I checked that out at the time and liked it but apart from that I don't think I've heard anything.

(Hey CP I ilxmailed you so shout if that doesn’t work.).

Filling in some gaps. Loving PMT (esp 2nd half). Onto Nearly God.

Do report. I've been meaning to do the same.

Everything up to and including PMT seemed unimpeachable then came Angels with dirty faces and the DMX album

Nearly God's oppressive whispering sound is fairly prescient of the whole ASMR/electronic pop sound used today.

Not at all his best but Juxtapose has "For Real" and "Contradictive," which I'd include in any list of his best tracks.

I did go back and listen to PMT again and it's much better than I remember. The second half is still a bit puzzling, but in a way that makes me want to listen more. First half is on the level of Maxinquaye

I’m repeating myself but “Nearly God” has “Poems” which might just be the best track Tricky has ever made.

Yeah that's really great. It is a particular mood as you seem to be saying Moka (I'm appreciating it as the days get darker earlier). There is almost no drop-off from Maxinquaye at all on these records and I'm struggling to think of a British artist who put out this much great-to-good music in such a short period. Maybe Aphex when he was churning them out.

*in the 90s anyway..

This was a good review of his recently released autobiog..

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/10/so-this-is-the-aftermath

I'm ready to dive back in his previous albums too, on the back of the new one, which is great in an understated kind of way.

Ty for that link alphie.

Just found out about this sort of prose poem David Bowie wrote in 1995 for Q magazine about Tricky.

http://www.moon-palace.de/tricky/q95.html

Nearly God his must fully realized project imo

Apparently he has a full chapter of him and bowie in his book, I might need to buy it.

Apparently he has a full chapter of him and bowie in his book, I might need to buy and read that one.

have never once heard someone say "i'm loving PMT, especially the second half." haha. maybe i too should give it a relisten.

The first half of Angels With Dirty Faces is pretty good too, but boy, does that drop off. He really should've kept some of Maxinquaye back for the latter albums.

Started reading the book, it’s a pretty interesting read so far. Tricky comes off as a very tragic figure, starting right off with his mother’s suicide.

He comes off as unnecessarily feisty in some situations and also a bit of a narcissist, but he’s also pretty self-aware about his music and knows his discography is filled with dead ends and experimental failures.

I’m only 1/5 in but would definitely recommend for fans of Tricky and the music industry in the 90s.

Nearly God's oppressive whispering sound is fairly prescient of the whole ASMR/electronic pop sound used today.

Yes!

But I always think both Nearly God and PMT feel *remarkably* current, like insanely so. I remember a day around 2019 where I played nothing but those and Yves Tumor and it all connected.

coke in your nose

I’m repeating myself but “Nearly God” has “Poems” which might just be the best track Tricky has ever made.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, October 14, 2020 12:17 AM

otm

Both of those songs were remarkably top 30 hits here. Purely fanbase-driven sales but still, what clout.

PMT would have been my answer for the poll. One of my 100 favourite albums ever by anyone I think

Maxinquaye was kind of understated, but felt like an earthquake at the time, and Pre-Millennium Tension and Nearly God built on that sound. All of them are great albums