60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Glory Box”—Portishead

Episode Date: November 8, 2023

Listen as Rob confesses about that time where he sorta…kinda…maybe…beat up a guy at a Portishead concert in 1997. Stay as he dives into the world of trip-hop while celebrating Portishead’s “Glory Box” as well as other bands such as Massive Attack. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Simon Reynolds Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Additional Production Support: Chloe Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if you got scammed? Would you suffer in silence, or would you do something about it? Well, I got scammed once, and this is the story of what I did. I'm Justin Sales, the host of the Wedding Scammer, a true crime podcast from The Ringer. And for seven episodes, we're hunting a comment. A guy with a lot of aliases, a guy who's ruined a lot of weddings. And with the help of some friends, I just might be able to catch him. Listen to The Wedding Scammer on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, friends, a quick announcement before this week's episode, which is The 60 Songs that Explain the 90s book is out on Tuesday. You can pre-order it now and you can get it for real on Tuesday, November 14th. And I am very new to this, but I am reliably informed that pre-orders and first week sales are huge. And so if you have any interest whatsoever in enjoying this show in book form, yes, there is an audiobook too, and yes, I read it because it would be weird if I didn't. If this book intrigues you at all, now would be an especially wonderful time to check it out. I am grateful to you regardless. Thank you. We are selling signed bookplate pre-orders as well via Premier Collectibles.

That link will be in these show notes for this episode. Or you can find me on Twitter at H-A-R-V-I-L-L-L-A. I'm very excited. Thank you for listening to me to talk about how excited I am. All right. See you on the other side. The statute of limitations expired a long time ago. And so I'd like to confess to you that I beat up a guy at a Portishead concert on July 24, 1997. Shush!

cheering. Shut your pie holes. Well, so I found a chart online that said the statute of limitations for beating someone up expired long ago. But that's the internet. I don't know if that would hold up in actual court, but luckily, I wasn't at this show, and I didn't do any of this. It was July 24th. 1997 at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City, a suitably rainy and dreary day indeed. As I watched the revered and mysterious and radiantly glum and super intimidating English band Portishead film a full concert with horns and an orchestra. They put this show out on VHS in 1998 and later on DVD. A lot of this concert also wound.

up on a 1998 live album. This song is called Rhodes. And this version made the movie, but not the CD. The version on the CD was recorded somewhere else and features both cheering and clapping. And I love this song very much. And I'd like to thank the rest of the Roseland crowd in advance for collectively putting a sock in it so I can luxuriate in the magnificent dreariness of this song with zero. No distractions. Yo, no whooping.

This ain't a whooping type environment. Where do you think you are at Aerosmith Concert? This looked like a monster truck rally to you. Pipe down. This song is called Rhodes. R-O-A-D-S. Though, of course, the dominant instrument, the B-P-U-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B is the Fender Rhodes piano,

eerie and immaculate. A bottomless. melancholy that reverberates forever. Where was I, actually? At the exact moment that Portis had played Rhodes at the Roseland Ballroom on Thursday, July 24th, 1997, in the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college, my best guess, Denny's. I was a waiter at Denny's around this time, slinging various slams and pretending to be amused when yet another Joker ordered a moons over my hammy.

It's a ham and egg sandwich. It's whatever. The name's not that funny. You got to get new material. You got to get over yourself. Also, I'd serve myself clandestine chocolate maltz that I'd stashed by the soda dispenser and sip directly out of those giant freezing metal cups. The giant metal cup was so cold that it hurt my hand even pick it up.

But the chocolate malt tasted so good. that I kept reaching for it anyway. It's a metaphor. You see how exponentially ratter this song gets when you ain't got no wayward audience whooping to contend with? Maybe I hadn't started at Denny's yet, though. Maybe in summer 97 I was still working in the produce section

at the grocery store, drawing faces on all the butternut squash with a sharpie and hiding them in the salad dressing aisle. not knowing the difference between all the types of lettuce and shivering whilst throwing around boxes in the cooler at 6.30 in the morning and hoping that the piped-in radio station would play Dunkin-sheek's barely breathing, but they never did. Terrible summer, if you want the truth. I was processing a breakup if you want the truth. If you really want the truth, I wasn't heavy into Portishead yet, but I was for sure exuding an excessively Portishead type. vibe. I was moping on an industrial scale. I'm tempted to say I'm glad I wasn't heavy into Portishead yet, or I might not have survived that summer. You might still be able to find me right now, curled up in the fetal position at the bottom of a giant crate of 25-year-old rotted kale. Are you prepared emotionally for when the orchestra starts creeping in? I wasn't, and I still ain't.

We got the incomparable, the irrefutable, that don't you ever for a second get to thinking your irreplaceable, Beth Gibbons, on lead vocals, that titanium quaver in her voice, that indestructible vulnerability. She's the best. There is something quite disconcerting about watching Beth sing in a room full of people to watch as she's made to perform amidst these whooping knuckleheads. who unfortunately comprise the audience at the Roseland Ballroom. Even the physical presence on stage of Beth's bandmates somehow feels like it runs contrary to the very essence of Beth. To my mind, the essence of Beth, as conveyed by the liquid steelyness of her voice, is her solitude, her isolation, her self-imposed isolation, I might add. Beth is, to be clear, very sad.

She sounds like world historically sad. But what makes her extra sad is the sense that she wants to be alone and she's not at all psyched about being around all these people. And in fact, she feels more alone whilst surrounded by all these people. She sings the words, I got nobody on my side. And surely that ain't right. And you believe her. You know she's telling the truth.

you know there's genuinely nobody on her side, despite the fact that in this moment there is literally an orchestra by her side. I have had it with all the whooping, quite frankly, Roseland. I am big mad. I hear one more whoop at any of you use, and I'm maybe going to do some whooping of my own if you take my meaning. Silence. That is the raddest moment. in the Portishead song, Rhodes. Yes, when the beat drops out for just a couple seconds and that little bass line goes do-do-do-do-do-do-do and the orchestra kicks in hard. Holy shit, that is a heart-stopping moment.

You curl up tighter into your fetal position and sink deeper into your giant crate of kale. That is a legendarily heart-stopping moment. In the history of pop music that is not enhanced by your impudent and superfluous whooping. I say again, with all the love in my heart, shut your pie holes. Mid-2000s, I was a music editor at an Alt-Weekly in Northern California,

in the East Bay. And my friends all worked for a quote-unquote rival all weekly over the bridge in San Francisco. And we had an informal contest, my friends and I, to see who could sneak the most words like piehole into our writing, into our insightful CD reviews and street-level local reporting.

So like derisive food-based synonyms for mouth, right? Piehole being the most common. Shut your pie holes. We were trying to expand the repertoire. Me and three other guys, making not enough money to live on in the Bay Area, we're amusing ourselves by pulling one over on our editors with this piehole stunt. And I can still recite for you. Indeed, I will recite for you right now.

All the pie hole variations we came up with and snuck into print. In chronological order, pie hole, pancake hole, waffle trap, that was me, burrito pipe, cake shoot, not me, clam cave, wow, clam cave. That is evocative. Wow, that wasn't me. seafood shaft and climatically Cheeto Chamber. That one was me and we stopped after Cheeto Chamber because that is so dumb. Wow. Weeks of embarrassed silence betwixt me and my friends after Cheeto Chamber.

I used the phrase Cheeto Chamber in a jazz review. This is how seriously I used to take my job. I went to a show at Yoshis in Oakland, the hugely respected sushi restaurant and jazz club Yoshis, which did not deserve this, and in print, I praised some poor jazz guy's excellent saxophone solo by saying that his sax solo left the crowd's Cheeto chambers agape. That is ridiculous.

behavior that is unprofessional, that is dumb as hell. Grow up, but seriously, Roseland, shut your Cheeto chambers. Now, listen, I am on the record as being a live album guy, and I am on the record as stating that what I love about the live albums that I love is the crowd. I love disruptive and delightful crowd outbursts that enhance the vibe, the song, The performance in question. So like James Brown's live at the Apollo, recorded in 1962, the album came out in 63, one of the best live albums ever made. And I am on record as stating that the best part of this whole album is when this lady in the audience spontaneously loses her shit during lost someone.

Shout out to that lady. I love that lady. truly, but I'm truly glad that lady didn't go see Portishead at Roseland. So what's the deal here? How do I justify this hypocrisy? How do I reconcile these opinions? How do I explain my enthusiasm for disruptive crowd outbursts when those outbursts disrupts live albums by James Brown or Johnny Cash or Aretha Franklin or Erica Badoo or Maxwell or unplugged Allison Chains? But then I turn around and get all agro about people whooping during Portishead because it's different. That's why.

That's how I am making an exception. You can whoop at any other show. You can whoop at Target. You can whoop at the DMV. You can whoop in church. You can whoop at a funeral. You can whoop to your heart's delight except at a Portishead show. Lock up that waffle trap.

roll a boulder in front of your clam cave. Let Beth cook and let Beth cook while ideally she forgets that you're even there. You notice how her voice is getting exponentially more powerful as it gets frailer? That's the good shit. Talking to the Independent in 1994 and Beth did very few interviews. So this is a big deal. Beth talks about getting famous, or at least receiving substantial critical acclaim, and now she doesn't like it all that much.

Quote, people think it must feel great when everybody loves you all of a sudden, and it does, but there are other sides to it. I don't feel like this now, but at one stage I was thinking, you write songs and you hope you're going to communicate with people. Half the reason you write them is that you're feeling misunderstood and frustrated with life in general. then it's sort of successful and you think you've communicated with people, but then you realize you haven't communicated with them at all. You've turned the whole thing into a product,

so then you're even more lonely than when you started. End quote. So part of the gorgeous and pulverizing frailty in Beth's voice here is her realization that she's singing, but she is no longer communicating, And the more people who hear her, the less she is understood. And then I beat up that guy. Oh, that guy.

That guy had it coming. I wasn't there. I was either at Denny's or in the produce department. I kicked that guy's ass. I didn't do any of this. I did it. I told you to quit whooping, sir. What are the chances that the guy who whooped during Rhodes at Roseland in 1997 is even aware

that he's the guy who who whooped during Rhodes at Roseland in 1997? What are the chances he's aware that he's that guy and he listens to this show? What are the chances that he's aware and he listens to this show? And he's the sort of guy to take offense at a random podcaster writing fan fiction about beating him up. I kick that guy's ass, hither and yon. I'm rolling the dice here, but on the off chance that guy knows who he is and he's listening to this. I don't mean any of this. I mean it. What is the most devastating and yet entry-level finishing wrestling move I could perform on whooping Rhodes guy? I was thinking just a suplex. Simple, classic, but you want something

flashier? You want me to give this guy the tombstone? You want me to hit him with the a stone cold stunner, the mandible claw, that's appropriate, the sharpshooter. How about a nice DDT? I'll tell you what I did. I didn't do this. The Roseland Ballroom had a full salad bar for some reason. A giant self-served salad bar like you'd find a ponderosa or sizzler or the golden corral. This isn't true, obviously.

Roseland has no salad bar. And I picked up the whooping Rhodes guy. No, I didn't. I got one hand on the seat of his pants and one hand at the back of his neck, and I dragged him down the length of the salad bar. Vegetables and nuts and legumes and various types of lettuce I can't identify and all sorts of other salad bar ephemera grinding into his face and flying everywhere. And I dragged him through all of it, and then I chucked him through the plate glass window

conveniently installed at the entrance to the Roseland Ballroom. That's not a thing either. If you listen very closely, right here, if you get $500 noise-canceling headphones, and you press them to your ears with your hands, and you filter out all other distractions, and you synchronize your heartbeat with Beth's heartbeat, and you really concentrate.

Right here at the emotional climax of, roads, you can faintly make out the sound of me tombstoning this clown into the Roseland salad bar. I wasn't there and I didn't do any of that and don't tell that guy I said any of this. And I apologize to that guy if he knows who he is and he heard me say any of that. But it's fair to say that I take Portishead very seriously. I am asking you to take how seriously I take Portishead seriously. But not literally.

My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 108 episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, and this week we are discussing Glory Box. By Portishead, another song, like Rhodes, originally found on their 1994 debut album, Dummy, a monumental record that features no whooping whatsoever and may in fact seal up your Cheeto chamber forevermore. So, how's everything with you? Let's talk for a minute about warmth, musical sonic warmth, vocal warmth, and piano warmth. Do particular voices and pianos sound warm to you? Do particular voices and pianos sound frigid to you? Forget about how they sound. Can particular voices and pianos physically warm you or chill you to the bone by the mere act of your hearing them?

Is this all pompous adjectives spewing rock critic bullshit? Or can music literally change your internal and emotional temperature? Shut your pancake hole, Rob. Hit the deck. It's time for one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. This is Midnight in a Perfect World by DJ Shadow. From his incredible 1996 album, Introducing, one of my favorite albums of the 90s,

one of my favorite songs of all time. That is awfully warm electric piano, in my humble opinion. It's not a Fender Roads. I'm pretty sure it's not a Fender Roads. Just to refresh your memory of Fender Roads goes Bube Bube Boo Boo B whereas this is a slower, smoother reverberation. Bue, Bue, B, B, a totally different thing. The electric piano is a sample.

Pretty much everything on introducing is a sample. That's the whole point. DJ Shadow is a Northern California guy. Born in San Jose, went to college in UC Davis. I hung out at both those places in my East Bay era. I've filled up my taco tank in both those places. I just made up taco tank just now. Off the dome.

Incredible. Still got it. The electric piano on midnight in a perfect world is sampled from a 1974 record by a Prague rock dude from Finland, whose name is Pehah Pohila. That's P-E-E-K-K-A, P-O-H-J-O-L-A. I can't help but think that my being forced to fumblingly pronounce the Finnish Prague rock guy name Peha Pohila is my karmic punishment

for beating up whooping Rhodes guy earlier. That's fair. I welcome judgment. That makes sense. The drums. man. I ain't got anything flowery or obnoxious to say about these drums other than the drums, man. The singer here is sampled from a 1970 track called Sower of Seeds by an artist named Baraka. You can find the original song on a compilation called Funky L.A., lost funk and rare grooves from the Los Angeles Underground, 1970 to 1975.

The singer's voice here, to my mind, she's poised. on the nice edge between warmth and frigidity, and the frigid part is her faintness. The physical distance between her and you. She's ever so slightly buried in the mix. She's fighting to be heard over the drums,

over the rad Prague rock electric piano. She is of some comfort to the listener, but she is audibly in need of some comfort as well. This is a bizarre way to think about music, perhaps. To frame a singer is either

providing a requiring comfort, solace, protection. But this sort of music, this dark night of the soul, $500 noise-canceling headphones, industrial strength moping type music, I do often imagine a lone figure, usually me, listening to this music. And a lone figure, not me, creating this music. I picture the invisible bond between the isolated listener and the isolated creator. Or I picture the heartbreaking absence of that bond, the failure of connection, the essential loneliness of the human condition. Oh my God, Rob. I get emo about this stuff. All right?

I'm sensitive. I'm just teeing up the best moment in the song. I love this part. This is one of my 10 favorite parts of songs in the entire history of popular song. I hear some clown whooping during this. part and I will install a full salad bar next to him and then DDT him into it. There's something about the loop there. The mantra, the hypnosis of midnight, a midnight, a midnight, a midnight, a midnight.

Does that part provide solace, comfort, companionship? Does it make you feel less alone or more alone? Which would you prefer? Never mind. Shh, that part kicks ass. Pretty good song. Why do I view music like this? Electronic, ghostly, mellow, hip-hop, fluent, often sample-based,

elegantly retro and yet defiantly futuristic? Why do I view this sort of music through this prism of comfort or not comfort? I blame these people. I blame massive attack who formed in Bristol, England in the late 80s and put out their debut album Blue Lines in 1991. This is what the best. case scenario past and the best case scenario future sounded like in 1991. This song is called Safe from Harm.

And there you go. We got Shara Nelson on lead vocals, singing elegantly and yet defiantly about safety versus not safety. Comfort versus not comfort. Shara, tell him what happens if someone hurts what's yours. Make a note of it. Also, all right. That's the other thing, the rapping. Massive attack at the onset consists primarily of Grantley Marshall, aka Daddy G, Robert Del Naja,

aka 3D, Adrian Thaws, aka Tricky, and Andrew Volz, aka Mushroom. 3D raps on Safe from Harm as well. And to my mind, it is quite a distinctive form of rapping. Yes, he said contagious. It's a cooler way to say contagious. The rudest thing that I have to say today, other than when I beat up that guy, the rudest thing that I have to say today is that with the exception of tricky, who's not going to be around massive attack much longer, but even him too sometimes while he's still around.

When the dudes in massive attack rap, they sound like they're auditioning for flight of The Concords. Counting coins on the counter of the 7-11 from a quarter past six till a quarter to seven. The manager, Bevan, starts to abuse me. Hey, man, I just want some musley. Yes. You know Flight of the Concords? New Zealand comedy rap duo.

Brett and Jermaine? They formed in the late 90s in New Zealand. They didn't get an HBO show until 2007. I loved that show. I love these dudes. That song's called Inner City. pressure. The rude element here is that the flight of the Concords dudes, with their dry, deadpan monotones, they're being funny on purpose, whereas the massive attack dudes appear to be

taking whatever they're talking about very seriously, and that's extra funny to me. That's rude. Every time the massive attack dudes start rapping, I think, my name's hippopotamus. My lyrics are bottomless. Super rude. I'm sorry. I saw a massive attack live in 2006. the Roseland Ballroom, actually. True story. They were great, and there was no salad bar. Let's get back to massive attack. Neon signs, hidden messages, questions, answers, fetishes.

You know you're not in high finance, considering secondhand underpants. No, I'm sorry. That's also from inner city pressure by flight of the concourse. I just really like questions, answers, fetishes. Just because I briefly mentioned them, I'm going to go on a huge flight of the Concord's kick now where I rewatch everything. Just know that while you're listening to this, I'm rewatching the too many dicks on the dance floor video. That was also rude. I'm sorry. It occurs to me that when Shara Nelson sings, but if you hurt what's mine,

I'll sure as hell retaliate, she could very well be referring to me, making fun of her friends rapping on Massive Attack albums. Withdrawn. Forget I said any of that. I'm very sorry, please, please don't retaliate. If you listen very closely on noise-canceling headphones right here, you can hear the sound of Shara tombstoneing me into a salad bar while she's singing. Excellent multitasking and breath control. She's not talking to me there, obviously. So this is Massive Attack's unfinished sympathy.

Also on blue lines. Also featuring Shara Nelson on vocals. She's in the video too. great video for unfinished sympathy. She's just walking down the street. She's viking. She's radiating serenity and togetherness. She's celebrating the neighborhood just by moving through it.

It's all very simple, but somehow tremendously lovely and heartening. The symphonic aspect of unfinished sympathy. The warming orchestral swells contribute greatly to the heartening loveliness. You hardly notice that Shara sings really hurt me, baby. repeatedly. Comfort versus not comfort. Discomfort is a prerequisite for comfort. How can you have a day without a night? Unfinished sympathy shows up on a lot of best songs of the 90s lists and perhaps even best songs of all time lists. Massive Attack made some of the best and coolest music of the 90s and directly influenced a lot of the people who made all the other best and coolest music of the 90s.

I don't remember much about seeing Massive Attack at Roseland in 2006, but I'm pretty sure I whooped like an idiot during this whole song. Unbelievable. Furthermore, Sharron Nelson is a remarkable amount of company when it comes to delivering world historical vocal performances on Massive Attack songs. The second Massive Attack album comes out in 1994 and is called Protection. You're familiar with Tracy Thorne?

Yes? from everything but the girl, her dance pop group with her husband, Ben Watt, one of the coolest couples in music history. She misses you like the desert and misses the rain. You know Tracy. Well, Tracy's here to provide maximum solace. And here is a lovely moment of harmony between the isolated listener and the isolated singer, in which the isolated singer announces pretty explicitly that she is a warming,

physical presence, here to keep the isolated listener safe from physical harm. The chords in this song, man. Once again, nothing flowery or obnoxious to say about these chords. I just thought I'd mentioned that they're remarkably cool-sounding chords. That's track one, the title track, off the Massive Attack album, Protection. Let's check in quickly with track two. Oh my God. Have you ever been told that you look like a llama?

That song's called Carma Coma. That's a cool title for a song. That's a cool song. Let's not start disparaging the rapping on Massive Attack songs again. My favorite Massive Attack album is their third album from 1998. It's called Mezzanine. If you were an excessively American and excessively alt-rockin teenager in the 90s, if you spent way too much time alone in your room with cheap non-noise canceling headphones,

listening to nine-inch nails and all the radio-friendly industrial rock that nine-inch nails wrought, your stabbing westwards, your gravity killses, your God lives underwater's, your filters,

your orgies, then mezzanine is the massive attack record where you finally, you know, get it. And what you get, or what you think you get, if you're 19 and obnoxious

and melodramatic and fatalistic, and pretty much nobody will hang out with you, is that love or love, or lust or infatuation or whatever is the least comforting of emotions, providing the least solace, and all it's going to do is hurt you, baby, really hurt you, baby, and there is no protection from anyone ever, least of all from yourself. This song is called Angel. We got reggae giant Horace Andy on vocals, and the best part of this song is when Horace chants, two words that sound, in theory, much warmer and more comforting than midnight, midnight, midnight, but in practice,

on even halfway decent headphones, this is for sure the scariest shit you've ever heard. That's awesome. Just hypothetically, if you'd spent a goodly percentage of the mid-90s, possibly arguably a dismaying percentage of the mid-90s, listening to stabbing westward, you know, driving to your shift at Denny's or the produce department going, what do I have to do to make you love me then Angel is the song that pulls you out

of the stabbing westward K-hole Angel is stabbing westward methadone or stabbing westward is massive attacks methadone I am mixing drug references and based on my personal experience or lack thereof I should in fact be making zero drug references

never mind this massive attack song kicks ass also what she's saying there? Love is a doing word or love is a demon word. Hmm? Hmm? Think about it. This song is called Teardrop.

It was the theme song to that crabby doctor TV show, House. Shout out House. I never watched House at the time, but now I watch clips from it on YouTube sometimes for comfort purposes. Sexomnia is a documented disorder. We got Elizabeth Fraser. singing tear drop from the Godtier Scottish rock band Cocto twins. Additionally, Elizabeth is a proud member of the What She's Saying there, Hall of Fame, just a masterful, deliberate lack of diction.

Just one of the greatest, least coherent singers in the history of the presumably English language. What? Just decades. Just an incomparably rich and rewarding discography of what? Love is both a doing and a demon word when Elizabeth sings the word love. Yet more remarkably cool sounding chords in teardrop as Elizabeth sings presumably English words. Other times, though, you need maximum aggression and maximum diction, which brings us back to our friend Tricky, and our friend Tricky's new solo career, and our friend Tricky's new friend who proves crucial to our friend Tricky's new solo.

career. Her name is Martina Topley Bird. She is a featured vocalist in a commanding presence. Throughout Tricky's extremely revered 1995 debut album, Maxen K. This song is called Black Steel. And it is indeed a super-agreed. A super-agreed, cover of public enemies black steel in the hour of chaos from public enemies also extremely revered

1988 masterpiece it takes the nation of millions to hold us back I keep looking these songs up and Google keeps trying to add cyberpunk to the end are all of these songs in that video game cyberpunk 2077

that PlayStation 5 game that got delayed 200 times then they put it out and it still didn't work it was a whole fiasco and I got to watch YouTube compilations of terrible cyberpunk glitches, cars all spinning in circles and shit,

which I also found comforting. It's a pretty rad game if this is the soundtrack. Is cyberpunk fixed now? Should I play it? I hope it's not fixed, actually. Forget it. Martina is up to the challenge of singing words originally

wrapped by Chuck D. Put it that way. Go sweat and as I dwell on myself. How long as it been they got me sitting in The rapport between Tricky and Martina, who became a couple for a while, their rapport is really something. It is quite unnerving, but somehow also heartening. It is great comfort born of maximum abrasion. Tricky's voice is on Blacksteel somewhere.

Yes? Ah, yes. Here he is. Phenomenal rapport. These two. abrasive and craggy and singular voice, trickies. Yes? You see Max and Kay on the vast majority of best albums of the 90s lists.

And that's legit. Pre-millenium tension from 1996 might be better, but never mind that now. Get a load of this dude's voice. Just a little bit of Martina's voice in there too. That's absolutely crucial. This song's on Max and Kay. It's called Hell is Round the Corner. And until I heard this song, I thought it was pronounced Stussy, the clothing line, not Stozy. It's definitely Stozy.

The U has an umlaude and everything. That's on me. I regret the error. Rhyming seduce me with Dress Me Up and Stozy is super rad. Also rad. Hell is around the corner samples Isaac Hayes. Specifically, the song Ike's rap too, off 1971's Black Moses, which you can find on the vast majority of best albums of the 70s lists.

That's legit also. I've took advantage of you. Used you selfishly. I believe that on Ike's rap, too, Isaac is apologizing to the very concept of love, which is an extremely cool and super Isaac Hayes type thing to do. Even if he did take advantage of love and use love selfishly, I just don't think there's any way love can stay mad at I.

Isaac Hayes for long. You see, Mel, I can't sleep, can't even eat. Don't go anywhere anymore. Isaac will bounce back from this, by the way. It's 1971. Isaac's disco phase hasn't even started yet. Great sample, though, right? Great decision by Tricky to sample Isaac's rap two on Hell is around the corner.

But of course, the astute amongst you will observe that Tricky is not the first person to sample this. Tricky is not the first critically acclaimed artist from Bristol, England to sample this. Tricky song came out in 1995. This sucker came out in 94. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is Glory Box from Portisette's debut album Dummy from 1994, and they got to Isaac Hayes first. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Who is this person? What is this voice? What is the deal with Beth Gibbons? How would you describe Beth's diction here? Playful, caustic, bright, malicious, theatrical, all of them, none of them?

Who do you hear? You hear Billy Holiday? You hear Dusty Springfield? You hear a Disney villain? You hear a Bond girl? You hear a Bond villain? No, Mr. Cupid, I expect you to die. what does Beth Gibbons think about Beth Gibbons?

Quote, I'm not technically a very good singer. If anyone says I am, I know, they don't know what they're talking about. If I want it to be, I'd have to give up smoking and have lessons. End quote. That's Beth in a 1998 book called Seven Years of Plenty, a handbook of irrefutable pop greatness, 1991 to 1990. by Ben Thompson. 1991 and 1998 is eight years, but okay, Portishead consists primarily of three people.

You got Beth. You got Jeff Barrow on lots of stuff, but primarily on turntables. And you got Adrian Utley, primarily on guitar. Beth and Jeff meet while participating in an enterprise allowance scheme. I'm going to be honest with you and say that I got really excited by the word scheme. I pictured Beth and Jeff meeting whilst devising, you know, an Ocean's Eleven style audacious crime spree, right? I pictured a stylish caper. I pictured Beth and Jeff hanging upside down and stealing the pink panther diamond or whatever, right? How appropriate, given this band's

flagrant old spy movie vibe, the mission impossible of it all. But no, no. No. The enterprise allowance scheme was an 80s Margaret Thatcher-era British political thing. They gave young people extra government money if they set up a small business. That's boring. That's so boring. But Beth and Jeff meets. And they do set up, in a matter of speaking, a small business called Portishead, a band named after the town near Bristol where Jeff grew up,

a town that Jeff once described to Spin Magazine by saying, quote, I really don't like the place. It's a place you can go to and die, end quote. And then Beth says, that's why we named ourselves after it. That's funny. Come on, she's a little playful. The first song they work on together is called It Could Be Sweet.

Dig the feature length, majestic, tragic arc of the word nothing here. Perhaps you're like me and you can close your eyes. and clearly picture the cover of Portishead's 1994 debut album, Dummy. It's a quite striking, almost nauseating blue with a blurry photo of Beth sitting in a chair and a fancy dress with blood on her face, hooked up to an IV looking disconcertingly dazed.

Perhaps you're like me and you were not previously aware that this cover photo of Beth is a still from a short film Portishead devised and, perhaps to their chagrins, starred in, called To Kill a Dead Man. Adrian plays an oily businessman type. Jeff plays a dirtbag assassin type. And Beth plays a femme fatale type.

They're all not great actors necessarily. Beth maybe, though, if she took lessons and smoked more. But they're all extremely well cast. Let's leave it at that, actually. The drums on it could be so. sweet though. The precise and bone-dry of the symbols, the dollhouse tea set delicacy of it all. It's a minor

technical marvel. It's a marvelous major triumph of vibe. Looking back on this song while talking to BBC 6 in 2010, Jeff says, it wasn't soul, but then it kind of was. And it wasn't overtly jazzy. And it wasn't folk. But she brought this adultness to the track. And all of a sudden it was, this is actually real. And she's singing about things that she obviously cares about. End quote. You can find that quote in a cool trash theory video about Glory Box as well. So this is real. Jeff is somewhat of a studio veteran

by the time Portishead kicks off. In fact, he was a tape operator at Coach House Studio in Bristol when massive attack were making blue lines. Jeff has said that he was a lousy tape-op, but he made great tea. That's going to about do it for Jeff and self-deprecation. Jeff once told Melody Maker, quote, ambient music has never particularly appealed to me.

Push go on a synthesizer. Make some noise. Put some delay on it. And put a couple sheep noises on it. I'm not into it. End quote. Rude. I believe Jeff's got some very specific.

targets in mind there. The KLF would like a word, Jeff, but let's leave that at that as well, actually. Sheep noises will not suffice then in terms of a hook. And this is how dummy, this is how Portishead first reaches me

in 1994, an alt-rockin Midwestern teenager with no ambient sheep music experience, only a little massive attack experience, and for that matter, very little cool old spy movie experience. Portishead first reaches me

via the single Sour Times, which has a recognizable retrofuturistic, cool old junk drawer feel that makes a lot of sense if you've spent 1994 getting heavy into Beck or stereo lab or like a girl like you

by Edwin Collins. You remember that shit? Is that a sacrilegious comparison from Portishead's perspective? Too bad. That's right. That's exactly how that guitar solo sounds. Too many poor-ass singers.

Not enough poor-ass songs. That's what he says there, right? Listen, there was a subset of 1994 alternative rock popular enough to sneak on the radio and MTV. And yet ultra cool and wily enough where I'd hear it and I'd go, I don't know how old this is. this is not the most sophisticated initial framework through which to receive Portishead, but, well, the statute of limitations expired on that, too. What elevates dummy, what enshrines dummy, is that you get all these warped old samples. You get that disorienting sense of timelessness.

You get all these wonderful, dusty old machines. But you get all the ghosts in those machines, too. All the ghosts are played by Beth Gibbons. I dig the beat here, right? The alarm clock, boom bap of it all. Adrian Utley's less is more fuzzed out guitar, but you also get Beth singing, wailing, moaning, declaiming, whatever it is she's saying there on the song Strangers.

I can't think of another album that delivers quite the same sort of delightful whiplash pivot between cool detached post-human sounds and bone-chillingly extreme human frailty. This song is called numb. You ever hear a cooler snare drum sound in your life? No, you have not. However, does the coolest snare drum sound she's ever heard in her life make Beth Gibbons feel less lonely? No, it does not.

in my California years, my Bay Area years, one time I went to this super cool San Francisco apartment, open mic night sort of living room concert deal. And this dude had just a microphone and a loop pedal. He was a beatboxer, right? And he did a full looped beatboxed version of Portishead's wandering star. It is difficult, perhaps, to convey the exquisite desolation of Beth Gibbons's vocal approach,

whilst beatboxing I don't know if I would recommend getting romantically involved with a Portishead covering beatboxer. You're living on the edge there emotionally. You're going to end up living a Portishead song. I'm generalizing, but come on. But on the other hand,

this dude did a great job this time. And thereafter, every time I go back to dummy, Wandering Star sounds ever so slightly more human to me. Wandering Star This song, Wandering Star, sounds more human to me, but it also remains, like, wildly depressing, right? The blackness, the darkness forever.

I have always heard Portishead primarily as primo moping music. Moping, whining, salking, pouting, being a grumpus, not calling ladies on the phone, feeling extravagantly sorry for yourself, over romanticizing your solitude, etc. This does not appear to be the way most people hear dummy. The moping approach does not appear to be either of the top two approaches most people took to dummy. Generally, you hear two things about this record.

One, it is apparently stupendous background music. You'd hear it in restaurants. You'd hear it in both high and high. and not as high-end clothing boutiques. You'd hear it at the parties all the girls were at, so they wouldn't have been home even if I had tried to call them, which I didn't. Dummy became not ambient music exactly,

not lo-fi beats to study to, but this record did prove compatible with a wide variety of activities and social situations. Put it that way. Or, or put it the other way. people thought it was make-out music, music for a smooching, amorousness, etc. On YouTube, you can find footage of Jeff and Beth on camera in a church being asked by a cheerful Canadian interviewer how they feel about dummy being described as, quote, the greatest shagging record of 1994. End quote. That's another way to put the other way to put it. That's apparently the Canadian way to put it. They don't shag in Canada. Do they? Don't answer that. Do you find this music

appropriate for a smooching? Don't answer that either. I just have a very hard time imagining some suave Canadian dude being like, hold on, baby, we need some music. Yeah, let me put on some. Yeah. All right. Check this out, baby. That song is called Biscuit. I just Googled do they shag in Canada, and I got what I deserved. That's all I have to say about that. Biscuit is the second to last song on Dummy. The last song is Glory Box.

Dig that slow motion gnarly guitar, man. Phenomenal. Adrian Utley on guitar. The chopped and screwed Jimmy Hendricks. They call him. Nobody calls him that. That is also dumb. is Cheeto Chamber caliber

dumb. Now that line's got make out music overtones for some of you, perhaps, not unreasonably. But Beth's focus, not surprisingly, is elsewhere. Talking to the Independent on Sunday

in 1994, Beth says, quote, the key line in the song really is, move over and give us some room. Because I do think women are very much taken for granted. I'm more in easygoing than a rabid feminist, but women in general are very supportive to me. History has made them like that.

And this is not something that is always reciprocated. End quote. She elaborates on this theme after Adrian's extra rad guitar solo. In 1995, Dummy won the prestigious Mercury Prize, awarded to the best album of the year from the United Kingdom or Ireland, beating out Oasis is definitely maybe, Tricky's Max and Kay, PJ Harvey's to Bring You My Love,

and many other fine records, including a Van Morrison album I was unfamiliar with. I wouldn't say Portis had recoiled from the spotlight precisely, but Portis had put out a second album, self-titled in 1997, in a similar vein to dummy, but just a little harsher. sharper. It was less, what's the word, warm. It's not as warm. It's still pretty good, though. What it doesn't have is a glory box. She's doing the voice again. The Disney villain voice. I love it. The Portishead live album, 1998's Roseland, NYC, live. You can hear me on the DVD, having my revenge. The live album's great, too, but then Portishead didn't put out another record for 10.5.000.

10 years. And when they returned in 2008 with third, my favorite Portishead record, if you want the truth, Machine Gun is undefeated. Jeff told the New York Times that he found the live album to be pompous and overblown. And he described the act of performing live like so, quote, I have never liked it and I never will. I don't feel any connection between me and the people listening to it. I way prefer to release records and have my connection be like that. End quote. Third was the last Portishead record. Dig the way Beth rings an entire tragic arc out of the word little here.

I don't want to say that I prefer Portishead this way. Isolated, confused, press averse, live show averse, and broadly indifferent to fame or adulation or whooping. Just because I use this music, primarily for moping doesn't mean they have to spend all their free time moping. I feel bad for beating up whooping Rhodes guy. Truly I do. And also I didn't do it.

But I just did what I thought they'd have wanted me to do. But it occurs to me now that there are probably better ways to sew a little tenderness. I'll give it some thought. Her voice is for sure getting exponentially more powerful as it gets frailer. But I suspect that I get more powerful too, just listening to her, provided that I give her plenty of space and I keep my taco tank shut. We're so honored to talk today with Simon Reynolds, critic and author. He's written for every publication you can think of, and he's written many incredible books, including Energy Flash, a journey through rave music and dance culture, rip it up and start again, post-punk 1978 to 1984, and Retromania, pop culture. culture's addiction to its own past. Simon, thanks so much for being here.

Oh, my pleasure. Can you talk a little bit about Bristol? What characterizes Bristol within the UK? Like, would you ever want to hang out there? Yeah, Bristol is one of the loveliest cities in the UK, and it's, I think at one point, historically, it was the second city. It was the second biggest city after London. It was a port city. It is a port city on the West Coast. of England, quite near Wales, and it was, you know, so when Britain was huge sea power, a trading power, that was very important, is also, you know, less, less goodly, more heinously,

was part of the slave trade as well. So there's a historical, a dark side to Bristol's eminence. But as a result, there's a lot of beautiful Georgian architecture. it's much more than London it's more of a I would say a village but there's a Bristol scene people could get to know almost everyone in it quite quickly

and I suppose Jermaine to the topic of trip hop and and Porter's head is that it has quite a large black population a lot of people Caribbean descent that it's

Eric called St. Paul and so it's sort of this is a sort of London-like ferment of multiracial musical culture that has fueled everything interesting that's come out of Bristol. It's also like a city that's

people often compare it to San Francisco. It's got a little bit of a stoner, slackery, hippie vibe. You know, as well as trip-rob things like dobstap have been very big there. It's sort of like a head-nodding musical culture

where people are kind of slower tempos. Yeah. London is a fast, high-energy city. Music tends to be faster, like jungle in the 90s. Was the London sound in, it makes a lot of sense that this more torpid music would come out of Bristol. It's got this mellow. We call it the West Country. It's the West Country of England.

it's more peaceful. Okay. As an American teenager, like Portishead sounded like they came from another planet, right? But I think if you were a little savier, a little closer to the source, did Portishead make more sense? Did they sound more like a continuation of what was already happening in the UK especially? Well, just before, you know, a few years before, Dummy, Portishead's super-selling debut album.

this Epocho album would come out from the group Massive Attack called Blue Lines. I think it was like 91. 91. And so it was similar sort of like down tempo, informed by hip-hop, using a lot of samples and loops, but had sung vocals on some of the songs. It had this very mellow kind of rapping on other songs.

You know, a member of Massive attack at that time was tricky. You then had his own career, amazing debut album with Max and Kay. Max and Queer. I believe Jeff Barrow was part of the, you know, the main production guy was part of the massive crew in the sense of working on the records

he was a studio engineer tape hop kind of guy and they became part of this sort of loose clown of people around massive and I think he may have engineered Blue Lines and certainly was around in that sort of milieu so people in the UK

that was a massive amount. It was like you know a lot of people thought it was like the best album 91 it seemed to point to a whole new expansive and uniquely British spin on hip-pop. And so, you know, there was, you know, Borders said didn't seem that illogical or out of the blue to us because we'd heard that, we'd heard the first tricky single. There was a sort of other things that were sort of based out of hip-hop methods,

but kind of people doing as an article depth charge to be sort of instrumental, slow, moody, hip-hop, a lot of film samples, kung fu film samples, you know, actually very similar in a way to the Wutang clan. I hear a lot of Wutang always in this music, yeah, yeah.

I mean, people in Britain were obsessively listening to American hip-hop, and so, and there was a, you know, a British rap scene, and some way it was pretty decent, but Massa was really the first time, for me anyway, he felt like, oh, this is a unique

British character sort of spinning it. It was very low key rapping, very sort of dreamy. And then Portis had sort of took that kind of sound and added songs to it. Thinking about the retromania of it all, like Portis had sampled a lot of old records,

70 soul, you know, Mission Impossible, like old spy movies, like he said. But when Dummy came out, like a lot of people had never heard anything like it. Like, did this, this band sound to you like the past or the future? Well, it was both in a really interesting kind of way, I think, because it was part of this thing that had emerged by the early 90s, you know, the Great Digger culture, the sort of

DJ as a scholar of antique grooves, you know, and always looking for things that other DJs and producers didn't have, you know, obscure soundtracks. There was a big thing for library music, which is essentially off the peg soundtrack. People who couldn't afford to hire a composer, people doing low-budget films or TV, things on radio, commercials, would use library music.

These little sort of pre-written, pre-recorded motifs or interludes, underscores, they call them, atmosphericness of music. So these library records are very prized because you find grooves and orchestral elements and horn paths and things that you could just splice into your record, your hip-hop record, or your own bass record.

So there's this whole crate digger culture of sort of scouring the, mostly the 60s and 70s for music, the golden age of analog recording, you know, when a real drummer had never been recorded more beautifully than in that period. And so looking for those kind of beats, looking for a beat that no one knew about,

or an aching little patch of symphonic sound, you know, as with the Isaac Hay sample in Glorybox. So I think it sort of came out of that, you know. So soundtracks are a big thing, and soundtracks tend to be, have a nostalgic, retro sort of sepier-tinted kind of vibe to them. But, you know, the way it's put together, the loops, the, the, um, the, the, um,

the sampling processes, the editing, that's much more future-oriented. So it's a kind of fascinating blend of past music and digital technology, I think. Yeah. I read a lot about the total ubiquity of dummy, you know, for the year or so after it came out. It's playing at every restaurant, every clothing store, you know, every party. Was it your experience that Portishead were suddenly and sort of abnormally everywhere? They really were. and actually ruined the record for me in lots of ways.

After loving it, I just didn't play it for decades because it was everywhere. And I was actually living in New York by then, and it was ubiquitous there. Like you heard it in hair salons, in cafes, in boutiques, around people's houses. And it did, as beautiful as it is, it did get great. And it sort of had this effect of turning it into.

a background music. Right. Like, it was sort of like, it quickly became a sort of like, I don't know, a sharday for the 90s, like a, which, you know, it was kind of odd because it is a very, the songs are very tragic and they're like torch,

and they're coming from this despairing place. But somehow it became a sort of chic, mildly depressive backdrop. all kinds of other activities. It's kind of weird. Commerce. Yeah. I think the huge success of the record ruined it for Portishead almost.

Do you think that their success unnerved them and maybe even turn them off? I can't shake the feeling that this band would have made a bunch more records if way fewer people had been around to listen to them. You know what I mean? Yeah, possibly.

Yeah, it must have done the head. I mean, the next circle is pretty much like a Xerox of dumby, isn't it? And then there's a long silence. Then they do an amazing third album, which is quite different. It still has the aching sadness and melancholy of Beth Kimman's voice and lyrics,

but the sound backdrop is quite different from the dummy sort of mood. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it probably did. It probably also just, if you're very successful, then you're getting invited to tour and DJ gigs and all kinds of stuff, there must have been a lot of demand for them

to do things that weren't actually related to recording music. I don't really know why it took them so long. I think that seemed to happen with some of the other Bristol people is that success kind of threw them for a loop and that you have quite long gaps between the breakthrough album and then the next record. Now, you interviewed Portishead, which I think very few people did overall or way fewer people than for a record of this magnitude.

Like I've always found them very intimidating and only sort of understood that they hated interviews, you know, and like interviewing them would be terrible. Like what was your experience like trying to talk to them? Well, it was, I probably was one of the earlier people to interview them. So I don't think they were quite as fed up with being interviewed and asked about Tripop, you know. Like they must have got really sick of this word, triple, which. I think it's a brilliant formulation. It was invented by a journalist,

and so typically bands don't like to rally to something invented by a journalist as I've found myself that I've coined words. But Chompuy's a perfect word. I'm very jealous. I had a guy called Andy Pemberton, who was working at Mix Man, the leading dance magazine in the UK, coined it.

And it's just perfect. It describes that kind of music. But I think, yeah, Matt must have annoyed them. You just get a third. fed up with being asked the same questions. I don't ever again. But I got Jeff Barrow when he was still, I guess, fresh to it. So he was perfectly approachable and helpful.

Beth Cubans, though, didn't do an interview and refused to do interviews, I think. I don't know if she's ever been interviewed. Certainly then she was, so I'm told, terrified of being interviewed. And so that was a bit odd. and I actually resorted to I did say I didn't say these were her quotes but I said I can only imagine

what she would have said and then I quoted these quotes from a book about depression and mentally by the theorist junior Christopher so so this is like an imaginary interview because the songs are very very bleak and they're all like songs about

doomed relationships being addicted to love, you know, very kind of like Billy Holiday-ish scenarios. And, you know, often reminded me of songs like Gloomy Sunday for Billy. Someone made famous by Billy Holiday. So I was, you know, I wanted to have her in there, even though she wouldn't speak to me. So I had this sort of rather poetic quotes that were from, you know, imaginary conversation I had with her. I don't know if that annoyed her, but I never got in trouble for it. But, yeah, I don't know.

They weren't intimidating when I, when I spoke to them. They were perfectly affable. Jeff, Jeff Barrett was, you know, helpful. But he's very much like the sound and the production and that sort of side of it. The heart and soul of the songs is best given. I mean, I think the melodies and the words are all from her. So that was a bit of a problem in terms of getting the story, you know. Yeah. What made her voice, her singing, you know, her persona distinct? Like I think about massive

attack, right? Like all the incredible vocal performances on massive attack records, protection or unfinished sympathy or tear drop, you know, and many of those do have like an essential warmth to them, like this inviting quality that is very much not Beth's whole deal. Like, how do you find her as a vocalist? What made her so great? Beth's given singing is social to be. like the music, you talked about this retroy thing about the sound. And there's a sort of certain stylized thing that she seems to be referring to earlier modes of singing. So it's sort of, there's a sort of reality to it, which it does, I mean, it seems to be coming from real pain, but it's sort of slightly stylized.

In the video of the glory box, she's sort of a frock on and she's singing to one of those very large, old-fashioned mics. And it's sort of like conjuring an idea of, I don't know, a thing like Julie London or maybe Billy Holiday. So these sort of dramatic, sort of melancholy love songs of heartbreak from a different era, sort of timeless era. I think that's what they're often going for.

It's not so much the past or the future, but the sort of timelessness. And a lot of these songs sing, you know, You could imagine them being standards, you know, like classic songs that other people would cover. That seems to be the thing they're aspiring to. And yeah, so I think there's emotional reality in it, but it's sort of filtered to these older styles. Yeah, sorry. Does it surprise you that Glory Box is the song now, you know, or at least the most,

streamed song off this record. I always remembered Sour Times, I think, if you were just watching MTV or whatever. Like, that was your introduction. It wasn't necessarily my favorite song. I think it is a great song. I mean, I really liked Sour Times. I liked Numb.

Biscuit. I think Numb was the first single. I'm not sure about that. It's full of great songs. That one never particularly stood up to me, although it has that sort of section where kind of almost rocked. out a bit, like it suddenly gets...

The guitar... ...the gloom and sort of gets energize, which I think maybe people like that, I don't know, maybe that's part of the appeal of it, that it sort of isn't just stuck on one level, it kind of goes somewhere. A lot of the songs do seem to be just this looped, mood of gloom, just sinking too.

Right, right. I mean, there's a couple of things I would say about this sound. in this era, just generally, but brought in particular, trip hop in general. One, it's very, very sexy music. I mean, it's this sort of centralised melancholy. And I think these records, the success of them, has something to do with seduction soundtracks, all of, you know, I think it's sort of like almost like slow jam's music,

British slow jammer's music in a weird way. I have a feeling that a lot of sex took place with this music in the background. That is the suspicion. I've read that a lot, yes. Just like with Charday and other kinds of music, there's a sort of sensuality to it. The textures are so lush and plush. The other thing that I mean,

you have to say, is talking about weed. And like, weed in the early 90s. I think that was the beginning. I'm not a historian of weed or anything. My sense, that is when these super strong strains of weed start to come through. Skunk was a really big word and a really big aroma that you came across in the 90s. And this is a much stronger kind of, much higher THC content. And so it's sort of like a kind of, you know, it's not your mellow, Cheech and Chong 70s getting stoned.

It's, it's kings with paranoia. And it's quite a sort of intense stoner experience. And I think a lot of the music was made in that state. And it was listened to in that state. And it makes you, you get really hung up in the kind of textures of the sound and the high hats and the, and the looping of it adds that

because when you're stoned, you want to, the thing you're off excited on, you want to hear it over and over again. And all these, as well as hip-hop dub, is like a big part of this Bristol culture. It's a culture of listening to hypnotic, slow tempo, music

with a lot of sounds moving around in the soundscape through Dab production. So I think it's stoner music and it's also seduction music. I really love the live album they did, the Roseland album, you know, with the orchestra and the horns and the crowd. But like the crowd trips me out a little bit. Do you like that record? Does the presence of other people almost ruin the portis had mystique a little bit? I don't think I've listened to a live.

I'm not a huge live album fan. And I don't think, yeah, I agree with you. I know you're as just as a prejudice. The idea of listening to a live port and an album just seems ridiculous. It's home music and it's music to play in your headphones or with other people in a state of relaxation. or with your partner, I think. It's very in-doors music. I'd have a live album or Portishead doing an outdoor concert

just seems. You want a darkened room and a sort of very interior meditative sort of mindset. People are head-nodding. It's sort of in a stupor in a way to this music. And yeah, I think it's kind of probably about indoors music. Yeah, listening to this, listening to Porta's Head with a bunch of stoned, paranoid people, you know, crowded around you. That does not sound like fun at all, actually. I don't know to say that.

Just judging from Critics Polls, I think you really liked Tricky. I think you really loved his debut album. And obviously, he has a song, I think, Hell is around the corner that shares, you know, the Isaac Hayes sample with Glory Box. Like, what similarities did you hear between him and Portishead? And maybe more importantly, what differences did you hear between the two of them? Yeah, I thought that Mexico was the more radical record in the way that samples were used, the very interesting way that Martina Tockley Bird and Trick his vocals intertwined or she was singing instead of him, but, like, singing words he'd come up with, you know, like play of identity and gender on

the record was a lot more radical. But they're close, you know, it's gloomy. They're gloomy records. And in Tricky's case, the comments I made about weed, really, like he talked about being, so stoned, you would see demons in his living room, you know. It's pretty stunned. There's this, you know, and it's sort of tinging, it's drug use that's tinging into this dark side, this paranoia, this, you know,

air songs retires like hell is around the corner, which I think is the one that uses the same sample as POSID, right? So with the POSID record, I think most of it is couched in the terms of doomed or doomed relationships, heartbreak, love addiction, with a tricky record, it starts to take on a bit more of a political or cosmic sort of dimension, the gloom in it and the sense of, you know,

He has a song called Struggling. You know, it's like, there's sort of political resume this I don't think you get with Porter said, but they're very compatible because it's this sensual, sample-based,

loop-based kind of music that you can, it's sexy. It's sort of sexy and sad, I think, is the sort of weird combination, which probably isn't that weird. If you take it back to Francine Arctra

and, you know, a wee small hours of the morning, There's a tradition of this kind of music that is a little bit blue, but also kind of erotic or romantic at the same time. Yeah. My favorite song off that tricky record is the public enemy, the black steel, you know, Martinez singing it. And as you say, like there's a political dimension there that Portisad doesn't really have.

And it's also, it's like a rock song. It's almost a new metal cover of it. And I love it for that. But that is sort of the dividing line between that record and the port is. Portishead record. Like, that's what he's doing that Portishead is definitely not doing. I think that Tricky's just a bit too discomforting. Like, you know, it wasn't Max Inquay that became the album that you heard in hair cellums and cafes. It's just too depressing and bleak. Of course, they're like, just right. It's like, you know, a bit melancholy, bit mellow, but like,

you could live with it. Yeah. I'm sad, but I still want to buy something. I get you. I, I I understand. Dummy did help inspire like a huge wave, you know, of groups in this vein, like more Cheba, sneaker pimps, slam. I'm sure you could name, you know, a couple other dozen. But like, what is the hardest part of the Portishead sound to emulate? Like, what did they have that nobody who came after them had? I don't know. I mean, I think originality, I suppose. The other groups that came after, the Poetet had was so much like, that's a formula. we're going to copy it.

I mean, they did some nice tunes, but yeah, there was this gluts of down-tempo, lush, plush, moody, sexy kind of music. And there's something to someone doing it first. I think they just somehow elevates it. I don't know. I think their lyrics are probably a lot better. The lyrics, I think it's best,

they all come from Beth. And they're much better than the, than the rest of that idiot and the really great sort of heartbroken love junkie kind of lyrics and she's got a very distinctive voice I don't know it's hard to say it's just

better they're better than their copies I think you know being original and being really good I mean he almost inevitably engender imitators it's sort of like the price really that's probably maybe that's something that caused them their problems

with trying to do a follow-up is like we'll show. Yeah. How do we do something that now we've got all these mini-mees, you know, around us who are just watching it down? How do we do something that stands out? I listened to the dummy and then the second record, the self-title, like back-to-back, like one immediately into the other. And I don't know if I've ever done that before. And I agree that the second one is a little bit of a carbon copy, but it sounds a little harsher to me, you know, just in a way that they're like trying to push into a hard.

harsher, you know, more combative direction, probably as you say, in reaction to everybody who's now just trying to be as lush and symphonic as possible. Yeah. I think massive attack did the same thing with the only did after protection. And yeah, you know, you go a bit darker. You go a bit, there was this sort of phrase around. It's funny because, you know, now you think the 90s as quite a golden age and at least 30. fairly okay politically like I mean obviously it was

bad things going on and we're in Bosnia or something but like compared to now yeah but at the time you all really gloomy I can remember like you know and so when Turkey did now I'm called pre-millenium tension you know yeah yeah we're living in these dark times and you know that's of course it's sour times and you know

it was a lot of gloom around in the 90s which seems inexplicable now but um you know yeah we felt everything was turning to shit. I suppose in the UK, if it had been a very long period of, this was before the new Labor came,

there'd been a very long period of conservative government. So there was quite a lot of glumness in the use, I think, at that time. Thank you so much, Simon. This has been great. I really appreciate you talking. You're welcome. I enjoy going back to it. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Simon Reynolds.

Thanks as always to our producers, Jonathan Kermas. and Justin Sales. Thanks to Chloe Clark for additional production help, and thank you very much for listening. And now I must entreat you to go listen to Glory Box by Portishead. We'll see you next week.