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Dummy [Import]

PortisheadAudio CD
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (287 customer reviews)

Price: $9.99 & FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
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Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
MP3 Music, 11 Songs, 1994 $5.00  
Audio CD, Import, 1994 $9.99  
Vinyl, Import, 2012 $32.98  
Audio Cassette, 1994 --  

Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s

Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or view the MP3 Album.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Samples
Song Title Time Price
listen  1. Mysterons 5:06$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen  2. Sour Times 4:14$1.29  Buy MP3 
listen  3. Strangers 3:58$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen  4. It Could Be Sweet 4:19$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen  5. Wandering Star 4:54$1.29  Buy MP3 
listen  6. It's A Fire 3:49$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen  7. Numb 3:58$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen  8. Roads 5:05$1.29  Buy MP3 
listen  9. Pedestal 3:41$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen10. Biscuit 5:04$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen11. Glory Box 5:05$1.29  Buy MP3 


Amazon's Portishead Store

Music

Image of album by Portishead

Photos

Image of Portishead

Biography

Portishead are a band from Bristol, England, named after the nearby town of the same name, 12 miles (19 km) west of Bristol.
History
The band was formed in Bristol, UK in 1991, by Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons and Adrian Utley. After releasing a short film (To Kill a Dead Man) and its accompanying music, Portishead signed a record deal with Go! Beat Records.
Dummy ... Read more in Amazon's Portishead Store

Visit Amazon's Portishead Store
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Special Offers and Product Promotions

  • Buy a CD or a vinyl record, get a $1 Amazon MP3 Credit. Limit one promotional credit per customer. Here's how (restrictions apply)
  • Includes FREE MP3 version of this album Here's how (restrictions apply)

Frequently Bought Together

Dummy + Portishead + Third [Vinyl]
Price for all three: $29.91

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  • Portishead $9.93
  • Third [Vinyl] $9.99

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought


Product Details

  • Audio CD (October 17, 1994)
  • Original Release Date: October 18, 1994
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Format: Import
  • Label: Polygram Records
  • ASIN: B000001FI7
  • Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (287 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,794 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

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, dehumanized 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

Product Description

11-track version includes 'It's a Fire' not featured on the 10-track version. Universal. 1994.

Customer Reviews

One of the best albums I own. captainmonty666@hotmail.com  |  48 reviewers made a similar statement
It is beautiful and proves electronic music CAN BE full of emotion. Zen Station  |  34 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
107 of 109 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Coldly Sensual and Smoothly Retro Memories June 14, 2000
Format:Audio CD
This is definitely another five-star item from me. Every time I listen to it, no matter how long it's sat in my CD shelf (forgotten, but only temporarily and never for too long), I am constantly surprised by how great it is...ahh the joy of "rediscovering" a favorite.

Dark and moody, much of the album sounds like a memory...of a place you've been once, or a movie you saw, or music you heard as you drove by an open window or door late one night in the city. Some of it is incredibly sexy (like "Numb," "Pedestal," and the awesome "Glory Box"), other parts are mournful (like "Biscuit," "Sour Times," "It's a Fire," and "It Could Be Sweet"), and still more are mysterious or just plain funky ("Mysterions" and "Strangers").

It's really hard to pick a favorite song on this album...almost all of them perfectly fit different moods I have at different times. They seem to encompass an incredibly vast range of modern urban sensitivities. "Sour Times" is, of course, wonderfully reminiscent of a moody classic spy flick while a song like "Strangers" bounces back and forth between an intense, pulsing beat like a walk through the club district of a large city and gentle, delicate interludes like the dawn over the Sea of Japan.

My least favorite is "Wandering Star," which I think is a bit too repetative, but even that I'm willing to listen to without much complaint.

Smoothly sexy, definitely modern, and particularly urban, *Dummy* is a classic and well worth your time and money.

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73 of 76 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A perennially fresh sounding album.. April 8, 2003
Format:Audio CD
If it wasn't for Portishead's vocalist Beth Gibbons, you could listen to Dummy all of the time. With tight, fresh hip-hop beats and a subtle jazz flavor, most of Dummy is danceable, although the band do have a knack for creating an especially eerie mood with moaning organs and swelling strings. But when Gibbons enters the scene, her clear delicate vibrato casts a shadow of isolation and absolute melancholy over the whole album.

Portishead easily draw you into their lonely world, and their ambient trip-hop entices you to stay. Songs like "Numb" and "Biscuit" are dark trances enduced by the combination of hip-hop, mellow guitars, and a variety of samples coated by Gibbon's desperate pleas for salvation. Hearing her cry, "Nobody loves me, it's true" (from the superhit "Sour Times") is enough to tear at anyone's heart.

On "Roads" - a track already enveloped in sorrowful elegant strings - Gibbon's soprano trembles with pain. However, the twisted lounge acts, "Strangers" and "Pedestal" feature very soulful and powerful vocals accompanied by some excellent jazz performances.

The last track, "Glory Box", is Portishead in full blow. Over a sample from Isaac Hayes' "Ike's Rap III" and a slinky blues guitar, Gibbons duels with herself as she tries to justify a relationship. She first comes off as a contemptuous Billie Holiday and then switches back to her sweet, sad self as she pleads, "Give me a reason to love you/ I just want to be a woman."

By all means, Dummy is an essential album for trip-hop fans and beginners. A definite keeper.

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38 of 38 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars This is the beginning of forever and ever..... March 29, 2000
By GZA
Format:Audio CD
Portishead's miraculous debut, Dummy, is soul music in the truest sense of the word, a journey into the heart of darkness which leaves you emotionally exhausted and bewildered, but ultimately intoxicated. Beth Gibbons' voice is white light refracted through a shattered psyche: at times pure, resonant and beautiful, at others desperate, hysterical and bordering on the deranged. The music is often suffocating, the power of the bass seeping into the marrow of your bones, while the breakbeats attempt to destroy your eardrums: the sound of sanity disintegrating.

Mysterons steals into your consciousness like an electronic dream, but it is Sour Times that really kicks you awake, full-on John Barryesque orchestration attacks your senses, providing Beth with a backdrop to enchant you with her siren's song, "Nobody loves me, it's true - not like you do". The album descends into the depths for much of the middle period, Wandering Star and Numb darkly funereal shards of fear and despair. Then there is Roads, the album's masterpiece. As Beth croons "Can't anybody see, we've got a war to fight" the violins slowly build into an unbearably beautiful torchsong which tries to steal your heart, and very nearly succeeds. Pedestal and Biscuit are the comedown, the 3am stoned lullabies. Then, just as you're drifting off to another world, Glorybox glides into focus, Beth in full Eartha Kitt mode, imploring someone "Give me a reason to love you, give me a reason to be a woman". A fantastically drunken guitar solo then ushers in a change of pace, a crash of drums and a promise: "This is the beginning of forever and ever..." As Isaac Hayes' strings fade into the dawn and if you've been paying attention, I defy you not to feel a little fragile.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars a friend
lent me a burned copy of this disc without any album info about 5 years ago.

I just found this album for purchase after having bought a couple others that were solid,... Read more
Published 5 days ago by Jeffrey T. Biros
4.0 out of 5 stars i like it
I find this music relaxing to listen to. Calming to a busy day and all you want to do is relax.
Published 12 days ago by Stephanie Ruholl
1.0 out of 5 stars Great record. Damaged recording.
I bought this record in March 2013. It is one of my all-time favorites. Unfortunately, the album arrived with skips on side 2. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Greg A. Meier
5.0 out of 5 stars [P]erfection
As is implied by my name, and for those of you who have read any of my previous reviews, I am a "hold over" from the 60's and classic rock era. Read more
Published 1 month ago by beatlenik49
5.0 out of 5 stars the nature of Portishead
I have over 300 CDs, I vaguely Remember this band name, I don't know why. But I'm glad I do. This is my best album.
Published 2 months ago by Jonathan Dell Elliott
5.0 out of 5 stars Beth!!!
It's greatful!!! One of the greatest trip-hop albums of all times!!! And this is REAL TRIP-HOP!!! Beth is very charizmic, like always))). Read more
Published 4 months ago by ALEXUS
5.0 out of 5 stars Dummy not to have!
A must have for any Portishead fan...

This is the album that introduced me to Portishead.

Great music from a band that was clearly ahead of it's time!
Published 5 months ago by Hamza
5.0 out of 5 stars Noir, urban, chic.
From the first thirty seconds of "Mysterons" or so, which are comprised of a wailing Theremin, frenetic turntables, and an eerie guitar that sounds like it was recorded underwater,... Read more
Published 6 months ago by D.W. Williams
4.0 out of 5 stars portishead-dummy mp3
trippy beats, haunting choruses, this album is the epitome of portishead. Found biscuit,glory box and wandering star to be the best tracks by far, the others range from decent to... Read more
Published 7 months ago by jimmy
4.0 out of 5 stars Their only album worth getting
I listened to this to death when it came out. But after that, Beth's voice began to grate. They seemed sort of whiny, and sounded less fresh than when I first heard them. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Baranabus
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