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Dummy
by: Portishead

List Price: £8.99

Off The Bookshelf's Price: £4.98

You Save: £4.01 (45%)
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Used Price: £2.25
Collectible Price: £4.98
Third Party New Price: £3.50

Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0042282852229
Label: Universal / Island
Manufacturer: Universal / Island
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Universal / Island
Release Date: June 18, 1999
Running Time: 45 minutes
Studio: Universal / Island
Sales Rank: 455

Disc 1:

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
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

Description:
Named for a town near Bristol, England, Portishead is a British dance band that grabs ideas from all over the mod pop world (spaghetti Western guitars, turntable scratching, melancholy soul vocals, atmospheric organs, house beats) and stirs them into spacey, dub-like productions that sound like a dance club in the middle of a "Twin Peaks" dream. You could call it surreal hip-hop pop. But if the beats on the band's debut album achieve a kind of trance-like static, the songs themselves reach for something more rousing. With understatedlyrics and overstated melodies, singer Beth Gibbons and bandleader Geoff Barrow write insinuatingly melancholy dance ballads that ebb and flow like waves through rustling waters. Organs quaver in quiet tremolos, guitars emit squiggles and turntables hiccup, while Gibbons, in a high, cutting voice that evokes a less breathy Sinead O'Connor, sings songs of longing and heartbreak with equally palpable emotion.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Simply brilliant
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.

Rating:

- Hauntingly beautiful album-I urge you to buy it!
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)

Rating:

- end of the evening sheer pleasure.
put this on after you have got rid of all the losers or u have made it home from the pub.
it oooooozes class.

Rating:

- Totally depressive, worthless noise.
I bought this recently and will never play it again. totally unmusical and the lead singers vocals are well over rated. i can think of many far better singers. nothing on this album is original.

i cant see how this album became so well rated on amazon.

Rating:

- Alien Heart
This band came from the same Bristol incubator as Massive Attack and Tricky, and there is the same dreamy Trip-Hoppy character here. Where they part company is the cold steely atmosphere Portishead muster.
Beth Gibbons voice is the thing that defines the sound. Simultaneously bruised, almost wretched, yet super-cool, her vocal delivery is almost jazz tinged and brings out complex emotions. This debut album is a remakably strong collection of tunes with few weak links.
The music is creatively quirky, utilising Hip Hop, Jazz, atmospheric pads, breaks, angular beats and disjointed guitar. This is alien, but not alienating stuff, and it still sounds real cool and cutting edge now, withstanding endless repeat listens. File under Brilliant ... Read More:

Music : Dummy