Massive Attack - Protection
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CD Details
Artist: Massive AttackBrand: CIRCA
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994
CD Release Date: 1995-01-24
Music Label: Virgin Records Us
Product features:
- 1 - Protection
- 2 - Karmacoma
- 3 - Three
- 4 - Weather storm
- 5 - Spying glass
- Protection
- Karmacoma
- Three
- Weather Storm
- Spying Glass
- Better Things
- Eurochild
- Sly
- Heat Miser
- Light My Fire (Live)
Music reviews of Protection
Music Review: The rarest of things -- a perfect electronic album.
Rating: 5 Stars
Massive Attack have gotten a lot of praise, but most of it is either for their first album Blue Lines, or for their third album Mezzanine. Protection tends to get lost between those two. But in fact, it's Protection that's really the best Massive Attack album. I can listen to it the whole way through, and when it's over, I find myself wishing there was even more. I can't even remember the last time I bought an album that I could say that about.
Perhaps Protection doesn't have the same reputation as Blue Lines and Mezzanine because it doesn't have any "obvious" hits, deliberately powerful songs like "Safe From Harm" or "Angel." The biggest single here is "Protection," a long eight-minute rumination without any particular build-up or dramatic climax. The chorus isn't a pop chorus, either, because it doesn't repeat a hook. But nevertheless, the song is beautiful. The gentle mid-tempo rhythm steadily draws one into the mood of the song.
The lyrics in the album don't matter so much. Massive Attack were never known for being great poets. But the words do contribute to the mood. In "Protection," Tracey Thorn encourages "you" to take care of someone who needs help, which first means some girl, but later seems to become "you." The choice of words is good: "You can lean on me / And that's more than love, that's the way it should be" and "She's a girl and you're a boy / Sometimes we look so small." I really like Massive Attack's style of romanticism -- instead of dramatizing individual angst and professing eternal love (okay, except for "One Love," I guess, but even that was more about how Horace Andy believes in being faithful than about star-crossed bliss), they usually refer to smaller, everyday situations and imply that small changes in these situations might have a great impact. No wonder they make the best make-out music. By the way, Protection is excellent for that purpose.
Then there's "Karmacoma," another candidate for a big single that also doesn't quite fit comfortably into that role. The song does have a pop chorus, and features Robert del Naja and Tricky in a Blue-Lines-like rap exchange, but it's driven by a very curious reggae-inflected rhythm and a groovy keyboard break that resembles old Latin music more than techno or hip-hop. The song is upbeat, but it has the same hushed production as "Protection," which makes it sound disconcerting and vaguely ominous. This is very different from the band's earlier work, and it's all the more impressive when you consider that, by 1994, other bands had just begun catching up to Blue Lines, which had been released three years earlier.
Protection is very different from Massive Attack's other albums stylistically. I usually say that Blue Lines is a modern-day soul album, with elements of rap and techno. Those things are still present here, but the overall atmosphere is closer to some kind of old-style, early twentieth-century romance than to smooth 70s soul, albeit with a techno production. There are two instrumentals which use pianos and strings for the main melodies. Both of them are gorgeous. "Weather Storm" in particular anchors the pianos with a deep electronic bass groove and dub-style keyboard textures. "Heat Miser" repeats what sounds like someone breathing through an oxygen mask. Somehow, next to the strings, this has a poignant effect, creating a sense of fragility.
Protection also has the least reliance of all Massive Attack albums on the band's core vocalists. Robert del Naja appears on only two songs, compared to four on each of the other albums. The ever-reliable Horace Andy has one turn on "Spying Glass," a remake of one of his own old Jamaican standards, with a great deep house beat and some reggae-style drum breaks. The other songs are either instrumentals or use guest vocalists, and by the way, Protection also has the best guest vocalists of any Massive Attack album. Nicolette Suwoton in particular has a very distinctive vocal style, but both women perform with subtlety and dramatic restraint, compared to Shara Nelson's occasional soul-diva histrionics (not that that's altogether a bad thing) or Sara Jay's angsty spoiled-teenager voice.
But even though Protection doesn't have any obvious hits, I liked it immediately, whereas it took me a long time to really enjoy Blue Lines and Mezzanine as albums. That's because those other albums also have a bunch of lesser songs that don't make strong impressions when compared to the big hits. But the songs on Protection are consistently excellent. The second side is just as good as the first. For instance, "Better Things" might seem like a rewrite of "Protection," because it features the same vocalist and uses a similar musical backdrop, but in fact, it stands up perfectly well on its own. The lyrics are knowing and bitter, and Tracey Thorn delivers them with a weary understatement that almost makes one feel vicariously ashamed for whoever it is that she's addressing. Immediately after that is "Eurochild," which has the kind of noirish menace that I really wish someone could depict these days. Tricky and del Naja's relaxed, gravelly half-whispers are perfect for suggesting danger underneath the surface, and halfway through the song there's an instantly catchy keyboard hook. This would be a good candidate for a big hit, but it wasn't released as a single.
The only flaw of the album is the very last track, a live cover of "Light My Fire" by The Doors. The recording is so muddy that only Horace Andy's voice is audible, and anyway, that's not the sort of song that Massive Attack are best at. I prefer to think of it as an unnecessary bonus track rather than part of the album. The album itself, however, is perfect, and I highly recommend it regardless of whether or not you usually enjoy this kind of music.
Description of Protection
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