Blue Lines

By the time Blue Lines came out, on 8 April 1991, the people in the group had already been playing the songs at people. Daydreaming had been out since 15 October 1990. Unfinished Sympathy followed on 11 February 1991. Safe from Harm came after the album, on 27 May 1991. Wild Bunch Records and Virgin put the album out. The producers were the group and Jonny Dollar. In that chapter the group was Grant Marshall (Daddy G), Robert Del Naja (3D), Adrian Thaws (Tricky) and Andrew Vowles (Mushroom). Shara Nelson sang. Horace Andy sang. They recorded at the Coach House in Bristol and at Eastcote, Cherry Bear, Abbey Road and Hot Nights in London.

The tempo is the argument. Hip-hop breaks, dub space, soul melody and close-miked rapping all agree to go slow. Unfinished Sympathy is the one everybody knows, a song that builds like a ballad and still belongs to a sound-system city. Horace Andy, already a reggae singer with a career, is one of the voices the record is built around. Tricky is in the group here, not yet the solo artist of Maxinquaye. You can hear him as a texture and as a writer inside someone else’s album, which is the situation he was about to leave.

Hymn of the Big Wheel, paired with a version of Be Thankful for What You’ve Got, is the other tell. They were willing to cover a soul record and to write a new one in the same breath. Bristol got called a scene afterwards, and the word trip-hop got stuck on later. In April 1991 it was four people from a sound-system crew, two singers, a co-producer, and a debut that refused to speed up for the club of the moment. The singles had already told you the album was assembled in public. The album is where the slow tempo gets to last a whole side.

Sources

• Blue Lines: Wild Bunch and Virgin, 8 April 1991, personnel, studios, and the single dates.