1. Safe From Harm 2. Karmacoma 3. Angel 4. Teardrop 5. Inertia Creeps 6. Protection 7. Butterfly Caught 8. Unfinished Sympathy 9. Risingson 10. Future Proof 11. Five Man Army 12. What Your Soul Sings 13. Sly 14. Live With Me

The group who single-handedly created the woozy, sexual, cinematic, and meditative dance genre known as trip-hop with their 1991 masterpiece Blue Lines later went on to craft gorgeous soundtrack music and generally emerge as one of the most forward-thinking, fastidious, and s-l-o-w production teams in pop music. Collected, a best-of compilation straddling the group s career, is the kind of record that reeks contractual obligation, but that s not meant as a diss. If a kick-ass collection like this is what it takes for this heady group to keep the record execs happy while they slowly hone a new album, so be it. Much of the older tunes sound remarkably contemporary, which isn t surprising when you consider Massive Attack have always mixed styles in radical, new ways. The one new tune included to entice die-hard fans, the slowly percolating and deeply bluesy Live With Me, is what soul music will sound like in the future. --Mike McGonigal

#Live with me (2008-02-16) I haven t heard the whole album but I just want to say that Live with Me with Terry Callier is the sexiest record EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It even beats Night Nurse by Gregory Issacs and that s saying something!

#Simply the best! (2007-01-19) I was given this CD as a birthday present. I had never heard any Massive Attack before and I loved it as soon as I played it. As a result, I ve bought nearly all their other albums. Each track is a winner. I challenge anyone to not find something on this CD which they like!

#An excellent Best of album (2006-11-09) This is an excellent Best of album. I must admit that Massive Attack largely passed me by when this stuff was first out. Probably my age!! I got into listening to them when I heard Mezzanine . However listening to this compilation demonstrates how inventive they were. The idea of bringing guest singers in for so many of the tracks was a definite plus as it adds variety. The music is smooth all the way through. Some of it is beautiful but always dark-tinged. Stand out tracks are Angel , Teardrop , Safe from Harm and Unfinished Symp...

#Massivily Attacking The Airwaves (2006-05-13) Now normally i m not really one to buy greatest hits albums but with this one i just couldn t resist. Massive Attack that helped (along with Portishead and Tricky)define the poignant trip-hop genre that was popular throughout the 90 s this is a great run down of what Massive Attack are about and if your new to them this album is essential. 1. Safe From Harm - Taken from their debut Blue Lines and features some great vocal stylings of Shara Nelson this is one of the highlights and one of my favourite songs overall 10/102. Karmacoma - This ...

#Genius (2006-04-27) Words fail me beyond to say that I have all the albums and brought this for the videos on the DVD. Pure musical genius and one the of the nest groups on the UK music scene - I look forward to more

1. Mysterons 2. Sour times 3. Strangers 4. It could be sweet 5. Wandering star 6. Numb 7. Roads 8. Pedestal 9. Biscuit 10. Glory box

The collaboration of studio whiz Geoff Barrow and singer Beth Gibbons, Dummy was made at the same time as a short film noir called To Kill a Dead Man, and the same approach--gloomy, tormented, and wildly melodramatic--permeates the album. Sour Times (the hit in which Gibbons cries, again and again, Nobody loves me, it s true) and the more cryptic Glory Box are the linchpins of the album, defining its sound: dark flashes of old soul and film music, dehumanised electronic bleeps, Gibbons emoting like she s consumed by shame, and a bass-and-beat pulse derived from the slow bump and grind of the Bristol scene that spawned Barrow s old collaborators, Massive Attack. --Douglas Wolk

#Call me a dummy but..... (2008-10-13) I ve heard this record for the first time today,(been on another planet!) and the first thing that struck me about it was how the vocal is so similar to my favourite female singer, the little known (in this country}, HEATHER NOVA. I m not a fan of much electronic music, and I was particularly irritated by the vinyl scratching that appears in several of the songs, however mainly because of the vocal and the songs that don t involve the scratch I know i m going to really like this album. If you dont know HEATHER NOVA, do me (and yourself)a favou...

#Style Over Substance (2008-10-09) The reference points are obvious: King Tubby, Cocteau Twins, Massive Attack and film noir soundtracks. Back in the 90s Portishead were unfathomably cool and fashionable, and did much to popularise trip-hop. Portishead repackaged soul and jazz music, and sold it to critics who had no real interest in those genres. Tellingly, the album received the prestigious Mercury Music prize in 1995, confirming its status among indie rock critics as that years most highly regarded novelty record. For all of Portishead s apparent cynicism, it would be easy t...

#90 s Trip hop at it s best (2008-09-25) I had heard the name Portishead floating around electronica forums on the net but had never acted on the actions of other people s critic of their music. However, I came onto amazon and found a nearly all 5 star review from all the reviews so I just had to buy as a vivid fan on trip hop style music. From first glance, you can hear how much Massive Attach have been influenced by this gritty, smooth jazzy 90 s trip hop feel, it feels like a 45 minute drug that intises you into a olbivion of funk and future feel. Trip hop has never really sounde...

#Simply brilliant (2008-07-21) Hmmm, how does one sum up this album in just a few words? Dark, mysterious, melodic, industrial, melancholic, desolate - any or all of these apply. Others have already waxed lyrical about the feel of the album, but I think you really have to listen to it - all of it. Maybe even a few times, as it took a few listens for me to really get it . As soon as I did get it I totally loved it, and it remains one of the most frequently played albums in my collection even after nearly 15 years. Never bettered or even equalled by Portishead since in my opinion...

#Hauntingly beautiful album-I urge you to buy it! (2008-07-14) This album is absolutely brilliant. Vocally, it is pure genius, and musically it is perfectly timed. I have just bought this album, as a replacement for the one I lost in my mispent teenage times! It`s jst as great as I remember it being (unlike many of my music purchases of the 90`s)

1. Safe From Harm 2. One Love 3. Blue Lines 4. Be Thankful For What You ve Got 5. Five Man Army 6. Unfinished Sympathy 7. Daydreaming 8. Lately 9. Hymn Of The Big Wheel

The critical and commercial triumphs of Portishead, Tricky and Roni Size have established Bristol as a centre of slow-burning creativity, but it was the staggering impact Massive Attack made with their debut album which first put the West Country town on the musical map and made reluctant superstars of Mushroom, 3-D and Daddy G. Blue Lines provided a blueprint for the sound which would become known as trip-hop, combining the raw soundsystem vibe of the Wild Bunch parties with immaculate production and the distinguished vocal talents of Tricky, Shara Nelson and Horace Andy. From the understated beats and deftly-arranged ensemble rapping of the title track to the smokey paranoia of Five Man Army and the unrepeatable melancholic splendour of Unfinished Sympathy, the album is a modern classic through and through. It won the Mercury Music Prize in 1992 and remains the finest work of a frighteningly talented group. --Ed Potton

#Influential, brilliant .An album fully deserving the title classic. (2008-12-01) Should i ever be asked to name the album i consider to be the most influential in the history of music( given that i have,nt heard every album in the history of music) i would plump for Massive Attacks 1991 debut album Blue Lines. Trip hop years before the term became synonymous with . . . . well anything , it triggered a shift in dance and electronic music to what the music critic Simon Reynolds called a more meditational sound running ( or maybe loping ) at lower tempo,s . The band merged black music...

#Bristol music (2007-06-15) In reference to the review dubbing this a one track album, what album were you listening to???? I am offended by your review!Yes unfinished sympathy is a truly great song, but is by no means the best on the album! Blue lines is one of the greatest albums ever and every track is a classic!

#Sadly, a one-track album (2007-01-18) The outright winner here is Unfinished Sympathy, a thing of beauty so superbly crafted and utterly satisfying that, ironically, it makes all the remaining tracks on this album sound dull. Bedazzled and blinded by genius, or just plain ripped off? Whatever the truth is, I ll be inclined to download that one track and spare myself the cost of the album.

#A Massive Triumph (2005-02-16) I came to this album very late - 13 years late to be exact - and I m still in the honeymoon period with it, playing it constantly. I m probably about to say the same as everyone else but there s not a duff track here, mainly because of the different styles at play (jazz, hip-hop, dub, dance, bits of soul, the beginnings of trip-hop, tribal beats with Hymn of the big wheel and of course, orchestral music on Unfinished Sympathy ). There s a wonderfully sparse, late-night feel on tracks such as Blue Lines and Five Man Army - the way 3D and crew lang...

#Trip-Hop Heaven (2004-11-30) Firstly, for those of you who are new to Massive Attack, who may have heard Unfinished Sympathy and not a lot else and think that Blue Lines is an album that continues in this desperately majestic vein of ambient flamboyance - I suggest you think again. Chilled out it is - commercial it certainly isn t, but for me that s the beauty of this album - it s one of the genuine trip-hop albums that isn t afraid to be what it is. You won t find it cowering in a halfway house somewhere between commercial big beats and full-scale ambient nonsense noises. This is Tr...

1. Best Foot Forward 2. Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt 3. The Number Song 4. Changeling 5. Transmission 1 6. What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4) 7. Untitled 8. Stem/Long Stem 9. Transmission 2 10. Mutual Slump 11. Organ Donor 12. Why Hip-Hop Sucks In 96 13. Midnight In A Perfect World 14. Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain 15. What Does Your Soul Look Like 16. Transmission 3

DJ Shadow, a.k.a. Josh Davis, could be credited with bringing newfound introspection to the gloating sounds of hip-hop. Condensed with urban oscillations and scatological beats, Endtroducing... shutters with eclectic samples and aural montages that reach beyond the constraints of hip-hop style. Enhancing the mix with fundamentals of rock, soul, funk, ambient, and jazz, the modern fusions fail to go unnoticed, even by the casual listener. While most of the tracks are compiled by layering samples from vinyl treasures found in used-record bins, the production quality of the mosaic is unmatched. Darkened melodies carry throughout the album with its eye on the end of the tunnel. The narration samples come from numerous sources and keep the listener involved and waiting for resolution. With a message as fragmentary as an overheard conversation, Endtroducing... conveys no apparent conclusion, but begs the mind, body, and soul for some rewind. --Lucas Hilbert

#Insight, foresight, the clock on the wall reads a quarter past midnight... (2007-07-10) I first got into electronic music a while ago, and frankly couldnt have asked for a better induction. I was recomended this by a friend when I said I liked the electronic stuff on Kid A and he told me that most of it was influenced by this man. He was right, Shadow is a genius. His skill with a drum machine is matched only by his skill with a sampler and his talent for mixing, perfectly capturing an ever shifting mood with changes of tempo, time signature, key, instruments and genre. Its all capt...

#One of the most influential albums ever! (2007-05-12) Ok, not too many adjectives can describe how good this album is, but it is important to point out how influential this album is. Basically there would be no Ok Computer (not just Kid A) without Endtroducing and they are considered to be two of the best albums ever, so it s logical to suggest that Endtroducing is better, something I always try and explain to Radiohead fans. This is simply brilliant, I would not change a thing about the album and track 4, Changeling is just stunning. Buy it please.

#Record breaking (2007-03-12) Superb from start to finish - Shadow in his finest hour. The first album to be made entirely from samples. Sounds derivative? Buy it, listen and learn. May take you a few playings to get your head round some tracks, but don t worry you ve heard most of it all before as ironically this is now one of the most sampled albums around, certainly by advertisers and tv execs. If you get a chance to see him live don t miss it. .

#good background music?? Not inspired, sorry (2006-09-09) i dont know what to say about this really. I read the reviews like you are now and got the impression that this was some kind of undiscovered gem from way back in the day that id overlooked. Dont get me wrong this is a good album but its not inspiring like the reviews suggested, there is so much of this sort of music out there, this is no different. On first impressions there is one track that stands out as worthy of its acclaim and thats track 8. This track made me stop what i was doing and made me listen and thats what i ...

#Electronic Excellence (2006-04-11) I always find it strange when people talk about their favourite track on this album. The whole ",experience", is what makes this album so good. There is not one stand out track: the whole thing plays like one continuous stand out track! The onslaught of almost maddening beats give way to sudden passages of tranquility that use each other to great effect through the contrast they produce. Playing like a modern day classical piece this is diverse and dark. Also like the best music it rewards repeated (even continuous) listening!

1. Heroes - Roni Size 2. Jazzmaster - Reece, Alex 3. Speechless - Count Basic 4. Going Under - Rockers Hi-Fi 5. Bug Powder Dust - Bomb The Bass 6. Rollin On Chrome - Afrodelics 7. Useless - Depeche Mode 8. Gotta Jazz - Count Basic 9. Donaueschingen - Truby, Rainer Trio 10. Trans Fatty Acid - Lamb 11. Gone - Holmes, David (1) 12. Sofa Rockers - Sofa Rockers 13. Eastwest/stoned Together - Mama Oliver 14. Boogie Woogie - Mama Oliver 15. 1st Of The Month - Bone Thugs-N-Harmony 16. Lexicon - Kruder & Dorfmeister 17. Bomberclaad Joint - Knowtoryus 18. Million Town - Strange Cargo (1)

By the late 1990s Vienna production duo Richard Dorfmeister and Peter Kruder had firmly established themselves as remixers par excellence, selecting key elements of other people s compositions and rebuilding them in their unique framework, which saw a collusion of Latin, dub and bossa. This outing on K7 collates their finest works in a double CD set, and though compiled in the spirit of DJ Kicks retains much of each track with the mixing itself barely noticeable as the material segues gently from outtro to intro. All of their best work is here, from the opening strains of Kruder s take on Roni Size s Heroes right through to the closing washes of Million Town, highlights taking the form of a breathtaking, space aged dub of Depeche Mode s Useless and Trans Fatty Acid from Lamb, which weaves Louise Rhodes angelic vocal into a sprawling, live groove. Fascinating late-night listening. --Kingsley Marshall

#Si2wheels (2008-03-06) As with all who have felt compelled to add their thoughts on this amazing double CD, I too find it timeless and one of those rare collections you will never get tired of. We often drive upto Wales (usually leave around 8pm and get to mid Ceredigian around midnight) and this collection, specially Part 1, is reserved for the last hour or so. . . . nothing like rolling through the night to this sound :)Hope everyone gets to experience these sounds. . . . thanks to the Bear for recommending it :)

#It s the greatest mix album ever, okay? (2007-09-24) Just take a look at the other reviews - nearly 10 years on and people are still raving about this mix. K&D created something alchemically magical with this album: it is smooth, seamless, yet never boring, and flows with a real sense of progression. And now it s ridiculously inexpensive you d be crazy not to buy!

#Pure Brilliance. (2007-06-18) Although I usually steer well clear of compilations this is probably my most listened to CD. It doesn t really count as a compilation because the songs are all reshaped and mixed together flawlessly. Both discs are great but I find myself listening to Disc 2 at least daily. The fact that other reviewers have said they prefer Disc 1 shows how consistently great it is. It really is too good for words, you can only listen from start to finish without skipping to hear for yourself. At night there is nothing that comes close to this CD. Disc 1 kicks...

#Amazing (2007-06-15) K&D are best known for making smooth, funky, dubbed, smoked-out club mixes. Their published work is rare, and as with this album, completely seminal. These guys are the absolute masters, and their musical instincts are second to none. When I mean instincts, I mean not only knowing which tunes to pick and what order to put them in, but also how to re-engineer each tune so it flows smoothly into the next re-engineered tune. It s hard to describe this album as a `mix in the conventional sense. Most mix albums take good tunes and put them in a particular order. ...

#A desert island disk for sure! (2007-04-20) So much is right about this CD its untrue! There are upbeat songs, ones that you can chill out to and the mix hits the mark perfectly. I have a lot of good memories and associations with this CD, and it is the type of album that forces its way into your memories and experiences. Groovey. But you must listen to this CD!!