Portishead by Portishead

Pros: An occasional bright moment, most importantly Only You.
Cons: Shrill vocals, self-important songs, and infuriating production.

Portishead is supposed to be a creatively free and absolutely enchanting downbeat trip-hop sort of band. Based on this widely accepted rumor, their albums have sold many a copy. Unfortunately, I fell for the hype. Portishead is little...

Pros: Production, Arrangements, Sample, Tone, & Vocals.
Cons: None.

The success of 1994's Dummy brought the trip-hop group Portishead lots of attention and acclaim. A surprising commercial success in Britain while a cult hit in the U.S., the record won the group the prestigious Mercury Music prize beating such ...

Pros: Interesting, diverse, challenging, what's not to like?
Cons: Soooo depressing...

At first listen, "Portishead" is bound to be disappointing. Gone are the clever arrangements and soulful vocals of "Dummy" - here, instead, we've got menacing, repetitive measures of almost mathematical sound. The atmosphere of this, the band's second...

Pros: Woman can WAIL, Great beats, Mellow and Mesmerizing
Cons: Not one

I've been a Portishead fan ever since the first time I heard the Dummy CD. I DJ'ed some of the hottest nightclubs in Philly and NJ for several years and I also bartended at a few of them. Don't get me wrong I love house music and listen to it very often...

Pros: Beautiful vocals along with creeping beats and menacing chords. very creative music.
Cons: This music is not for every mood.

Portishead

Portishead (1997)


Portishead are one of the pioneers of trip-hop, a fusion of American hip-hop, rock and electronic music. This style most often uses other artist’s music to mix into the background. In...

Pros: Still following the unique format found on the far better Dummy.
Cons: Seems to me that singer Beth Gibbons could've pulled her weight a little more.

Anybody who was into moody alternative and/or trip-hop back in the 1990’s has to sometimes wonder what became of Portishead. They came and went in a few short years, leaving only two studio albums in their gloomy wake. There have been stirrings from the ...

Pros: Undenied; the atmosphere is dark, brooding, and beautiful; Beth Gibbons
Cons: A few songs aren't as strong as they should be; not as good as Dummy

Upon the first several listens of this album, I just didn’t get it. I first heard Portishead’s utterly fantastic song Roads in a cover done by doom metal band My Dying Bride, and I fell in love with that cover; shortly thereafter, I found the ...

Pros: Gibbons' Voice
Cons: Sometimes overly melancholy

I've read a number of times that Portishead members Geoff Barrow and Beth Gibbons met in an unemployment line in their native England. Regardless of the validity of that statement, it seems fitting that these two would have met somewhere that represents,...

Pros: Mesmerizing, amazing sounds.
Cons: 007 should not be with "Cow Boys"

To be honest, I have really not like Trip Hop music. It was just a personal preference; I never found the music of bands such as Tricky and Massive Attack appealing to me. However, Portishead is more different than all others, they are a band of...

Pros: Perfection of syncopated, soulful melancholy
Cons: Loss of innocence and overuse of calculation

I would bet money that at the time of completion, Portishead felt this album was far superior to "Dummy", their prior effort which also doubled as their debut. They would've been right, and that's the tragedy of this album. People become...

Pros: Imaginative sound, trip hop in its finest
Cons: Not for everybody

When I listen to either one of Portishead' albums I feel like im back in another era. Their sound is reminiscent of something you might expect from a Bond movie, but that's not all to their credit. They have highly original pieces of music, with samples...

Pros: great slow electric powerful music
Cons: zero zilch nada

I ever so impatiently lay in wait after "Dummy" for the next Portishead released. OH how NOT disappointed I was with the result. "Portishead" is a little more developed, I guess is the word, than Dummy, it's different, more...

Pros: Difficult to pick highlights, but 'Half Day Closing', 'Only You' and 'Western Eyes' are worthy of note
Cons: The fact that we're still waiting, three years on, for the next proper album

Naming an album after a band is normally a sign that the band hasn't bothered to waste time thinking of a decent title, but Portishead is one of the few bands to which this does not apply, signalling as it does the 'official' membership of Adrian Utley...

Pros: Great Music all around
Cons: not a "I'll just throw something on" disc

Portishead's debut "Dummy" stirred up little notice this side of the Atlantic, with "Sour Times" garnering some alt-rock airplay. "All Mine" took the dubious honor of being the one hit off of this effort, you may remember...

Pros: Great music by Portishead (what else do you need?)
Cons: Harsher sound, harder to like immediately than Dummy

I picked up "Portishead" right after I bought Dummy. On the first listen, I really didn't like the harsher tone to the eponymous album, but subsequent listens endeared me to the album more and more until I considered it on a level right below...