Dummy

I can remember exactly where I was the first time I heard Portishead. I was at the Valhalla cinema when their short film 'To Kill a Dead Man' came on (unannounced? I can't remember expecting to see it) before the feature. I got the references to 60s spy films and Goddard and John Barry etc. I appreciated the low budget, homespun scrappiness of it, even if it is not the most compelling thing I have ever seen. It's an interesting artefact, full of retro references and throwbacks. The soundtrack is more sound design than music and only necessary listening if you're a mad Portishead completist. But then they played 'Sour Times' over the credits. "Woah" I said to myself "what's _that_?" It was mesmerizing and instantly grabbed me. I could immediately grasp what they were presenting. Languid down-tempo hip hop beats, cheesy 60s soundtrack guitar and smoky torch song vocals. It was a simulacrum of 60s torch song or soundtrack, like it was from a crackly vinyl record found in the back of a charity shop or grandparent's collection, but a world where hip hop beats were around in 1965. Or even the samples they created as if they were from (non-existent) old records. I chased the album down and it did not disappoint. 'Sour Times' wasn't even the best song on the album; 'Glory Box' gets the guernsey as best track, in my opinion. It was moody and sad and spacious and artful and different and stylish and gritty and cool and had a consistent and compelling worldview throughout. I was obsessed and listened to it a lot, nearly always as the whole album each sitting. It is one of the core foundational texts of trip hop, although I can see why the band distance themselves from the label. The signifiers of the sound were easily replicated and quickly established a clichéd genre of largely interchangeable moody wine bar background music. Some of it was not bad -- Morcheeba, Sneaker Pimps -- but a lot of it was really forgettable. Portishead shouldn't be blamed for any of the bland dross that copied their formula in the following years -- that is just Sturgeon's Law in action. What the imitator rarely understood is that it isn't about the signifiers -- the samples, the slow beats, the vinyl crackle, the smoky vocals -- it's the visionary _space_ that Portishead created that makes this so special. But I can see why Portishead's subsequent records are a reaction against the production hallmarks of Dummy. Personally, I really like the deliberately fucked up production aesthetic, but it is the songs and Beth Gibbons vocals that really make this album special to me. Moody torch song wasn't really much of thing in the 90s, so this album really stood out on release. I haven't listened to this in a long time -- possibly a result of me over-playing it in the 90s -- but it has been a pleasure to listen to this again today. It still stands up. (And now I confess; earlier in this project, when reviewing Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul, the track 'Walk On By' triggered a memory for me. "Oh, that's in a Portishead song" I thought, and scrubbed through Dummy about 4 times trying to find the track. Only to then realize the song I was thinking of was '2wicky' by Hooverphonic. Which is a pretty good song but stylistically ripped off from this album).

Though I prefer third, Dummy is an excellent record. First half is fantastic, incredibly smooth sound.

im weird im a weirdo im. a dummy

First time I heard Dummy as a teenager it was like a door to a different musical world had been opened.

At the beginning I felt like I have already heard this type of music, then I heard the last song, and I knew where did I heard it from, good album, it's the type of shi, like 90s that feels like for a spy movie or a matrix lmao

Super album que je connaissais déjà, un no-skip

1994 Trip hop El mejor album de Portishead?

Not for me

bleeee

Best in class

Probably deserves a three or higher im just going through something musically

Still not for me this trip-hop. Really feel like I should like it more than I do but it's just not happening. It's just fine.

Great debut album

A banger - a stone cold banger. Classy throughout. Favourite track: Glory Box

A ubiquitous album in the mid 90s, for that ‘end of the night’ crowd and with incredible crossover appeal. I knew this album front to back well before I owned it and it’s been an ever present album in my life since. > > Many have tried to copy it since but there’s a harshness, tension and unease in these songs that couldn’t be replicated and that keeps them fascinating and timeless even 30 years later. > > Was so glad I got to finally see them live at Glastonbury in 2013 and as it happens I’m seeing Beth Gibbons live in Lyon next month. ... I've seen her twice now! The album samples _Weather Report_ who were my previous album in the challenge, although a lot of the samples on the album were actually written and performed by Portishead , then pressed to vinyl, before they mistreated the vinyl to give it a classic vinyl crackle before re-sampling them.

Un álbum que me ha dejado obsesionado últimamente, las atmósferas estilo Bond que logra son asombrosas y la voz es única.

4 1/2

I have not listened to much trip-hop, and am usually not a fan of slower music, but albums like this are helping me come around. I love the drama and suspense that comes with using a slow pace most of the time.

I honestly thought I wouldn’t like Dummy by Portishead, but it ended up being pretty nice. It’s a really calm and atmospheric album that’s easy to get lost in. The production has this dark, dreamy feeling without being too overwhelming. Beth Gibbons’ voice was probably my favorite part—it’s soft, soothing, and a little haunting. Even when the songs feel sad, there’s something comforting about them. I liked how the album doesn’t try too hard and just lets the mood carry everything. Some tracks stood out more to me than others, but overall it was a very consistent listen. It has a really distinct 90s trip-hop sound that still feels pretty fresh. I wouldn’t say it completely blew me away, but I definitely enjoyed it more than I expected. It’s the kind of album I could see myself putting on late at night. Definitely worth a listen if you want something chill and atmospheric.

Hipnotičan album. Jedna od najboljih vokalistica u historiji muzike i divno posložene pjesme koje joj daju odličnu bazu. Sour Times sam odslušala milijardu puta u životu i mogla bih toliko još hiljadu puta da mi nikad ne dosadi, sad kad sam dvaput u danu preslušala čitav album mislim da je tako i sa svim drugim.

VERY '90s. Not bad. Electro-sample jazz. Probably wouldn't listen to again unless I needed some '90s soundtrack music. Glad to finally hear the music behind the Portishead name. ... Whole album sounds the same. Getting a little tiresome by the last track.

This is a very cool, sexy, complex, moody and beautiful album. I listened to this all morning, smouldering away in the background!

One of my favourite albums of all time!

3.5/5 it’s a very popular album online but I’ve never really gotten behind it. It’s groovy and atmospheric and the production value is high but I think it’s just okay as far as dream pop/trip hop goes. I much prefer their last album “third” to this one.

Moody Quirky experimental …. Glory Box is the only real “hit” on here. Sounds dated versus timeless…. Contrived… unlike fine wine more like milk—hasn’t aged well.

I liked the female voice and the percussion. It was nice moody music

I liked it a lot but a little samey. 3.49

Можно даже не слушать, автоматически залетает 5. Легенды что своего времени, что настоящего. Мои любимые Radiohead построили свое звучание именно на этой группе поэтому тут даже обсуждать не надо. Шикарная электронно-роковая музыка которая звучит эксцентрично даже в наше время

wandering star is tough

Kinda shit that makes me wish I smoked cigarettes

Love

so sehr hasse ich mein Leben auch wieder nicht

Depressiv und eintönig dabei, Gesang mal hervorstechend gut, mal schief, einzelne Lichtblicke

Tää menee taas osastoon ’levy jota oon parikymppisenä koittanu kuunnella mutta ei oo lähteny’. Nyt kuitenkin musamaun kypsyttyä tykkäsin kovasti! Tavallaan ois voinu vähän nousta jumituksista levyn varrella, mut toisaalta kylläpä trip hoppiin kuuluukin tietty jumittelu. Upeita biisejä ja tunnelmia ja ai että miten subit jytäs joissain biiseissä. Tosijjaan, täähän nousee kymmenen vuoden takaisesta kahdesta tähdestä nyt neljään, oli herkkua!

Jumi. Jumi-jumi. Ju-mi-tus-ta. Jumijumitusta. Jumi jutusta. Jumi jumijutusta. Jumi jumituksesta. Jumituksesta jumijumi. Jumijumista jummi-jammi. Jummi-jammista jumputus. Jumputuksesta jumitila. Ei nyt tähän hetkeen oikeen lähten ja malttamattomasti vaan ootin mitä tän alta paljastuu. Vähän laitto Glory Box vielä harkittemaan et oisko kuitenkin kolomonen (maukas sovitus ja fiilinki siinä kyl!), mut olkoon nny.

Kaunista ja synkkää. Nyt ei ollu optimifokus tälle enkä yleensä oo näin synkän menon ystävä, mut tiettynä hetkenä voisin nauttia tästä tosi paljonkin. Kuulostaa laadukkaasti toteutetulta ja ajattomalta.

One of my favorite albums. A desert island album. A joy to listen to at anytime, anywhere. 5 Boolean:True

goof

Banger! Always heard of the album but never listened to it. Very atmospheric. 5/5

Unique yes, but not my type of unique

Cool and chill nut overall a bit boring

✅️✅️✅️ STILL BANGS HARD fav tracks: Glory Box, Sour Times, Roads, Numb

I like Trip-Hop. And this Portishead album was genre defining. I will put it on my shortlist.

I LOVE THIS ALBUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not sure which the dummy is in reference too. Top 1000?

Spacey and deliberate

Strange, yet, surprisingly good. But still not for me.

Good! Maybe not for me...but also I'm only saying that because it's so new to me

Good moody vibes.

There's not much here. A few good tracks, and a lot of filler.

Yum

A lot of songs I know, but they’re all almost the same and do little for me but make me think someone in Hackney made some poor woman listen to this when bringing her round to his flat. It’s a 90’s gentrifier album

First listened on 6th and 7th July 2025. Favourite songs are It Could Be Sweet, Wandering Stars and Glory Box.

Trip hop. Heck yeah. Why the generator waited until my 1074th day to give me this masterpiece, I have no idea. But Dummy's reputation predates my current listen, and I have listened to it before. About a week ago, in fact. And I have zero qualms about listening to it again. Mysterons immediately introduces Portishead's incredible vocalist, Beth Gibbons. And dang it, that high, clear, vulnerable voice is so perfect with the backing instrumental and the dreamy, sort of psychedelic, sort of depressive mood. Also present in this track is a great two-chord riff played delicately on an echoey electric guitar. And a repeated drum pattern that toes the line between acoustic and synthesised. Oh yeah, and old-timey sci-fi noises. (A theremin, I suspect.) Sour Times jumps in with another retro sound, this time paying homage to old mystery/spy soundtracks. The bass has the most important part in this song, even though that rapid flutter on guitar(?) sits at the front of the mix. Then we get the intense, urgent Strangers. Which is a very strange song indeed. One of the instrumental breaks involves a dramatic reduction of texture while continuing the beat and melody, almost like you get when you pause a game and the music gets more muffled. I've almost never heard that effect on a studio album. Gorgeous soft keyboard and relatively thin texture in It Could Be Sweet, making for music I reckon I could listen to for hours. Wandering Star is equally gorgeous, with a pretty memorable chorus hook ("Wandering stars / For whom it is reserved / The blackness, the darkness, forever") and some crowd-ambience-esque SFX. This album is shaping up to be an absolute behemoth. In a good way. It's A Fire has an intriguing drum beat. My uneducated mind can only compare it to Separator (Radiohead), though I know better comparisons certainly exist. Again the bass plays a huge part here, though special shoutout to the organs and Gibbons's angelic singing. Now that I'm in a Radiohead mindset, Numb is a straight-up predecessor of Climbing Up The Walls. The drums are the main suspect, but listen to the creepiness factor delivered by the other instruments. Portishead got some spook game. Roads hits ridiculously hard for absolutely no reason other than how my life currently feels. Those strings... man. Yet another positive case of strings singlehandedly moving a song from great to masterpiece status. Gibbons is front and centre here. Pedestal takes a few pages from the DJ handbook, crafting a couple of mini-soundscapes of SFX coupled with a strange drum line that keeps fading in and out at (roughly) a breathing pace. Holy smokes. That loud, buzzing, dreamy bass in Biscuit. I'm completely mesmerised. Especially in the chorus... my god, something about that little progression scratches my brain in exactly the right spot. We end with Glory Box, a powerhouse track with a descending chord progression (think While My Guitar Gently Weeps but much trippier), some wailing distorted guitar lines, soft high synths, and possibly the finest vocal on the album thus far. Liberal use of echo in certain sections before rapidly retracting it to clean the aural palate. What a damn closer. 5/5 Key tracks: Mysterons, Sour Times, Roads, Biscuit, Glory Box

Great album once again for my 2nd Album. Every song is a banger and takes me back to my 90s period

HYPNOTIC. BUZZING. TRIPPY. A great listen.

Absolutely perfect. Blows my mind that this was a debut album.

Seductive and sensual and awesome.

Only a dummy isn't aware of the power of Portishead

6/10

Wow…this one takes me back to a specific time and place, not 1994 when it came out, though I heard the ubiquitous (rightfully so) “Sour Times” but in 2002 I met a lady, one I loved not wisely, but too well. She turned me on to Portishead, this music brings back vivid memories. That notwithstanding, this is an AMAZING album on its own merits, the chill vibe belies the lyrical depth. Cannot recommend this enough.

groovy repetitive but very listenable. A bit melancholy

Malo

Every once in awhile a band comes out that is so unique sounding that you can't imagine anyone else even attempting their sound. The 90s has a ton of these as the big things were being booked left and right. Thanks to college airplay, we got to hear a lot of them. This album is truly spectacular. A pure vibe. Incredible.

Ive heard of this band before but haven’t tried them out, not bad!

Sounds great, awesome production and I love their ability to create sounds that didn’t exist until this record. With that said, the herion James Bond sound isn’t really my jam, but giving it a strong 3 as it’s good as a trip hop album can be and that deserves recognition.

This is music for people who are on drugs, but decidedly not the kinds of drugs I like to take. *Dummy* by Portishead sounds like a shittier version of Radiohead fronted by a female vocalist, except somehow even more miserable, paranoid, and emotionally unwell. It's dark, brooding, atmospheric, and relentlessly bleak. I get that this is supposed to be the appeal, but Jesus Christ, does anybody involved in making this album ever crack a smile? This is the sound that office printers and scanners make when they're daydreaming. Weird electronic clicks, mechanical rhythms, ominous little noises, and Beth Gibbons singing like she's just witnessed something unspeakable and hasn't slept in six weeks. There's a hypnotic quality to it, I'll give them that, but it's the sort of hypnosis that makes me wonder whether I'm being slowly inducted into a cult. This is music that British vampires have murder orgies to in the rain. And look, I can appreciate what they're doing here. The production is interesting, the atmosphere is incredibly well realized, and there's clearly an artistic vision behind the whole thing. The combination of hip-hop-inspired beats, eerie samples, noirish textures, and ghostly vocals is certainly distinctive. I understand why this album is considered influential, and I can even admire its commitment to making everything sound like the soundtrack to a heroin-induced nightmare. But admiring something and actually enjoying listening to it are two very different things. I like experimental music. I like weird music. I like dark music. Hell, I love Radiohead. But there's something about this particular brand of slow, narcotized despair that just doesn't connect with me. It feels like the music is perpetually building toward something that never arrives, content instead to wallow in its own beautifully produced misery. I will say, though, the music video for "Numb" is fucking cool. Scary as hell, genuinely unsettling, and a perfect visual representation of the album's whole aesthetic. It's like somebody filmed a panic attack in an abandoned Victorian asylum. I might actually enjoy the music more when there's something equally disturbing to look at. Ultimately, I respect the artistry more than I enjoy the result. It's atmospheric, inventive, and undeniably influential, but it's also a pretty exhausting listening experience. Maybe you need to be in a very particular state of mind to fully appreciate it. Or on a very particular combination of pharmaceuticals. Whatever it is, I'm apparently not taking the right drugs. 5.3/10. Heroin nightmare music.

One of my fav all time albums, I love it.

WOOOOOW

There is nothing like walking around the city on a cool, overcast fall day with this in your headphones. Geoff Barrow and co. channeling Dilla by way of James Bond and Beth Gibbons singing lamentations from beyond the grave. Utterly unique and original, the sound that launched a thousands imitators. There are a handful of songs on here that are just jaw-dropping in their production. The sounds, the sounds, the sounds. The mood, the mood, the mood. The beats, the self-produced samples, the oddball instrumentation and arrangements- none of it sounds remotely dated, just cool, cold and unsettling.

Sweet and spicy, like a good hot chocolate.

Jag har aldrig lyssnat på Portishead och visste faktiskt inte vad jag skulle vänta mig, men jag kan säga att jag gillar det. Jag gillar de mörka melodierna och texterna och tycker att instrumentalerna är väldigt varierade mellan låtarna. Det var en väldigt trevlig lyssning må jag säga. Jag ger albumet 8/10!

Tycker detta är en hörnsten inom hiphop produceringen och har haft stor påverkan på många andra låtar. Det låter tidlöst och även före sin tid!! Älskar hur smooth detta album och även hur mörkt och tungt instrumentalen är. Kan inte säga att jag lyssnade på detta med jag gjorde binders 🤡. Men körde detta lite i butiken och på gymmet, så fick ändå lyssna en hel del. Tyvärr är detta inget jag kan spela så mycket i butiken. Men det tar inte bort från mitt betyg av albumet. För att sammanfatta tycker jag albumet är intressant och inspirerande. Alla låtar är bra, speciellt klassikern Glory Box. Utan att bli för långdragen i recensionen, så ger jag, Grabbensomintekollarpåexplosioner detta album en 8.1/10

3.75 stars. This album is great. Might need to get more into Trip-Hop. Wouldnt lift the needle if it was on vinyl. Would recommend it to others. Mysterons: Song feels both of its time and way ahead of its time. Already digging this. Sour Times: Ive heard this before! Great song. Are these guys from England? (Yes). Like a blend of Hip Hop and James Bond soundtracks. This shit rules. Strangers: So this album is the genre that is called "Trip-Hop"? cool. This song isn't capturing me like the other two, but I have a sneaky feeling it will upon a couple more listens. It Could Be Sweet- banger Wandering Star- You know, the singers voice isn't "great" but god damn it fits with the music perfectly. Like, I would take her over just about any singer for these specific songs. Except Kelly Clarkson. She can sing literally anything and upstage the original. It's a Fire: I'm digging the bass in this one. Need to listen to this album with a better system. Also, I need to get this on wax. Numb: Exception to the Rule! Dont like the vocals on this one. The overall song is also kind of repetitive and dull. First not good song on the album Roads: The bass is knocking again. But another song that didnt really do much. Hoping they turn it around soon Pedestal: Mission accomplished. Song bangs Biscuit- Slow droning song but in a good way Glory Box-Whew this song. Way to finish on a high note.

i love it!!! 🖤✨✨✨

Very mellow, shoegazey stuff. Touches on New Wave, Indie Pop, and Alt Rock even at times. Not super-familiar with this band, and this album in particular I've never actually listened to. Vocals at times sound eeerily similar to Madonna from her "Ray of light" album (see "Roads" for an example). This is definitely mood music for me. It would require either a very lazy Summer Sunday, or a rainy Winter evening. While I can see the appeal of the unqiue qualities this album has, it's not something that particularly compels me and I likely won't revisit.

i like some of the trip hop

Eerie. Lots of these albums recently have felt very timely with the weather changing. Very borderline on overall enjoyment for me, I found some of the songs to be pretty boring, which drops rating a bit for me. Liked: Strangers, It could be Sweet, Glory Box Rating: 6.9

It was good!

I knew 1 of their tracks!!!

Sounds pretty, but seems largely forgettable.

Portishead's "Dummy" is often praised for its trip-hop innovation, but it ultimately falls flat for me. The pacing feels sluggish, and the tracks blend together without much distinction. While the atmosphere is moody, it quickly becomes monotonous.

Glory Box and Sour Times are standout tracks. To me it’s like a soundscape of a rainy urban metro.

Dummy is certainly a mood. Specifically the mood of whatever the mood was of the car ad Mysterons was used for in 1995. For a long time, I also thought it was the theme tune of Fortean TV, presented by Rev Lionel Fanthorpe. It wasn't, but it was just the mood of the mid-90s as I experienced it: The X-Files, Buffy, the faintly paranormal. I wasn't even listening to Portishead then, but somehow they set the mood. Weird, distant, esoteric. I spent most of January this year listening to Dummy too and, while the mood does threaten to subsume everything else about it, that alone is a neat trick. Geoff Barrow is a great producer and the grouping of samples (they may not have started sampling themselves until the next record) feels robust, unlike other records of the period that feel like so many animation cells one on top of the other - I'm thinking particularly of Endtroducing, which is very disappointing to return to. Beth Gibbons is a great singer, although I think better served by her solo albums, where the mood isn't so oppressive. But, now at the ripe old age of whatever, I see too clearly how the trick is done and you can't experience anything like you did when you were younger. It's not that the world is any less weird, but that Dummy is actually too obviously of the world and of a time. 3.5 Anyone can do Trip-Hop; and genre guidelines as transparent as Trip-Hop’s inevitably invite parody and contempt. Portishead deserve a lot of credit then for eluding a listener’s contempt over 50 minutes of this oul shtick. They not only manage to create generally pleasing music but about half the album could reasonably be described as iconic. One of those icons would do though, on the (mercifully) rare occasions I find myself in the mood to listen to Portishead. Who ever listens to all of Dummy? What could be wrong? I can’t do better, or deeper, an account of Dummy than Fiona came out with on the drive home from the airport last night. Listening to Wandering Star she observed that it ‘sounds like music that would be playing at The Bronze and Buffy gets up and has a wee sexy dance with someone while Angel is watching, raging.’ 2.5/5

Great record! Sour Times and Numb are real standouts, but the album is good all the way through. It’s more electronic than I gravitate towards but in a cool soulful way.

I feel like I live in a world -- or did, for awhile, starting in the mid to late 90s and alsting about a decade, where I am supposed to like Portishead. I'm not sure where that came from. The details are sketchy. In any case, I never did listen to them. I think it's fun that there is a place in the UK, in the Bristol-Cardiff zone, called Portishead and which I believe gives the band its name. Probably spurred by the Apple Music top 100 albums of all time list, on which this album appears, several months ago I attempted to settle the very urgent Portishead Question by actually listening to some of their music. it didn't go great. And it's not going great now. It's just ... boring. The singing is fine, kind of mannered, kind of slow not to say semi tortured .. not much to it, just a line over the bed. It doesn't do much. There aren't really songs exactly. More atmospheres. And the music ... it's so ... boring. It's just beds. It doesn't go anywhere, do anything. If you took off the vocals, the music would be perfect to talk over when you do a break on your radio show. It's just there, kind of cool, not doing anything ... it won't get in your way. Roads and Pedestal are better. Solid tracks. Biscuit is awful. Like, "is this a joke?" awful. There are so many better versions of what (I gather) this is supposed to be and do. I do not get it. Listen to former Bristol roofer turned vocalist and vegetarian crank Gary Clail instead. Emotional Hooligan if you can find it. But you won't because it's not available on the streaming services (who's a crank now?)

honestly, I couldn't wait for this album to be over. I can truly say I did not enjoy one thing about it

This is exactly the type of album I was excited about this project making me listen to. I'd always heard Portishead referenced but never actually heard them. Well, they are super boring and I have no clue why people are always talking about them and listening to this was unpleasant.

Overall: 10/10 So early on in this challenge I got the Portishead album Third and I absolutely fell in love with it. For a couple months I avoided the other Portishead albums, but I needed my fix and I moved on to this one and somehow it was even better than Third. Since then, this has been my most listened to album for two years. I love every single thing about it. Beth Gibbons has become one of my favourite vocalists ever. I love the strange inflections she adds to everything and her awkward stage presence. I also love that every song feels like they come out of a weird spy movie that doesn't exist. This is one of the best albums ever made. Fav Song: It Could Be Sweet

i lurv trip hop

Imagine if this were the soundtrack to Luigi's Mansion

Un album au top

4,5 stars

Amazing atmosphere. The voice with those dusty beats works so well. Loved it.

Masterpiece 5/5

Magnifique, Sexy et brumeux,

Nikad mi nisu skroz sjeli, iako su realno zanimljivi. Uvijek ih nekako doživljavam kao lošu kopiju Morcheebe, iako su nastali prije. Ali eto, izgleda da su neki jednostavno bolji od drugih. 2/5, 4/10

Banger last track

Me lo sé de memoria pero lo volví a escuchar solo para confirmar lo que es…perfección

Good. Soft industrial rock with mixing and sampling. It’s interesting but runs together. I lose interest.