Mezzanine (album)

Mezzanine
Studio album by Massive Attack
Released	20 April 1998
Recorded	1997–98
Studio	Massive Attack, Christchurch Studios (Bristol, England)
Genre	Electronica[1] trip hop[2]
Length	63:29
Label	Circa Virgin
Producer	Neil Davidge Massive Attack
Massive Attack chronology
Protection (1994) Mezzanine (1998) 100th Window (2003)
Singles from Mezzanine
"Risingson" Released: 4 August 1997 "Teardrop" Released: 27 April 1998 "Angel" Released: 13 July 1998 "Inertia Creeps" Released: 17 November 1998

Mezzanine is the third studio album by English trip hop group Massive Attack, released on 20 April 1998 by Virgin Records. It was the first album to be produced by Neil Davidge, along with the group. The entire album was provided on their website for legal download many months before the physical release was announced, one of the first major uses of the MP3 format by a commercial organisation.

Mezzanine topped the charts in the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, becoming the band's most commercially successful album to date. It saw the band expanding their trip hop sound to electronica stylings,^[1] with diverse influences from rock, hip hop and dub genres.^[3]

Background

The production of Mezzanine was a stressful process, with tensions arising within the group. The album was meant to be released in December 1997, but was delayed by four months, with Del Naja spending most of the time in the studio "making tracks, tearing them apart, f***ing [sic] them up, panicking, then starting again."^[4]

Mezzanine was a pretty sketchy album in terms of the way we worked, because the band, as reported a lot at that time, were not getting on. So I'd be in the studio working with one of the members and someone else would come in, then the person I had been working with would leave and I'd have to change the track I was working on because they didn't want to work on that track, they wanted to work on something different. Sometimes I'd be working on perhaps four different tracks in one day, which was a pretty messy way to work.

“

”

– Neil Davidge in an interview with Sound on Sound.^[5]

The album's working title was Damaged Goods, which was the name of the Gang of Four's 1978 debut single.^[6]

"Teardrop" became the opening theme to the American medical drama television series House, which ran on Fox from 2004 to 2012.

Composition

Musically, Mezzanine is a major departure from the jazzy and laidback sound of the first two albums, Blue Lines and Protection, invoking the dark undercurrents which had always been present in the collective's music. The album's textured and deep tone relies heavily on abstract and ambient sounds, as demonstrated in the song "Angel" among others.

Similar to their previous albums, several songs use one or more samples, ranging from Isaac Hayes to The Cure. In 1998, Manfred Mann sued Massive Attack for unauthorised use of a sample of the song "Tribute" from Manfred Mann's Earth Band's eponymous 1972 album, used on "Black Milk".^[7] The song has subsequently appeared as "Black Melt" on later releases and at live performances, with the sample removed.

Mezzanine marked the parting of band member Andrew Vowles, due to creative conflicts. Horace Andy, a well-known reggae artist, also performed several spots on the album.^[8]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[9]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[10]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[2]
Los Angeles Times	[11]
NME	8/10[12]
Pitchfork Media	8.1/10[13]
Rolling Stone	[14]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[15]
Uncut	[16]
Vox	[17]

Mezzanine entered the UK Albums Chart at number one,^[18] and was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 4 September 1998 and then double platinum on 22 July 2013.^[19] However, it failed to share the same success in North America, peaking at number 60 on the Billboard 200^[20] and number 51 on the Canadian Albums Chart.^[21]

The album received significant critical acclaim, who praised the collective's new sound. Rolling Stone's Barney Hoskyns, although praising the album, pointed to its flaws: "Sometimes rhythm and texture are explored at the expense of memorable tunes, and the absence of the bizarre Tricky [...] only highlights the flat, monotonous rapping of the group's 3-D."^[14] Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave the album a two-star honorable mention rating and selected "Risingson" and "Man Next Door" as highlights.^[22]

John Bush of AllMusic also had positive words for the album's song "Inertia Creeps", saying it "could well be the highlight, another feature for just the core threesome. With eerie atmospherics, fuzz-tone guitars, and a wealth of effects, the song could well be the best production from the best team of producers the electronic world had ever seen."^[9]

Years after the album was released, it was placed on several best-of lists in the UK and the United States. In 2000, Q magazine placed Mezzanine at number 15 on its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked number 412 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.^[23] In 2013, it was placed at 215 on NME's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.^[1]

Track listing

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Angel"	Robert Del Naja Grant Marshall Andrew Vowles Horace Hinds	6:18
2.	"Risingson"	Del Naja Marshall Vowles Lou Reed Pete Seeger	4:58
3.	"Teardrop"	Del Naja Marshall Vowles Elizabeth Fraser	5:29
4.	"Inertia Creeps"	Del Naja Marshall Vowles	5:56
5.	"Exchange (Instrumental)"	Del Naja Marshall Vowles Bob Hilliard Mort Garson	4:11
6.	"Dissolved Girl"	Del Naja Marshall Vowles Sara Jay Matt Schwartz	6:07
7.	"Man Next Door"	John Holt	5:55
8.	"Black Milk"	Del Naja Marshall Vowles Fraser	6:20
9.	"Mezzanine"	Del Naja Marshall Vowles	5:54
10.	"Group Four"	Del Naja Marshall Vowles Fraser	8:13
11.	"(Exchange)"	Del Naja Marshall Vowles Hinds Hilliard Garson	4:08

Japanese edition bonus track[24]
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
12.	"Superpredators" (The Mad Professor Remix)	Del Naja Marshall Vowles	5:16
Total length:			68:45

Sampling credits

• "Risingson" contains a sample of "I Found a Reason" by The Velvet Underground.
• "Exchange" and "(Exchange)" contain a sample of "Our Day Will Come" by Isaac Hayes.
• "Man Next Door" contains a sample of "10:15 Saturday Night" by The Cure and a drum sample of "When the Levee Breaks" by Led Zeppelin.

Personnel

• Robert Del Naja – vocals, production, arrangements, programming, keyboards, samples, art direction, design
• Grant Marshall – vocals, production, arrangements, programming, keyboards, samples
• Andrew Vowles – production, arrangements, programming, keyboards, samples

Other personnel

• Neil Davidge – production, arrangements, programming, keyboards, samples
• Horace Andy (tracks 1, 7, 11), Elizabeth Fraser (tracks 3, 8, 10), Sara Jay (track 6) – vocals
• Angelo Bruschini – guitars
• Jon Harris, Bob Locke, Winston Blisset – bass guitars
• Andy Gangadeen – drums
• Dave Jenkins, Michael Timothy – additional keyboards
• Jan Kybert – Pro Tools
• Lee Shepherd – engineering (Massive Attack and Christchurch Studios)
• Mark "Spike" Stent – mixing (Olympic Studios)
• Jan Kybert, Paul "P-Dub" Walton – mixing assistance
• Tim Young – editing, engineering (Metropolis Studios)
• Nick Knight – photography
• Tom Hingston – art direction, design

Charts

Weekly charts Chart (1998) Peak position Australian Albums Chart[25] 1 Austrian Albums Chart[26] 3 Belgian Albums Chart (Flanders)[27] 4 Belgian Albums Chart (Wallonia)[28] 14 Canadian Albums Chart[21] 51 Danish Albums Chart[29] 14 Dutch Albums Chart[30] 17 European Top 100 Albums[31] 1 Finnish Albums Chart[32] 4 French Albums Chart[33] 3 German Albums Chart[34] 6 Hungarian Albums Chart[35] 14 Irish Albums Chart[36] 1 Italian Albums Chart[36] 3 Japanese Albums Chart[37] 72 New Zealand Albums Chart[38] 1 Norwegian Albums Chart[39] 2 Scottish Albums Chart[40] 2 Swedish Albums Chart[41] 4 Swiss Albums Chart[42] 6 UK Albums Chart[18] 1 US Billboard 200[20] 60

Year-end charts Chart (1998) Position Australian Albums Chart[43] 53 Austrian Albums Chart[44] 27 Belgian Albums Chart (Flanders)[45] 41 Belgian Albums Chart (Wallonia)[46] 100 Dutch Albums Chart[47] 75 French Albums Chart[48] 46 German Albums Chart[49] 34 Italian Albums Chart[50] 59 New Zealand Albums Chart[51] 10 UK Albums Chart[52] 40

Certifications

Region	Certification	Sales/shipments
Australia (ARIA)[53]	Platinum	70,000
Austria (IFPI Austria)[54]	Gold	25,000
Belgium (BEA)[55]	Platinum	50,000
Canada (Music Canada)[56]	Gold	50,000
France (SNEP)[57]	2× Gold	243,000[58]
Germany (BVMI)[59]	Gold	250,000
New Zealand (RMNZ)[60]	Platinum	15,000
Norway (IFPI Norway)[61]	Gold	25,000
Switzerland (IFPI Switzerland)[62]	Platinum	50,000
United Kingdom (BPI)[19]	2× Platinum	600,000
Summaries
Europe (IFPI)[63]	2× Platinum	2,000,000
^*sales figures based on certification alone ^^shipments figures based on certification alone ^xunspecified figures based on certification alone

See also

• List of UK Albums Chart number ones of the 1990s
• List of European number-one hits of 1998
• List of number-one albums in Australia during the 1990s

References

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