Dummy | 
 enlarge | Artist: Portishead
Label: Universal / Island
Category: Music
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £3.15
You Save: £4.84 (61%)
New (28) Used (14) Collectible (1) from £3.15
Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 243
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Running Time: 45 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.4
UPC: 042282852229
EAN: 0042282852229
ASIN: B00004WL7O
Release Date: June 18, 1999
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: LIGHT WEAR TO DISC & FRONT COVER __ PLAYS PERFECT
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| Tracks:
| • | Mysterons | | • | Sour times | | • | Strangers | | • | It could be sweet | | • | Wandering star | | • | Numb | | • | Roads | | • | Pedestal | | • | Biscuit | | • | Glory box |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
The collaboration of studio whiz Geoff Barrow and singer Beth Gibbons, Dummy was made at the same time as a short film noir called To Kill a Dead Man, and the same approach--gloomy, tormented, and wildly melodramatic--permeates the album. "Sour Times" (the hit in which Gibbons cries, again and again, "Nobody loves me, it's true") and the more cryptic "Glory Box" are the linchpins of the album, defining its sound: dark flashes of old soul and film music, dehumanised electronic bleeps, Gibbons emoting like she's consumed by shame, and a bass-and-beat pulse derived from the slow bump and grind of the Bristol scene that spawned Barrow's old collaborators, Massive Attack. --Douglas Wolk
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| Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
 Hauntingly beautiful album-I urge you to buy it! July 14, 2008
Someone (Somewhere)
This album is absolutely brilliant. Vocally, it is pure genius, and musically it is perfectly timed. I have just bought this album, as a replacement for the one I lost in my mispent teenage times! It`s jst as great as I remember it being (unlike many of my music purchases of the 90`s)
end of the evening sheer pleasure. April 21, 2008
mia farrow (melksham uk)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
put this on after you have got rid of all the losers or u have made it home from the pub.
it oooooozes class.
 Totally depressive, worthless noise. December 3, 2007
Dino
3 out of 33 found this review helpful
I bought this recently and will never play it again. totally unmusical and the lead singers vocals are well over rated. i can think of many far better singers. nothing on this album is original.
i cant see how this album became so well rated on amazon.
Alien Heart September 22, 2006
John Tree (Poulton-le-Fylde, UK)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
This band came from the same Bristol incubator as Massive Attack and Tricky, and there is the same dreamy Trip-Hoppy character here. Where they part company is the cold steely atmosphere Portishead muster.
Beth Gibbons voice is the thing that defines the sound. Simultaneously bruised, almost wretched, yet super-cool, her vocal delivery is almost jazz tinged and brings out complex emotions. This debut album is a remakably strong collection of tunes with few weak links.
The music is creatively quirky, utilising Hip Hop, Jazz, atmospheric pads, breaks, angular beats and disjointed guitar. This is alien, but not alienating stuff, and it still sounds real cool and cutting edge now, withstanding endless repeat listens. File under Brilliant Alien Trip Hop.
A genre defining classic March 15, 2006
David Johnson (Buenos Aires)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
This beautifully haunting record is one of those indispensables that any serious music fan has in their collection. I remember being completely blown away by the originality the first time I heard it. The punchy, nuerotic beats and the cold distant voice of Beth Gibbons. I guess if you could refer to trip-hop as a genre, this has to be it´s signature album.
"Mysterons," sounds like a martian landing, Gibbon´s distinctive voice unfurls the track with a steely brittleness. This music sounds purposefully distant and edgy. I like the curling beat on the second track,"Sour times." My personal favourite has to be the intro to the pulsating beat on,"strangers."
"It´s a fire," is the only track that sounds slightly out of place. It is the only track on the album that sounds like something you may have heard before.
The ranging,"Roads," is another extremely inventive track that preludes the classic,"glory box." Gibbons sounds like a battered, wounded woman on this song. Her lyrical approach is totally unique.
What more can I say about this? It´s engaging, strangely distant but at the same time thoroughly seductive. A must buy.
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