Third (Portishead Album)
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''Third'' is the third studio album by the English band Portishead. It was released on 28 April 2008 in the UK by
Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in Jamaica by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in 1959, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, another ...
and a day later in the US by
Mercury Records Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. Mercury Records released ...
. Portishead's first studio album in eleven years, ''Third'' moved away from their earlier
trip hop Trip hop is a musical genre that has been described as a psychedelic music, psychedelic fusion of hip hop music, hip hop and electronica with slow tempos and an atmospheric sound. The style emerged as a more experimental music, experimental var ...
style, incorporating influences such as
krautrock Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electron ...
, surf rock,
doo wop Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a subgenre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, ...
and the film soundtracks of
John Carpenter John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, composer, and actor. Most commonly associated with horror film, horror, action film, action, and science fiction film, science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s, he is ...
. After Portishead released their self-titled second album in 1997, the songwriter and drummer, Geoff Barrow, put Portishead on hiatus and moved to Australia. He became uninterested in music, and efforts to develop new songs with the guitarist and keyboardist, Adrian Utley, failed. They were inspired to create again after producing with the band
the Coral The Coral are an English rock band, formed in 1996 in Hoylake on the Wirral Peninsula, Merseyside. The band emerged during the early 2000s. Their 2002 debut album ''The Coral (album), The Coral'', from which came the single "Dreaming of You (T ...
, and restarted work with the singer, Beth Gibbons, in Bristol, England. ''Third'' entered the top ten of several charts internationally and was certified gold in the UK. It was named one of the best albums of 2008 by several publications; in 2013, ''
NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...
'' ranked it number 330 in its list of
the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is a recurring opinion survey and music ranking of the finest albums in history, compiled by the American magazine ''Rolling Stone''. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and indu ...
.


Background

In 1998, following three years of tours and a divorce, the drummer and songwriter Geoff Barrow put Portishead on hiatus and went to Australia. He told '' Drowned in Sound'': "I couldn't find anything I liked musically in anybody, in anything." The guitarist and keyboardist Adrian Utley joined him to work on new material, but they were not satisfied with the results. In 2003, Barrow wrote " Magic Doors", which he described as "an opening ... then we ended up going back and forth, hating everything and then liking everything, and we had to decide whether to carry on." Barrow and Utley co-produced
Coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...
's fourth album, '' The Invisible Invasion'' (2005), which proved inspiring. According to Barrow, "Here's me and Ade, these older dudes, too scared to even play a note because we were scared we'd hate it, and there’s them, just being able to write a soundtrack in an afternoon."


Recording

Portishead produced ''Third'' in their Bristol studios. Many of the songs existed for years as sketches, with the members exchanging recordings and adding ideas. By 2006, Portishead had prepared six or seven tracks. Barrow said most of the record was written during a short period of productivity at the end of 2007. Wanting to move away from their earlier
trip hop Trip hop is a musical genre that has been described as a psychedelic music, psychedelic fusion of hip hop music, hip hop and electronica with slow tempos and an atmospheric sound. The style emerged as a more experimental music, experimental var ...
sound, Portishead avoided using instruments they had used before. Barrow said "the basic thing was to sound like ourselves, not to repeat ourselves". The members experimented with swapping roles; Barrow played bass, and the singer Beth Gibbons played guitar on "Threads". Utley said Portishead were "looking for limited frequency in instruments ... limited playing, too. I pursued virtuosity for many years, learning scales and harmony, and being able to improvise through scales and chords, but technique isn't important for me any more." For the first track, "Silence", Barrow initially sampled a record that had a spoken-word Portuguese introduction. Inspired by a
Wicca Wicca (), also known as "The Craft", is a Modern paganism, modern pagan, syncretic, Earth religion, Earth-centred religion. Considered a new religious movement by Religious studies, scholars of religion, the path evolved from Western esote ...
n theory about the number three, Portishead wrote a "manifesto", had it translated into Portuguese, then recreated the sample with the new words to introduce the album. They did not synchronise the guitar's delay effect with the tempo, creating harsh, asynchronous echoes. Portishead used several analogue synthesisers, including a
Minimoog The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...
, Korg MS-20,
ARP 2600 The ARP 2600 is a subtractive synthesizer first produced by ARP Instruments in 1971. History Developed by a design team headed by ARP namesake Alan R. Pearlman and engineer Dennis Colin, the ARP 2600 was introduced in 1971 as the successor to ...
, Siel Orchestra and VCS 3, and a
clavioline The clavioline is an electronic analog synthesizer. It was invented by French engineer Constant Martin in 1947 in Versailles. The instrument consists of a keyboard and a separate amplifier and speaker unit. The keyboard usually covered thr ...
, an electronic keyboard that predates the synthesiser. For "Threads", they used the "evil" detuned sound of the VCS 3 to create a foreboding horn-like sound, inspired by the English progressive rock band
Hawkwind Hawkwind are an English rock band known as one of the earliest space rock groups. Since their formation in November 1969, Hawkwind have gone through many incarnations and have incorporated many different styles into their music, including hard ...
. The Siel Orchestra's sequencer was not sophisticated enough to play the
arpeggio An arpeggio () is a type of Chord (music), chord in which the Musical note, notes that compose a chord are individually sounded in a progressive rising or descending order. Arpeggios on keyboard instruments may be called rolled chords. Arpe ...
s in " The Rip", so the band recorded the notes individually and edited them into an arpeggio pattern. The track also features a toy acoustic guitar Utley found in a junk shop. "Deep Water" was inspired by Steve Martin's performance of " Tonight You Belong to Me" in the 1979 film '' The Jerk.'' Utley was initially unimpressed with Barrow's concept, and said: "Geoff said he wanted to put these backing vocals on it, and I said I was having nothing to do with it. We didn't argue, I just conceded on that. But now I really quite like it, and the funny thing is Geoff is moving the other way on it." To create the rhythm on " Machine Gun", Portishead sampled the
drum machine A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A d ...
in an old
electronic organ An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the pump organ, harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has si ...
. The synthesiser outro was inspired by the film soundtracks of
John Carpenter John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, composer, and actor. Most commonly associated with horror film, horror, action film, action, and science fiction film, science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s, he is ...
. For " Magic Doors", the band added
hurdy-gurdy The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-turned crank, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin (or nyckelharpa) bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar ...
, and saxophone played by Will Gregory of Goldfrapp. According to Utley, "We made regorybe a
free jazz Free jazz, or free form in the early to mid-1970s, is a style of avant-garde jazz or an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventi ...
player that day ... We told him just to go fucking mad, to freak the fuck out. He had to move out of the room, so we couldn't see him, so he'd feel less inhibited."


Music

''Third'' contains elements of
electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...
,
experimental rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, wit ...
,
psychedelic rock Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...
and surf rock. It departs from Portishead's
trip hop Trip hop is a musical genre that has been described as a psychedelic music, psychedelic fusion of hip hop music, hip hop and electronica with slow tempos and an atmospheric sound. The style emerged as a more experimental music, experimental var ...
sound, the genre they had popularised with their albums ''Dummy'' (1994) and '' Portishead ''(1997). It also contains no turntable scratching, a hallmark of their earlier albums. Gareth Grundy of '' Q'' wrote that the only connection to Portishead's prior records was Gibbons's voice. Instead, ''Third'' contains "muscular" synthesisers,
drum break In popular music, a break is an instrumental or percussion instrument, percussion section during a song derived from or related to stop-time – being a "break" from the main section (music), parts of the song or piece. A break is usually interp ...
s and abrupt endings, with "propulsive"
krautrock Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electron ...
rhythms, break beats, cathedral organ and "Moroccan drones". ''The AV Club ''wrote that Gibbons "sounds more hollowed-out and harrowed than ever, a human nervous twitch on too much coffee and too little sleep". The opening track, "Silence", has a "propulsive" drum loop and "
Morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...
"-like guitar. "We Carry On" has a "claustrophobic" two-note electro riff; ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
''likened it to the work of the American psychedelic band Silver Apples. "Deep Water" is a "ukulele
doo-wop Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a subgenre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, ...
". "Machine Gun" is driven by a "mechanical" rhythm that gives way to synthesisers which '' Drowned in Sound'' likened to the soundtracks of the 1980s films ''
The Terminator ''The Terminator'' is a 1984 American science fiction action film directed by James Cameron, written by Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd and produced by Hurd. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, a cybernetic assassin sent back in t ...
'' and ''
Blade Runner ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Di ...
''. "Magic Doors" features "huge" piano chords, "tick-tocking" cowbell, and "corrupted" brass.


Release and promotion

''Third'' was released on 28 April 2008 on
Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in Jamaica by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in 1959, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, another ...
in the United Kingdom, 29 April
Mercury Records Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. Mercury Records released ...
in the United States and 30 April on Universal Music Japan in Japan. It entered the
UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...
at number two and the US ''Billboard'' 200 at number seven, becoming Portishead's highest US chart debut, selling 53,000 copies. On 8 and 9 December 2007, Portishead curated the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in
Minehead Minehead is a coastal town and civil parish in Somerset, England. It lies on the south bank of the Bristol Channel, north-west of the county town of Taunton, from the boundary with the county of Devon and close to the Exmoor National Park. T ...
, England, and performed their first full sets in nearly 10 years, including tracks from ''Third''. On 21 January 2008, Portishead announced a European tour, with a headline spot at the
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival Coachella (officially called the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and sometimes known as Coachella Festival) is an annual music and arts festival held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, in the Coachella Valley in the Colora ...
on 26 April 2008, their only US date on the tour. On 21 April 2008, a week before its release, ''Third'' was made available as a free
stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...
on Last.fm, attracting 327,000 listeners in 24 hours. It was the first time Last.fm made an album available before its release. ''Third'' was the fifth-bestselling vinyl record of 2008, selling 12,300 copies.


Reception

At
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews and ratings from mainstream critics, ''Third'' has a score of 85 based on 38 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". In his review for
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
,
Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and former senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of multiple artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance ...
said ''Third ''was "genuinely, startlingly original" and "utterly riveting and endlessly absorbing". ''
The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was created in ...
'' Michaelangelo Matos wrote that "nearly every track provides some little sonic goody midway through as a reward for continued attention after all these years. For once, it's worth the effort." Reviewing ''Third'' for '' Drowned in Sound'', Nick Southall wrote that "several individual songs drift by almost unnoticed at first, contributing little more than a sense of unease to the collective memory of the album; an impression of oppression. Those numbers that do stand out, though, drag the record close to magnificence." John Payne of the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' wrote: "Though several doses of this languid, tension-filled music get a tad draining, taken altogether it is a suitable sound for our troubling times, and there's an invigorating mysteriousness. Its blaring electronic peals are a wake-up call." The '' Guardian'' reviewer Jude Rogers found that ''Third'' was "initially more a record to admire than to love", but that its "majesty unfurls" on repeats listens. Louis Pattison of ''
NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...
'' wrote that ''Third'' was "adventurous, sometimes dauntingly so – but seldom anything less than compelling" and said it was Portishead's best album.
PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, ...
' Alan Ranta wrote that it would eventually be seen on par with Portishead's earlier work. ''
Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...
''s Nate Patrin named ''Third'' the week's "best new music", writing that it was "a staggering transformation and a return to form that was never lost, an ideal adaptation by a group that many people didn't know they needed to hear again". In ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
,''
Rob Sheffield Robert James Sheffield (born February 2, 1966) is an American music journalist and author. He is a long time contributing editor at ''Rolling Stone'', writing about music, TV, and pop culture. Previously, he was a contributing editor at '' Blen ...
wrote that ''Third'' was "an unexpected yet totally impressive return". Mike Bruno of ''
Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...
'' said it was less accessible than Portishead's earlier music, but "no less gorgeous". Gareth Grundy of '' Q'' gave it three out of five and was disappointed that Portishead had moved away from their earlier sound, writing: "''Third'' will probably be more admired than listened to ... ''Dummy'' was a challenging record that just happened to find an audience. ''Third'' merely turns up the black until the darkness is overwhelming." ''Third'' was named the best album of 2008 by PopMatters, second best by ''Pitchfork'', ninth by the ''Guardian'', and 25th by ''NME.'' It was included in the 2014 edition of '' 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die''. In 2019, the ''Guardian'' named it the 45th-best album of the 21st century. In December 2008, the American webzine '' Somewhere Cold'' ranked ''Third'' No. 7 on their ''2008 Somewhere Cold Awards Hall of Fame''. In 2013, ''NME'' named it number 330 in its list of
the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is a recurring opinion survey and music ranking of the finest albums in history, compiled by the American magazine ''Rolling Stone''. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and indu ...
.


Track listing


Personnel

* Beth Gibbons – vocals, keyboards, electric guitar on "Threads" * Geoff Barrow – drums, keyboards, synthesiser, bass guitar, percussion, programming * Adrian Utley – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar,
ukulele The ukulele ( ; ); also called a uke (informally), is a member of the lute (ancient guitar) family of instruments. The ukulele is of Portuguese origin and was popularized in Hawaii. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and con ...
, keyboards, synthesizer, programming * Charlotte Nicholls – cello on "Silence" and "Threads" * Claudio Campos – spoken intro on "Silence" * Wendy Bertram –
bassoon The bassoon is a musical instrument in the woodwind family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuosity ...
on "The Rip" * Team Brick –
clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...
on "Plastic," vocals on "Deep Water" * David Poore & Ben Salisbury (the Somerfield Workers Choir) – vocals on "Deep Water" * Will Gregory – saxophone on "Magic Doors" and "Threads" * John Baggott –
Rhodes piano The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, th ...
on "Magic Doors" * Stu Barker –
hurdy-gurdy The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-turned crank, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin (or nyckelharpa) bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar ...
on "Magic Doors" * Clive Deamer – drums on "Threads" * Jim Barr – bass guitar on "Threads"


Production

*Producer – Portishead *Recording engineers – Adrian Utley, Stuart Matthews, Rik Dowding, John Pickford *Mix engineers – Geoff Barrow, Craig Silvey *Art design – Marc Bessant *Photography – Larry Bennett


Charts


Weekly charts


Year-end charts


Certifications


Release history

''Third'' has been released in various formats.


References


External links

* ''NME'' interview with Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley discussing the tracks on the album. {{Authority control 2008 albums Albums produced by Geoff Barrow Albums produced by Adrian Utley Island Records albums Mercury Records albums Portishead (band) albums