Massive Attack: Mushroom, 3-D, Daddy G.

Additional personnel includes: Tricky, Horace Andy, Shara Nelson (vocals); Paul Johnson (bass).

One of the 90s' early classics and a landmark album in dance music, Bristol's Massive Attack invented the 'trip-hop' genre, an ambient form of hip-hop. Born from the ashes of pioneering sound system unit the Wild Bunch, the core trio of Daddy-G, Mushroom and 3-D were joined on Blue Lines by soul diva Shara Nelson, reggae singer Horace Andy and a young Tricky. Together they fashioned a strikingly modern urban soundtrack that added an emotional intensity to the sparseness and studied cool of hip-hop, with Nelson's impassioned vocals on 'Unfinished Sympathy' helping to create one of the songs that defined the 90s.

What the critics say…

Spin (9/99, p.131) - Ranked #24 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s."
Spin (8/91) - Highly Recommended - "…simply beautiful…assaults the ear and the ass, lulling and grooving…"
Q (12/99, p.70) - Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums Of The 1990s."
Q (10/01, p.99) - Ranked #8 in Q's "Best 50 Albums of Q's Lifetime"
Q (6/00, p.85) - Ranked #9 in Q's "100 Greatest British Albums" - "…It unwittingly gave birth to a new slow-burning, heavily atmospheric strain of dance music that…would very swiftly be termed trip hop….music designed for the head first and the feet second."
Vibe (12/99, p.157) - Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century
Melody Maker (12/91) - Ranked #23 in Melody Maker's list of the top 30 albums of 1991 - "…"Blue Lines" was the album Soul II Soul never managed: a loose cross between ambient House, old Studio One-time reggae, swingbeat and the post-M.A.R.S. hippychick groove. Truly gorgeous…"
New York Times (Publisher) (10/30/91) - "…mixes rap, funk, and soul into something nicely relaxed and fluid."
NME (Magazine) (10/2/93, p.29) - Ranked #97 in NME's list of the "Greatest Albums Of All Time."