UKNY For November 26

The long holiday weekend and a few days off offered up the opporunity to revisit — with some updates — one of my favorite shows of the past year: a celebration of Massive Attack's seismic debut, Blue Lines, which marked the 25th anniversary of its UK release back on April 8 (it came out in the States in August of 1996).  Blue Lines' sensual, simmering menace not only reflected the damp Bristol streets that birthed the band, but via Massive Attack's astute sociopolitical observations, the release has a universal and evergreen impact; it still sounds as if it could have been released last week.

Blue Lines is one of the greatest albums ever released and it was transformative for that time —  the restless confluence of hip-hop, post punk, and soul. It became the template of an entire genre tagged (much to Massive Attack's bemusement) as trip-hop.

Tonight's UKNY at 11 not only focuses on that dusky Bristol masterpiece, forged by the trio of Robert "3D" Del Naja, Grant "Daddy G" Marshall and former member Andy "Mushroom" Vowles, but the artists in their sphere at that time (including friends in the soon-to-implode Wild Bunch collective) and their collaborators on Blue Lines too, like Neneh Cherry, Tricky, Shara Nelson, Horace Andy and more.

Away for the long Thanksgiving weekend ? You can stream UKNY in the FUV Weekend Archives for two weeks after broadcast.

Songs played:

1. Massive Attack, “Daydreaming,” Blue Lines
2. Tricky, “Christiansands,” Pre-Millennium Tension
3. Shara Nelson, “Pain Revisited,” What Silence Knows
4. Massive Attack, “Hymn of the Big Wheel,” (Nellee Hooper remix), Blue Lines – The Remixes
5. Neneh Cherry, “Peace in Mind,” Homebrew
6. Portishead, “It Could Be Sweet,” Dummy
7. Massive Attack, “Unfinished Sympathy,” Blue Lines
8. Smith & Mighty, “Walk On,” The Three Stripe Collection
9. Alpha, “Rain,” Come From Heaven
10. Massive Attack feat. Hope Sandoval, “The Spoils,” single
11. David Bowie with Massive Attack, “Nature Boy,” Moulin Rouge soundtrack