Biography
British group Massive Attack - Pioneer Trip-Hop, whose songs serve as a decoration of a dozen of cult films and TV shows: "Matrix", "Blade", "Batman Forever", "Big Kush", "Dr. House", "Enchanted", "Drain" and others. The total edition of the album sold exceeded for 20 million copies, and the history of the group - for 30 years, but the duet continues to create hits, conquer musical awards and new listeners.The history of creation and composition
In the mid-1980s, The Wild Bunch was popular in Bristol, which united free musicians and DJs. At one of their parties, DJs grant Daddy G Marshall and Andrew Mushroom Waulz, as well as the rapper and Graffitchik Robert 3D del Naya. Young people who were then a little over 20 years old, in a matter of hours found a common language and decided to compose something previously unheard of.
The creative ideas of the trio supported other participants of The Wild Bunch - Claude Willie Wee Williams, Miles Johnson, He's Dj Milo, and Nelli Hooper. In 1988, in this composition, the group (then still without a name) composed the track "Any Love", which I liked Circa Records, a subsidiary of Virgin Records.
At first, the underground musicians preferred themselves to consider themselves the "sound system", which, unlike the group, combined the musicians, DJs, producers, sound engineers and even people who do not have a direct relationship to music. But in 1990, the Massive Attack will be on the hands of the Massive Attack, the contract from Circa Records, obliging to release 6 studio albums and the collection of the best hits.
"Massive Attack is a group of people who initially could become DJs, but in the end, without any training found themselves in the studio. The reason for this is love for music. We did not have the desire to become pop stars, we positioned ourselves as an anti-group. And then we became a group, "recalls those times Daddy G.Music
According to the recognition of 3D, the work on the debut album "Blue Lines" was carried out 8 months with Christmas breaks and the World Cup 1990. Musicians drew inspiration from conceptual albums written in different genres, such performers, like Pink Floyd, Public Image Ltd., Billy Cobam, Walle Badar and others.Massive Attack tried to create dance music not for feet, but for head. She demanded voices, but none of the participants in the team did not want to sing, and then the group began to invite vocalists. At first, these were the same underground singers, but over time under the Massive Attack silence, Madonna, Schinaid O'Connor, Gorillaz, Tricky, Portishead, and other world stars began to sing.
The release of "Blue Lines" was preceded by singles "Daydreaming", "Unfinished Sympathy", "Safe from Harm" and "Be Thakful for What You've Got". Musical critics called the release "the most elegant, urban, mysterious compilation of 1991" and noted that after Blue Lines, the borders separating the genres of Soul, Funk, Reggae, Classic, Hip-Hop and Space Rock, will be blurred forever. The album has reached the 13th place in the British charts.
Some Massive Attack songs of the first half of the 1990s went under the name Massive to avoid contradictions associated with the war in the Persian Gulf.
In 1994, Massive Attack was released the "Protection" record, which critics took to a new style - try-hop. Previously, such music was written only by Portishead, and along with them the Bristol team is considered pioneers, founders of the direction. However, there is in the album and R & B-hits, reggae, syntip-pop, rap.
The Rolling Stone magazine in 2011 placed "Protection" on the 51st line in the list of "100 best albums of the 1990s", as well as to the number of 1,001 records that need to be heard before dying. Trying to preserve independence, in 1995 Massive Attack founded Melakolic label. Full freedom did not benefit the "sound system": the musicians fought for the sound, left the team and returned.
First, the songs that were approved by the group members did not unanimously, did not fall into albums, and became soundtracks. "Angel" from the collection "Mezzanine" was so good that Guy Richie took her to the film "Big Kush" (2000), and Teardrop serves as a title theme of the TV series "Dr. House".
"MEZZANINE" (1998) is the most commercially successful Massive Attack plate - almost 4 million copies sold. It is in it that the key hits of the group "Teardrop", "Angel" and "Dissolved Girl" are contained. For the week, the album has reached the top of the charts in Australia, Great Britain, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand and in Europe, became platinum in Australia, Belgium, New Zealand, Switzerland, twice platinum - in the native for the UK team.
The next plate "100th Window" (2003) was with difficulty. First, work on MEZZANINE Rasked DJs, and many left the project - forever or for a while. Secondly, after 2 years, the Massive Attack records were abandoned from most of the developed material for the "100th Window", I had to start anew.
I did not contribute to the exit of the album and the fact that a month before the release of 3D was arrested on suspicion of spreading child pornography. The charges were removed, but during the investigation in the House of DJs found Ecstasy. For a while he was limited to entering the United States, which influenced the schedule of tour in support of the "100th window".
After a tour, the work of Massive Attack was still not laid. In order to prevent a long break between releases, in 2006 the musicians presented "Collected" - a collection of previously unwanted records. Then they started working on the fifth studio plate "Heligoland" (2010).
As a PR "Heligoland" Massive Attack launched short budget videos on the Internet. All of them were 8, including Paradise Circus. The clip consists of passages of old pornographic films and an interview with actress Georgina Spelvin, which stages telling the story of adult films. The clip for the song "Saturday Come Slow" raises the problem of using music as torture tool.
In an interview with 2013, 3D reported that Massive Attack cases improved and work on a new album is already underway. The result of 3 years of labor was the collection "Ritual Spirit". It includes only 4 tracks, the most famous of which is "Voodoo in My Blood" recorded with Young Fathers. The main heroine of the clip on this song was Rosamund Pike, which became famous for the role in the thriller "disappeared" (2014).
To distribute "Ritual Spirit" Massive Attack used the Fantom application available only for iPhone users. In 2016, three new songs came out on the same carrier: "Come Near Me", "Dear Friend" and "The Spoils". In the clip, Kate Blanchett starred on the last.
Massive Attack tried to compensate for the lack of new albums with unusual concerts. For example, in July 2013 in Manchester DJs recalled Egor Letov and Yanke Dyagilev, bright representatives of the Siberian underground with an unenviable biography. They performed the songs of "sadness my light" Dyagileva and "Everything is going according to plan" Group "Civil Defense", and in Russian.
Massive Attack - a team with an active civil position. So, 3D and Damon Albarn, the founder of Blur and Gorillaz groups, actively criticized the Great Britain's policy, opposed the war in Iraq in 2003.
Two years later, the "sound system" organized a charitable concert for helping Tsunami victims in Japan. At the same time, 3D and Daddy G gave 3 concerts in support of Hoping - an organization that collects money to promote the projects of Palestinian youth from refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria.
In 2010, Massive Attack donated the fee obtained for advertising Lincoln to clean the water after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. In the same year, DJs recorded the AIR Atlas collection, the funds from the implementation of which were sent to the support of the War Child charitable organization. The album has developed a thousandth edition.
And recently, Massive Attack has encouraged the confidentiality of Facebook users. In March 2018, the social network made data leakage 50 million users. DJ protests suspended the work of their Facebook page until the management of the company will not provide confidentiality. Now the account is updated.
Massive Attack now
2019 began for the Massive Attack with the MEZZANINE XX1 tour. Judging by the information on the official website, the DJs are now chapped in North America. In the program - famous hits from the 1998 album in the video formation of the director Adam Curtis.
There is no information about the speed of the Massive Attack discography. On the pages in "Instagram", "Twitter" and Facebook musicians post only photos from concerts. Perhaps they will go to the studio after the completion of the tour, but the history of the "sound system" cannot guarantee that.
Discography
- 1991 - "Blue Lines"
- 1994 - "Protection"
- 1998 - "MEZZANINE"
- 2003 - "100th Window"
- 2010 - "Heligoland"
Clips
- 1990 - "Daydreaming"
- 1991 - "UNFINISHED SYMPATHY"
- 1994 - "Sly"
- 1995 - "Protection"
- 1995 - "Karmacoma"
- 1998 - "Teardrop"
- 1998 - "Angel"
- 2003 - "Special Cases"
- 2009 - "Paradise Circus"
- 2010 - "Saturday Come Slow"
- 2016 - "Voodoo in My Blood"
- 2016 - "The Spoils"