Blue Lines

''Blue Lines'' is the debut studio album by English electronic music group Massive Attack, released on 8 April 1991 by Wild Bunch and Virgin Records. The recording was led by members Grantley "Daddy G" Marshall, Robert "3D" Del Naja, Adrian "Tricky" Thaws, and Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles, with co-production by Jonny Dollar. It also features contributions by singers Shara Nelson and Horace Andy. Generally regarded as the first "trip hop" album, ''Blue Lines'' blended elements of hip hop (such as breakbeats, sampling, and rapping) with dub, soul, reggae, and electronic music.

''Blue Lines'' was named the 21st greatest album of all time in a 1997 "Music of the Millennium" poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, ''The Guardian'' and Classic FM. In 2000, '' Q'' readers placed it at number 9 in the magazine's poll of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever". In 2003, the album was included on ''Rolling Stone''s list of " The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and again in 2012 and 2020. '' Pitchfork'' ranked it at number 85 in its list of "The Top 100 Albums of the 1990s".

A remastered version of the album was released on 19 November 2012.

Background

"We worked on ''Blue Lines'' for about eight months, with breaks for Christmas and the World Cup," said Robert "3D" Del Naja, "but we started out with a selection of ideas that were up to seven years old. Songs like 'Safe from Harm' and 'Lately' had been around for a while, from when we were The Wild Bunch, or from our time on the sound systems in Bristol. But the more we worked on them, the more we began to conceive new ideas too – like, 'Five Man Army' came together as a jam." The group also drew inspiration from concept albums in various genres by artists such as Pink Floyd, Public Image Ltd, Billy Cobham, Wally Badarou, Herbie Hancock and Isaac Hayes.

Daddy G said about the making of the album:

The font used on the cover of the album is Helvetica Black Oblique. Del Naja has acknowledged the influence of the inflammable material logo used on the cover of Stiff Little Fingers' album ''Inflammable Material''.

Composition

''Blue Lines'' is generally considered the first trip hop album, although the term was not widely used before 1994. A fusion of electronic music, hip hop, dub, 1970s soul and reggae, it established Massive Attack as one of the most innovative British bands of the 1990s and the founder of trip hop's Bristol sound. AllMusic also affirmed the album as the "first masterpiece" of what later became known as trip-hop, and described it as "filter ngAmerican hip-hop through the lens of British club culture, a stylish, nocturnal sense of scene that encompassed music from rare groove to dub to dance. The album featured breakbeats, sampling, and rapping on a number of tracks, but the design of the album differed from traditional hip hop. Music critic Simon Reynolds stated that the album also marked a change in electronic/dance music, "a shift toward a more interior, meditational sound. The songs on ''Blue Lines'' run at 'spliff' tempos – from a mellow, moonwalking 90 beats per minute ... down to a positively torpid 67 bpm."

Reception

In a contemporary review of ''Blue Lines'' for ''NME'', Dele Fadele described the album as "the sleekest, deadliest, most urbane, most confounding LP 1991 has yet seen", writing that Massive Attack "put current changes on the dancefloor in perspective and map out blueprints for what must surely come next" and that "after ''Blue Lines'' the boundaries separating soul, funk, reggae, house, classical, hip-hop and space-rock will be blurred forever." '' Select''s Andrew Harrison similarly complimented the album's diverse mix of styles and called it "a record to transcend every boundary", while in ''Melody Maker'', Jim Irvin praised it as an album that "one hopes might just bring down forever the wall of snobbery that still exists between dance and all other music." Robert Christgau was more reserved in his praise, giving the album an honourable mention and writing, "from soul ii skank, those postindustrial blues got them down".

The album reached number 13 on the UK Albums Chart; sales were limited elsewhere. ''Blue Lines'' proved to be popular in the club scene, as well as on college radio stations.

According to Acclaimed Music, a site which uses statistics to numerically represent critical reception, ''Blue Lines'' is the 43th best-received album of all time, and third best-received of the 1990s. In 1997, ''Blue Lines'' was named the 21st greatest album of all time in a "Music of the Millennium" poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, ''The Guardian'' and Classic FM. The following year, '' Q'' readers placed it at number 58 in its list of the "100 Greatest Albums Ever", and in 2000, the album was voted at number 9 in the magazine's poll of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever". In 2003, the album was ranked number 395 on ''Rolling Stone''s list of " The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", 397 in a 2012 revised list, and 241 in a 2020 revised list. '' Pitchfork'' ranked it at number 85 in its 2003 list of "The Top 100 Albums of the 1990s". The album was also included in the book ''1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die''. The track "Unfinished Sympathy" has also been singled out for praise, earning a BRIT Award nomination for the best single of 1991 and being hailed by BBC Radio 2 as "one of the most moving pieces of dance music ever, able to soften hearts and excite minds just as keenly as a ballad by Bacharach or a melody by McCartney."

"This album is chill music for me – music to write to", said author Chuck Palahniuk. "I'm writing short stories to this right now. I put this on repeat, something Andy Warhol used to do: He'd put singles on and play them unendingly to the point where the language would break down, and he would paint to that trancelike repetition."

As of February 2010, the album had sold 266,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of ''Blue Lines''.

Studios

* Coach House (Bristol) – recording ; mixing
* Matrix (London) – mixing
* Konk Studios (London) – mixing
* Eastcote Studios (London) – recording
* Cherry Bear Studios – recording
* Abbey Road Studios (London) – recording
* Roundhouse (London) – mixing
* Hot Nights (London) – recording
* LOUD Mastering (Taunton) — remixing, remastering

Musicians

* Shara Nelson – vocals
* Horace Andy – vocals
* Massive Attack – vocals
* Paul Johnson – bass guitar
* Tony Bryan – vocals
* Wil Malone – string arrangement, conducting
* Gavyn Wright – leader
* Neneh Cherry – additional arrangement
* Mikey General – backing vocal

Technical

* Massive Attack – production, mixing
* Jonny Dollar – production, mixing
* Booga Bear – executive production
* Jeremy Allom – mix engineering
* Bryan Chuck New – mix engineering
* Kevin Petri – engineering
* Haydn – string engineering
* John Dent — remastering
* Bruno Ellingham — remixing

Artwork

* Blame: Judy – art
* "3D" Del Naja – art, design
* Michael Nash – art, design
* Jean-Baptiste Mondino – back cover photo
* Eddie Monsoon – single faces

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Notes

References

Bibliography

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{{Authority control

1991 debut albums
Albums produced by Jonny Dollar
Massive Attack albums
Virgin Records albums