The best Trip Hop tracks?

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....

cosmicjackal33 said:What am I even saying? That the pop band Portishead is boring and repetitive?
Where is the issue here?
To me, Portishead is just a purely commercial pop group with some Trip-hop influences. Perfect for MTV chatter.
The entire Trip-hop movement became tiresome to everyone... and those still clinging to it have simply bored themselves to death.
Daddy G sticks to reggae, Mark Rae leans into jazz, Smith & Mighty goes for drum n' bass, while James Lavelle plays with breaks and tech-house....

Now you are truly talking nonsense.🙄 🙄

cosmicjackal33 said:Just wanted to point out that Coldcut and Herbaliser are Trip-hop. The issue is people associate everything with the Seattle scene, which is more poppy, so this kind of Trip-hop doesn't seem to fit their mold.
Trip-hop is part of downtempo, rooted in Hip-hop and very closely linked to it.
To me, a perfect example of modern Trip-hop would be something like "Divine Sounds" by Rae & Christian. It's incredibly close to Hip-hop, even without vocals.
Personally, I think Amon Tobin is a bit too experimental to put in the same category.

But... that music is dead. Slowly but surely fading away because modern production just keeps getting worse.
James Lavelle, an icon of the underground side of the genre, moved on to club-friendly electronica... nu skool breaks and a bit of tech-house.

Man... the days of Massive, Smith & Mighty, and that crew are gone... people aren't looking for 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 are dealing with now...

well... I can still dance to Massive quite well... best of all😉
and Tobin... he’s got those atmospheric tracks...

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

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...🙂

Even if you claim Portishead has gone commercial, it’s still Trip-hop. Period. Besides, if "commercial" just means making music accessible to a wider audience instead of a handful of elitists, then so be it. And why should Trip-hop be relegated to the past just because your own tastes have shifted?

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...

cosmicjackal33 said:How depressed do you actually have to be to find Massive soothing?

Hey Jimmy... speaking of Trip-hop... remember this: Waldeck - It Comes From You

It comes from you Austrian Safa from Harm...🙂

Not depression, just a stressful life...😁

Waldeck has a few more Age of Aquarius remixes besides Comes From You...

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

Yeah, that KD remix of Massive 😁
I've got it on CD somewhere
but that's old school.
Coldcut are doing alright lately... really wondering what they'll bring to the stage on July 15th. If I'm in the city, I'll definitely try to catch them and hear it live

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

cosmicjackal33 said:I only caught Matt Blacko playing a solo DJ set.
He was great.

trip? 😁

hip

If we're talking about artists you haven't mentioned yet, I’d definitely suggest checking out Terranov, especially the album 'Peace is tough'. You should also try to track down some stuff by Boards of Canada. Also, give DJ Krush a listen—specifically the albums 'Jaku' and 'Krush'. And don't miss DJ Vadim's 'USSR The art of Listening'.

I won't go as far as calling it Trip-hop, because I don't want Roose losing his mind on me like last time😁, but it's in that same vein and absolutely top-tier, so definitely give it a shot.

Many would argue that Portishead belongs firmly within the Trip-hop genre, yet I find myself increasingly lost regarding where the boundaries actually lie in this music. At what point does one style bleed into another? 🙄

Look, I get it—Portishead is Trip-hop, but they’re just too mainstream. It feels wrong to lump them in the same breath as the real heavy hitters. Man, it must have been such a struggle for DJ Shadow. 😁

The term Trip-hop carries a much darker, more visceral weight than Hip-hop, doesn't it? And while I find most Hip-hop to be quite distasteful, I can certainly tolerate Trip-hop. Fortunately, I don't perceive an overwhelming amount of overlap between the two genres, even if some similarities do exist.

If anyone were to ever ask me what defines the essence of Portishead, I would simply tell them it is pop music.

Hell yeah, obviously.

hey katie, any word on if there's gonna be a trip hop show in San Francisco?