Dummy - Portishead (1994)

ideated from: 1994 being the best year in music history

This doesn’t sound radical now, because you can get endless playlists of chill downtempo hip hop beats. But when it came out it stood in stark contrast to a lot of hip hop and related music. It was laid back, groovy, and impossibly cool.

Beth Gibbons is a helluva singer, with multiple registers and the ability to swing from sweet to angry in heartbeat. The beats are a mish mash of approaches involving sampling, live instruments, and even live instruments pressed to vinyl and then cut up.

Tracks I Liked

Sour Times - a spy movie soundtrack without a film (actually there was a promo film, but whatever)

Wandering Star - good luck not bobbing your head to this beat

Glory Box - a great track, but one of the few that was actually better on the live record