Posts by cosmicjackal33

I've only ever caught Matt Blacko playing a solo DJ set before.
He was killer...

I've got those Aquarius remix versions... three of his plus one from the KD EP

amberskipper452 said:even if Portishead went commercial, it’s still Trip-hop, period.If being "commercial" just means making your music accessible to more people instead of just some gatekeeping elitists, then fine.And why should Trip-hop belong to the past just because you started listening to something else?

Look...
If you actually sat down and read American music criticism, about 95% of the articles would tell you that Trip-hop basically died somewhere around '96 or '97, and everything after that is just some "post-trip-hop" phase. It's the same deal as punk versus post-punk...
That pure, heavy Bristol trip-hop sound from Massive, Smith & Mighty, and that whole crew was being messed with in a million different ways.
Portishead blended it into pop structures, while James Lavelle and DJ Shadow went full experimental with the UNKLE project... the sound spread everywhere... across the US, Austria, Germany, France...
By 2000, there were so many Trip-hop hybrids floating around that the term itself became totally meaningless.
Most of what people call Trip-hop today is actually just Downbeat, which is a much broader category... since anything sitting between 100-118 bpm fits under that umbrella.

I mean, go ahead and call me an incompetent idiot if you want, but damn it, Portishead is primarily a pop band.
Their whole songwriting approach follows a pop structure. You don't find those repetitive bass grooves that define actual Trip-hop. There isn't even a hint of Hip-hop roots in their music.
Just because some tracks evoke a certain vibe doesn't make them the real thing.

But whatever...

Fine... you're right...
I'm just rambling for nothing...

shadowgardener12 said:I mean, I actually vibe pretty hard to Massive... it's the best😉
And Tobin has those atmospheric tracks!

How depressed do you have to be to just sway along to Massive?

Hey shadowgardener12... speaking of Trip-hop... remember this stuff: Waldeck - It comes from you Austrian Safa from Harm

Austrian Safa from Harm...🙂

Where am I even posting this?
Is Morcheeba actually pop, or is Trip-hop just a dead genre at this point?

What am I even talking about? That Morcheeba is just some boring, repetitive pop band?
What's the big deal?
To me, Morcheeba is nothing more than a pure commercial pop outfit with a few Trip-hop vibes thrown in. Great for MTV rotation, maybe.
Honestly, the whole Trip-hop movement has become completely exhausted... and the people still clinging to it are just boring themselves to death at this point.
You've got Daddy G stuck on reggae, Mark Rae chasing jazz, Smith & Mighty leaning into drum n' bass, and James Lavelle obsessing over breaks and tech-house....

Jose Chase2 said:🙄 🙄

I honestly don't give a damn whether it's true or not, the fact remains that Herbaliser is just boring... 👎

Yep, that’s exactly why people calling Morcheeba "one-trick ponies" are actually hilarious...
MTV is working miracles...

northernscout3 said:Amon Tobin is basically trip-hop, just like Coldcut or Herbaliser...

Just wanted to point out that Coldcut and Herbaliser definitely fall under trip-hop. The issue is people associate everything with the Bristol scene, which leans more pop, so this specific kind of trip-hop doesn't really fit their mold.
Trip-hop is a subset of downtempo that draws its roots from hip-hop; they're incredibly close cousins.
If you want a textbook example of a modern trip-hop track, look at "Divine Sounds" by Rae & Christian. It’s super close to hip-hop even though it’s an instrumental.
Personally, I think Amon Tobin is a bit too experimental to be lumped into that same category...

But man... that whole sound is dead. It's slowly fading away because modern production is just getting worse and worse.
Even James Lavelle, one of the icons of that underground movement, moved toward more danceable electronic stuff... nu-skool breaks and some tech-house.

Damn... the era of Massive, Smith & Mighty, and that whole crew is over... people don't care about that trip-hop depression anymore, they just want to dance.
And that's what Meat Katie, Dylan Rhymes, Elite Force, Plump DJs, Drummatic Twins, and the rest of them handle now...

Ollienntsh said:U.N.K.L.E. (DJ Shadow and James Lavelle)

DJ Shadow hasn't had anything to do with Lavelle for ages... and honestly, Lavelle himself just pivoted his production toward nu-school breaks.
If you ask me... it's a smart move.
That whole trip-hop/downbeat thing got watered down, unoriginal, and pretty low-quality a long time ago, so Lavelle moved toward stuff you can actually dance to.

...says the guy bringing up Morcheeba, Hooverphonic, and one single track by Sneaker Pimps.

Whatever.
Keep listening to those girl groups singing pretty melodies and just pretend you're actually into real trip-hop.

If it isn't Coldcut, Herbaliser, or that first wave of trip-hop mixed with heavy hip-hop, it isn't trip-hop. Just because that pop-leaning Massive sound broke through and dragged a bunch of pop garbage along with it doesn't mean that's all the genre is.

shadowgardener12 said:that guy did some work in the trip-hop scene, but he was leaning more towards the dance side of things.

Trip hop is basically just a mix of hip-hop, soul, and that 80s alternative psychedelia. Toss in some dub if you want, but it's not mandatory.
That's why 🙏 Massive and those blue stripes.
So, you've got Massive up to the mezzanine, Tricky's first album, Morcheeba for the chill hop vibes, and Red Snapper for the deeper development and heavy psych stuff.

Anything else mentioned either has nothing to do with trip-hop or it's just commercial garbage that mostly hit the mark. ☕

Hey Jimmy...

Look, we all know which song is the ultimate trip-hop anthem—High Noon!
It’s got that genuine, slightly faster trip-hop groove.
But that was ages ago... way, way back...

Out of the old-school trip-hop/hip-hop guard, only Herbaliser stayed true to themselves.
Everyone else just kept changing...

shadowgardener12

It's not "the mammoth is," it's "the mammoths are."