Rocktrospectiva: The Influential And Game-Changer "Blue Lines" Turns 35

Released on 8 April 1991 "Blue Lines" was the debut studio album by English electronic music group Massive Attack. The recording was led by members Grantley "Daddy G" Marshall, Robert "3D" Del Naja, Adrian "Tricky" Thaws, and Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles, with co-writing and 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.The album spawned four singles "Daydreaming", "Unfinished Symphathy", "Safe From Harm" & "Hymn Of The Big Wheel"/"Be Thankful For What You've Got". 

About the making of this classic album: "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: We were lazy Bristol twats. It was Neneh Cherry who kicked our arses and got us in the studio. We recorded a lot at her house, in her baby's room. It stank for months and eventually we found a dirty nappy behind a radiator. I was still DJing, but what we were trying to do was create dance music for the head, rather than the feet. I think it's our freshest album, we were at our strongest then.

Blue Lines has been 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. Considered as the "first masterpiece" of what later became known as trip hop, and described it as "filter[ing] US 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. The album also marked a change in electronic and dance music, "a shift toward a more interior, meditational sound. 

Critic reviews praised the album and described the album as "the sleekest, deadliest, most urbane, most confounding LP 1991 has yet seen", 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." At the Brit Awards' 1992 ceremony, Blue Lines was nominated for Best British Album.

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.

 

Blue Lines Track List:  

 

1. Safe From Harm

2. One Love

3. Blue Lines

4. Be Thankful For What You've Got

5. Five Man Army

6. Unfinished Symphathy

7. Daydreaming

8. Lately

9. Hymn From The Big Wheel