dummy

[20] Portishead, ‘Sour Times’

1994 looks dark. Maybe it was dropping out of my Masters and taking coy steps into the record industry in forbidding London. Maybe it was the dawn of clog-footed Britpop. Maybe it was four months of Wet Wet Wet.

Or maybe it was the magnificently maudlin Portishead, introducing a refined and bleak take on the Massive Attack template, woefully misplaced on the coffee table yet a mainstay there all the same. It may boast gnomic lyrics, but ‘Sour Times’ is so steeped in woe-is-me and chilly zithers that it seems pretty clear where Beth Gibbons’ head’s at. Still, while the desperate “Nobody loves me” might come on like a tiresome whinge, it’s immediately undercut by “… not like you do”. Relief! She does have someone after all! Not that it sounds like a bed of roses. “After time, the bitter taste… Scattered seed, buried lives…”

Dummy’s a beast of an album, as I told Junior. She mulled it over, mesmerised by the sleeve. “Is it a beast? Is it scary?” Well, yes, it is a bit; it’s not one for the fragile listener. I wondered whether she liked the song and she murmured, “I don’t know.”

[16] Neneh Cherry, ‘Manchild’

Neneh Cherry

Trip hop invented here. Should Neneh go up against the wall for paving the way for Morcheeba? Or should we thank her and her cohorts for Blue Lines, Dummy and Maxinquaye? Whatever, she co-wrote this with Massive Attack’s 3D and their producer Cameron McVey, and some arrangement duties were taken on by Nellee Hooper, so an early sign of things to come.

Or, as my big sis put it at the time, it’s a nice song until she tears the towel off her head and then you’ve got this banshee rapping in your face. And she’s PREGNANT. Big sis wasn’t wrong, but I like the rap – I can even perform it for Junior, who remains unmoved. She’s used to seeing her dad act the goat, fortunately. Let’s face it: she’ll have to endure years of it.

Can’t stand that trip hop label, and I’ve only gone and perpetuated it. Needs a new name. Slow hop, maybe. Marijuanabore hop. Was-quite-promising-until-it-got-diluted-by-chancers-bereft-of-ideas-and-concepts-of-melody hop. More?