Rock: Bristol 1990s Overview

Until 1990 if a musician came from Bristol—the quiet West Country city whose wealth was built on the slave trade—there was little to be gained from admitting it. But the success of the trio Massive Attack, especially in Britain, so changed perceptions that by the end of the decade, in the eyes of many, Bristol was the place to be from. Nellee Hooper, P.J. Harvey, Portishead, Tricky, and Roni Size reinforced the city’s growing reputation for harbouring single-minded eccentrics who achieved critical acclaim and substantial sales despite ignoring conventional concepts of commerciality. No single venue, studio, or record label provided cohesion, as each project tended to work in its own club or workshop space; but several key players had worked together during the mid-1980s as part of a group of deejays known as the Wild Bunch.

Hooper was the first to surface, in 1989, as arranger and coproducer of the internationally successful album Club Classics Vol. One (titled Keep on Movin’ in the United States) by the London-based Soul II Soul, but it was Massive Attack that put Bristol on the musical map with their album Blue Lines in 1991. Low-key hip-hop-style raps by the group’s members provided coherence and context for the contributions of guest vocalists such as soul diva Shara Nelson, reggae veteran Horace Andy, and rapper Tricky in a suite of musical soundscapes whose atmospheric, dub-drenched style defied classification as rock or soul, dance or alternative. Somebody called it “trip-hop,” and the name stuck. Other producers across the country were inspired to write soundtracks for the movies in their heads, but the three most notable responses came from Bristol: Portishead’s Dummy (1994) and Tricky’s Maxinquaye (1995), both full of gloomy paranoia and suppressed passion, and Massive Attack’s own follow-up, Protection (1995), featuring guest vocalist Tracey Thorn from Everything but the Girl.