Track Listing

1. Safe From Harm
2. Karmacoma
3. Angel
4. Teardrop
5. Inertia Creeps
6. Protection
7. Butterfly Caught
8. Unfinished Sympathy
9. Risingson
10. What Your Soul Sings
11. Future Proof
12. Five Man Army
13. Sly
14. Live With Me

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9010 in Music
• Brand: MASSIVE ATTACK
• Released on: 2006-04-04
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Album Description
With their critically acclaimed albums clocking up 9 million sales worldwide, a clutch of awards and a new album due for release in early 2007, the time felt right for a Massive Attack Best Of, an apt reminder of their musical legacy to date. The album, entitled "Collected" and will feature all their key tracks and the new single 'Live With Me'. The ltd edition will include the main disc and a bonus dual-disc featuring additional new tracks, un-released material, rarities, remixes, all of their videos to date, including the new single and are rare live footage The album release is preceded by the new single featuring Terry Callier on vocals released on 13th March and it sees a return to a more soulful sound for Massive Attack, while retaining the lush production of their more recent albums. The video will be directed by Jonathan Glazer. Massive Attack will be playing a series of live dates and festivals throughout the summer and autumn of 2006, details of which will be announced in due course. Emi. 2006

Customer Reviews

Either way, win or lose...
Although Massive Attack only released four albums in fifteen years, their musical ideas were usually ahead of their time, and set the tone for a lot of electronic music in the nineties. For instance, if you like Gorillaz, this compilation is really the blueprint for their fusion of rock, rap, and techno, as well as their use of different collaborators from album to album. Except Massive Attack were less flashy and more downbeat, and they drew just as heavily from soul and reggae as they did from those styles.

"Safe From Harm" embodies everything that they were trying to do. It has a powerful soul vocal at the centre, and contrasts it with repetitive, gravelly-voiced rapping from one of the band members. In the hands of Massive Attack, rap was very rhythmic and often fast, but never aggressive. They used it as just another way to set a mood. In this case, and in most other cases, the mood was one of impending doom. The ominous rapping suggested that danger was just around the corner, and the main vocal attempted to add a sense of lost innocence in the middle of this danger. Oh, and the song also has an incredible techno bassline, which made it popular in the clubs for a time. This combination of sounds may not sound revolutionary now, but this song alone basically created a style known as "trip-hop." It was also ripped off by just about everyone in the next six years. Even Bjork jumped on the bandwagon in her song "Army Of Me."

Massive Attack had a great talent for reinterpreting the past. Early on, they sent a demo tape to Horace Andy, a reggae singer who had already had a long and illustrious career in his native Jamaica by that point. The man offered to collaborate with them, and went on to do so on every one of the band's albums. Usually, he covered such reggae standards as John Holt's "Man Next Door" and his own "Spying Glass," but Massive Attack gave these songs totally new sounds, emphasizing the unease expressed in the lyrics with their moody production. Unfortunately, neither "Man Next Door" nor my own personal favourite "One Love" is included on this CD, but "Angel" is. This is one of the band's best songs. It starts with a slow, creeping bass line and a dreamy vocal introduction from Andy, but then suddenly breaks out into a crescendo of driving, distorted guitars sounding reminiscent of the Cure or the Sisters of Mercy, only heavier, more rhythmic and more powerful.

The band could make uplifting tracks too, once in a while, like "Unfinished Sympathy" from their first album, or "Teardrop" from their third, but they were more at home with dark, slow rhythms and lonely, romantic atmospheres. Even "Teardrop" sounds lost and vulnerable, due to a superb performance by Elizabeth Fraser, who had by then already received a lot of praise from critics for her singing in the indie band Cocteau Twins. The black flowers on the cover of this album are a good indication of the band's aesthetic. The song "Blue Lines" from their first album, in which the band members took turns rapping, with impeccable rhythm, has precisely that kind of yearning, rainy-day mood. Unfortunately it's not included here. However, "Risingson," a bitter variation on the theme of failed love, is probably the best vocal performance by the band's core members, and it is included.

As time went on, Massive Attack gravitated toward the more dissonant, rock-influenced sound of "Angel." Since the theme and feel of their music was basically the same as before, this wasn't really that big of a change, but it did lead to increasing creative differences within the band. By the time their fourth album came out, three of the four founding members had left. As a result, the album seemed like a bit of a retread, and wasn't very well received by critics. This compilation may be an attempt to repair the band's image and put the spotlight on their best work again. As you may have gathered, a lot of good songs are missing, and even the bonus disc in the limited edition doesn't have all of their B-sides. If it were up to me, I would have added a few more album tracks and left off some of the singles. Actually, when I was starting to write this, I wanted to say something like, "Massive Attack were ultimately a singles band," and as I was writing that I realized that it wasn't really true.

But anyway, the album is still very good, and it ends with a sign that the band may not be finished yet. "Live With Me" is the token new song on the compilation, but it's not only a good song, it's their best song ever. Once again, the band calls in a veteran soul singer, Terry Callier this time, to lament about another failed love against a backdrop of strings and slow beats, but never has this combination sounded as good as it does here. Except now everybody is that much older, so instead of professing undying love, the song implores its subject, "Come live with me."

Future Fool Proof
It's hard to tell who's in and who's out of the Massive Attack line-up these days (since Mushroom departed under a cloud in 1998 and Daddy G took a backseat on fourth album 100th Window, the name has generally become a dark and Gothic vehicle for sole founding member 3D), yet their legacy is assured thanks to their iconic 1991 debut Blue Lines and its staggering follow-up Protection.
A more compact musical overview than the earlier Singles Box: 1990-1998, Collected features 14 of the Bristol acts most popular moments with new tune Live With Me tagged on the end. Fans of the trio's early singles such as Daydreaming and Hymn Of The Big Wheel may be disappointed by their absence on Collected, but later masterworks such as Angel and Future Proof are given the space to breathe on this disc of ominous rhythms.
While 3D's sombre vocals are present on many of the key tracks, it is the appearances of guests that ensured Massive Attack truly soared. Tricky's early success Karmacoma, Liz Fraser's pristine additions to Teardrop and Shara Nelson's powerful rendition on Safe From Harm open Collected in fine form, with Tracey Thorn, Horace Andy and Sinead O'Connor among the additional guests that follow. Although there's a clash of styles as the paranoid vibe of Inertia Creeps bleeds into the mellow and sublime Protection, generally Collected acts as a fine introduction to the influential band that outgrew their berated trip hop label.
Collected is a sound investment by any greatest hits standard, but Massive Attack's back catalogue deserves to be investigated at a deeper level once this record has been devoured and deconstructed.

Savage
One of the greatest groups to come out of London, this is a must have album.