Blue Lines

The word “cool” is a word that we all use pretty liberally on a day-to-day basis. Take me, for instance. I find this shirt to be cool, as well as this parody shirt , this book , this car , and this state . There are a multitude of other things I find to be “cool” but you get the picture.

To me, cool describes an initial emotion but rarely the entire emotional experience. (Additionally, in this Paris Hilton world we live in, “hot” has now become the new “cool” in that not only are people hot but so are inanimate objects. Inanimate objects used to be the domain of cool but that lease has expired and hot has arrived. Somewhere right now, a general contractor is explaining to a customer that a particular garage door opener is “hot.” Paris must be stopped.) I think The Orchid Thief is one of the coolest books I have ever read but if I were recommending it to someone I would use words like “brilliant,” “outstanding,” “excellent,” “immensely entertaining,” and “after reading this book I instantly wanted to meet Susan Orlean.” “Cool” would not make the final cut.

So, what does cool ultimately mean?

Musically speaking, for me, Blue Lines by Massive Attack is the definition of cool. It is probably the only album I have ever listened to where “cool” seems completely adequate yet also completely inadequate in describing its nature. (It is hard to set up boundaries for cool.) The reason I bring this up is that on August 6, 1991 Blue Lines was released and it stands to reason that somewhere around this time seventeen years ago the album was still being worked on and produced. Consider this my early anniversary review of the album.

If there was one album that I could not include on my top album list but wished that I could somehow make room for it it was Blue Lines (for the record, Dig Your Own Hole by The Chemical Brothers would come in second but it would be a distant second). If I allowed hip hop albums on the list this debut album by Massive Attack would have easily made the top twenty, possibly even the top ten. Additionally, this is an album that I would recommend to almost anyone because it is so damn… well, cool.

Massive Attack were a band that featured different members throughout their short career but the vocal lineup on Blue Lines was Horace Andy, Tony Bryan, Shara Nelson, Tricky, Mikey General, 3D, and Daddy G. While the U.S. was seeing hip hop and rap explode and splinter into various forms of gangsta rap and message-driven hip hop in the early nineties, the U.K. were just coming off of their own Summer of Love and started see acid house and electronic music splintering off into their own styles as well and the ‘trip-hop’ movement was born. Needless to say, Blue Lines is the definitive trip-hop album while also being the only album to survive that genre’s short-lived recognition (honestly, how many Americans have heard the word trip-hop before?). If you have never heard this album before you should immediately take it for a test drive because, surprisingly enough, this album does not sound too dated given the foundation of hip-hop beats and rap-style singing on which it is built. You need only listen to the first track, “Safe From Harm,” to realize the brilliance at play here as the beats are extremely polished and catchy while the lyrics seem to be delivered from another art-house type of world (“I was lookin’ back to see if you were lookin’ back at me/To see me lookin’ back at you”). The interplay between Shara Nelson and 3D throughout the song is outstanding too; a seemingly cast-aside relic that most hip hop artists today are content toying with only half-heartedly.

If for nothing else, you must listen to “Unfinished Sympathy”—a song so perfect and has aged so well that one BBC writer once wrote, “More than a decade after its release it remains one of the most moving pieces of dance music ever, able to soften hearts and excite minds just as keenly as a ballad by Bacharach or a melody by McCartney.” And that is not being presumptuous. This is one of the best songs you have most likely never heard.

“One Love” is probably the weakest the song on the album. The vocals are hard to swallow but, even in spite of that, there exists some really great music in the background. The others, however, are all unbelievably strong. The title track has a feeling about it that is impossible to not find catchy or groovy; “Be Thankful For What You Got” and “Daydreaming” have a lighter and smoother sound that is like a cloudless Summer day realized; “Five Man Army” is probably the heaviest song but it does not disappoint; “Lately” provides some of the best beats on the album and a perfect helping of Shara Nelson’s voice; “Hymn of the Big Wheel” ends the album and its philosophical explanation of life (“The big wheel keeps on turning/On a simple line day by day/The earth spins on its axis/One man struggle while another relaxes”) combined with the spacey music is simply perfect.

I guess this is why “cool” is the only word that seems to fit with this album. It offers so much, is so catchy, and still sounds remarkably fresh after all of these years. It may be the wrong word and it may be misused on a daily basis but Blue Lines is an unbelievably cool album that you should give a listen to if you have not heard it yet.

And, besides, the album cover is cool too.