'Collected' Is Cool - 4/27/2006

Massive Attack's new best-of - and Coachella show - should win more U.S. fans

By Dennis Romero

Thanks, iPod. While the back catalogs of big acts are still gold mines for record labels, the singles-oriented MP3 generation is throwing a digital monkey wrench into the cash cow of greatest-hits compilations. What's the use of buying such collections when they're already out there in webland for the taking, when the dorm-room set has already downloaded its own mixtape versions of these precious vaults? Give it to the so-called suits in the electronic-music industry: They get it. It's called value.

Take the new best-of, Collected, by down-tempo pioneer Massive Attack. It gives you massive musical love, from a 14-track greatest-near-hits CD dating back to its 1991 debut, to a 10-track bonus disc of unreleased and under-played tunes, to a 16-video, flipside DVD, including director Michel Gondry's visual version of "Protection." It's so good, it will have you scratching your head, wondering why some of the bonus-disc tracks haven't seen more light of day ("I Want You," featuring Madonna; "Small Time Shoot 'Em Up," featuring Damon Albarn of Gorillaz).

"The reason we put out the double CD is because, at the end of the day, anybody can download and make their own play list," says Massive Attack's Daddy G., a.k.a. Grant Marshall.

There's no freshman mixtape compiler in the world who's going to duplicate the flow of disc one, which was put together with storytelling in mind by Marshall and Robert Del Naja. It starts with the eerie, Thriller-esque aura of "Safe From Harm" and eventually takes you down, down, down to the suspenseful "Angel," then on to the sweet delicacy of "Teardrop," and before you know it Tracey Thorn is all-timing it with her gorgeous, heartfelt "Protection." Disc one peaks with the singsong, symphonic shuffle of "Unfinished Sympathy," one of England's favorite songs of all time. When "Risingson" starts growling, you might find yourself wondering if this is the greatest hip-hop band America never had.

"We were thinking about making music you could sit down and think to," says Marshall, explaining the group's "Wild Bunch" genesis in Bristol, England, at the dawn of the '90s. "It wasn't dance music, it was listening music. That sparked people's imaginations. And that's why people use our music for documentaries and film."

Indeed, Massive Attack has had much success licensing its cinematic sound to the domestic cinema business. (Is it even possible to stage a showdown without "Angel"?) And Collected, released earlier this month, has already had a run at the top of the U.K. album chart. Yet, the sometime collective has had a hard time cracking the American musical consciousness. Of course, the rise of the Attack happened when hip-hop was tapping into an increasingly outlandish and violent modus - pleasing white fans, appeasing the chart gods, but sometimes bypassing the art of music for more upfront communiqués. Massive Attack, on the other hand, used the urgency of hip-hop's sampladelic grooves, but maintained a shroud of artistic subtlety and simmering inner strength with its symphonic strings and tricky (and sometimes Tricky) lyrics. It's like the on-screen difference between Jean-Claude Van Damme talking tough, and Robert De Niro showing it without a word. But the brooding and sometimes sensitive style of Massive Attack never really penetrated U.S. charts or airwaves.

"We've never done as well as we thought we should have in America," says Marshall, 46. "Of course it bothers us. If there's one market you want to be in, this is it. It's maybe our image, and the music is hard to pigeonhole."

Perhaps the band's next album, Weather Underground, due early next year, will break through. Marshall says the crew has already recorded 15 tracks, with TV on the Radio and Albarn contributing, and the possibility that David Bowie and Hope Sandoval will step in later.

"I'm not good at labels," Marshall says. "It's Massive Attack music. We've always got like drums and guitars and all the instruments. And we bring in other band members to interpret ideas we have. We're trying to keep it as organic as possible so it's easily transferable to the stage."

He's also hoping that the group's time on stage at Coachella on Sunday, which will include a band of nine and two 30-foot-tall LED screens, will at least help convince some of America's critical establishment that Massive Attack is here to stay.

"People say if you're going to do one festival in America, this is the one," Marshall says. "This gives us another bite at the cherry."