The 50 Best Trip-hop Albums of All Time
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UNKLE, The Bug, DJ Shadow, Amon Tobin and more 03/12/24
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Trip Hop – emanating from the West Country scene in Bristol and inspiring thousands of artists around the world, it’s a genre which holds many gems. This fantastic article and list from FACT Mag in 2015 details the 50 Best Trip-hop Albums of All Time, showcasing the finest work of UNKLE, The Bug, DJ Shadow, Amon Tobin and more. Here’s what they have to say…
The DNA of trip-hop was more complex than its reduction to bite-sized adjectives. One strand came from hip-hop, which had fed the musical imagination of a new generation for over a decade, while another strand came from rave, which had provided further stylistic possibilities with its fusion of drum machines, breaks, samples and synthesisers. Sound systems, digging, dub, chill-out rooms, early globalisation and technology also acted like so many molecules attaching themselves to a new idea of what hip-hop could be. Trip-hop was a logical evolution in a decade during which everyone came down from a partying high to face the reality that hip-hop and dance music were being co-opted by the mainstream; dreams of a new sonic utopia crushed by the relentless onslaught of capitalism.
Here’s number 32 on the list – the Bug, Tapping the Conversation:
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And here’s another except from the article…
Just as techno had become a synonym for dance music, trip-hop soon became a crutch for journalists and marketers wanting to signify hip-hop without rappers. Most notably, it became a byword for the Bristol sound epitomised by bands like Massive Attack and Portishead. In 1998, The New York Times retconned Massive Attack’s debut album Blue Lines as the so-called genre’s inception point.
On the ground, the sound did resonate in a genuine way among a new generation of musicians seeking freedom to experiment. In London, Ninja Tune played yin to Mo’ Wax’s yang. Both labels crafted a unique visual dimension and assembled expansive rosters. In Paris, DJ Cam pushed out his own blunted beats to eager continental heads. In Austria, Kruder & Dorfmeister added an extra layer of dub and turned trip-hop into downbeat in a haze of weed paranoia. In New York City, a loosely linked group of artists, thinkers and musicians spread from downtown Manhattan to Brooklyn’s cheap warehouses to imagine their own version of the sound, which The Wire magazine dubbed illbient. No matter the names or the execution, the DNA was the same.
One leftfield entry from Neotrpic aka Riz Maslen:
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Read the full article here: https://www.factmag.com/2015/07/30/50-best-trip-hop-albums/
More from Fact Mag: https://www.factmag.com
About the author [midierror]: midierror makes nifty Max For Live devices, innovative music hardware, award winning sample packs and hosts a podcast speaking to people in the music world.
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