Dummy (album)
Dummy is the debut studio album by English electronic band Portishead, released on 22 August 1994 by Go! Beat Records. The album received critical acclaim and won the 1995 Mercury Music Prize. It is often credited with popularising the trip hop genre, and is frequently cited in lists of the best albums of the 1990s. "Dummy" was certified triple platinum in the UK in February 2019, for sales of 900,000 copies; and had sold 920,000 copies in the United Kingdom as of September 2020. Worldwide, the album had sold 3.6 million copies by 2008. Background. Geoff Barrow and  Beth Gibbons met during an Enterprise Allowance course in February 1991. They started recording their first ideas for the songs in Neneh Cherry's kitchen in London while Barrow was hired by her husband Cameron McVey to work on her second album, "Homebrew". In Bristol, they recorded at the Coach House Studios. The first song that they finished for the album was "It Could Be Sweet" in 1991. Adrian Utley then met Barrow while they were recording Coach House Studios, heard their first recorded track "It Could Be Sweet", and started exchanging ideas on music. Barrow taught Utley sampling while  Utley introduced to the band unusual sounds such as cimbaloms and theremins which led to an "amalgamation of ideas". According to Barrow, "It was like a light-bulb coming on" when Utley joined them, and realised they could make their own samples not found in other records, and created one of the most distinctive sounds of the decade. The production of the album uses a number of hip-hop techniques, such as sampling, scratching, and loop-making. The album was not recorded digitally. They sampled music from other records, but they also recorded their own original music which were then  recorded onto vinyl records before manipulating them on record decks to sample. In order to create a vintage sound, Barrow said that they distressed the vinyl records they had recorded by "putting them on the studio floor and walking across them and using them like skateboard", and they also recorded the sound through a broken amplifier. For the track "Sour Times", the album samples Lalo Schifrin's "The Danube Incident" and Smokey Brooks' (Henry Brooks, Otis Turner) "Spin It Jig"; for "Strangers", Weather Report's (Wayne Shorter) "Elegant People"; for "Wandering Star", War's "Magic Mountain"; for "Biscuit", Johnnie Ray 's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" (not the Bacharach/David song); and for "Glory Box", Isaac Hayes' "Ike's Rap II". "Dummy" was released in August 1994. It helped to cement the reputation of Bristol as the capital of trip hop, a nascent genre which was then often referred to simply as "the Bristol sound". The cover of the album is a still image of vocalist Beth Gibbons taken from "To Kill a Dead Man"—the short film that the band created—for which the self-composed soundtrack earned the band its record contract. Singles. The first song released  from the album was "Numb". Two further singles were released from the album: "Glory Box", which reached No. 13 in the UK Singles Chart; and "Sour Times", which was released before "Glory Box" but re-released after the success of "Glory Box", reaching also No. 13 on its re-release in 1995. The success of both singles drove the sales of the album, which eventually reached No. 2 on the album chart. "Sour Times" achieved moderate success in the US, reaching peak positions of No. 5 and No. 53 on the "Billboard" Alternative Songs and Hot 100 charts, respectively, in  February 1995. On 3 December 2008, Universal Music Japan released "Dummy" and "Portishead" as limited SHM-CD versions. The tracks "Roads" and "Strangers" were used in the soundtrack of the film "Nadja". Critical reception. Upon release, Dummy received universal acclaim from critics. "NME" summed up the record by writing: "This is, without question, a sublime debut album. But so very, very sad." It observed, "From one angle, its languid slowbeat blues clearly occupy similar terrain to soulmates Massive Attack and all of Bristol hip-hop's extended family. But from another these are avant garde ambient moonscapes of a ferociously  experimental nature." The review concluded that "Portishead's post-ambient, timelessly organic blues are probably too left-field, introspective and downright Bristolian to grab short-term glory as some kind of Next Big Thing. But remember what radical departures "Blue Lines", "Ambient Works" and "Debut" were for their times and make sure you hear this unmissable album." "Melody Maker" stated that the band "were undeniably the classiest, coolest thing to have appeared in the country for years ... "Dummy", their debut, takes perfectly understated blues, funk and rap/hip hop, brackets all this in urban angst and then chills it to  the bone." The review described the record as ""musique noire" for a movie not yet made, a perfect, creamy mix of ice-cool and infra-heat that is desperate, desolate and driven by a huge emotional hunger, but also warmly confiding ... Most of us waver hopelessly between emotional timidity and temerity the whole of our lives and "Dummy" marks out that territory perfectly." Tim Marsh of "Select" wrote: "Jumbling up hip hop, blues, jazz, dub and John Barry-esque TV theme tunes with the edgy lyrics and valium vocals of Beth Gibbons, it's lounge music for arty schizos." "Q  described Dummy" as "perhaps the year's most stunning debut album" and proclaimed that "the singer's frail, wounded-sparrow vocals and Barrow's mastery of jazz-sensitive soul/hip hop grooves and the almost forgotten art of scratching are an enthralling combination". "Mojo" said that "Portishead make music for an early evening drinks party on the set of "The Third Man". There is nothing kitschy about them either ... Beth Gibbons' voice has a genuine chill to it, and Geoff Barrow's background soundscapes are worthy of Lalo Schiffrin and Nellee Hooper." "Rolling Stone" wrote: "From tape loops and live  strings, Fender Rhodes riffing and angelic singing, these English subversives construct "très" hip Gothic hip-hop ... Assertive rhythms and quirky production, however, save Portishead from languishing in any cosy retro groove. Instead they manage yet another – very smart – rebirth of cool.' In the Pazz & Jop, polling prominent American critics nationwide, "Dummy" was voted the 14th best album of 1994. The poll's supervisor Robert Christgau, however, remained relatively lukewarm, highlighting "Sour Times" and "Wandering Star" while briefly appraising the album overall as "Sade for androids". Retrospective reviews of the album have praised it highly. AllMusic wrote: "Portishead's album debut  is a brilliant, surprisingly natural synthesis of claustrophobic spy soundtracks, dark breakbeats inspired by frontman Geoff Barrow's love of hip-hop, and a vocalist (Beth Gibbons) in the classic confessional singer/songwriter mold ... Better than any album before it, "Dummy" merged the pinpoint-precise productions of the dance world with pop hallmarks like great songwriting and excellent vocal performances." A BBC Music review in 2015 called it "quite simply one of the greatest debut albums of the 1990s" and said that "the constituents that make up much of this collection are easily traced – back to dub, to soul, and  especially to hip hop; the array of scratch effects, loops and samples ... But it's the manner in which the pieces come together that makes "Dummy" special to this day ... Imitators have come and gone, but no act has reproduced the disquieting magnificence conjured here except Portishead themselves." Writing for "Pitchfork" in 2017, Philip Sherburne summarised that "Portishead's 1994 debut is a masterwork of downbeat and desperation. They invented their own kind of virtuosity, one that encompassed musicianship, technology, and aura." Accolades. "Dummy" won the 1995 Mercury Music Prize, beating stiff competition which included PJ Harvey's "To Bring  You My Love", Oasis' "Definitely Maybe", and Tricky's "Maxinquaye". Personnel. Portishead Additional musicians Technical personnel Samples