Summer '94: The Enduring Legacy Of Portishead’s Cinematic ‘Dummy'
Even though there was a bumper crop of great albums released during the summer of 1994, Portishead’s debut, Dummy, stands out as one of the most unusual. The English band, composed of instrumentalist and co-founder Geoff Barrow, vocalist and co-founder Beth Gibbons, and guitarist and keyboardist Adrian Utley, constructed a thoroughly cinematic record, both in its musical references (the TV show Mission Impossible) and dramatic sound that incorporated the snaps, crackles, and pops of vinyl.
Dummy achieved immediate critical acclaim upon its release, beating out PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love and Oasis's Definitely Maybe for Britain’s coveted Mercury Prize. But commercial success was a slower burn. The album eventually sold 1.1 million copies in the U.S., but it took a decade to hit those levels.
Today, Dummy continues to exert its influence on contemporary dance and hip-hop, and on artists like Kanye West and The Weeknd.
In a conversation with Soundcheck host John Schaefer, Chris Molanphy, pop chart columnist, contributor to Pitchfork, and frequent Soundcheck guest, looks back at Dummy, 20 years after its release.
Interview Highlights
Chris Molanphy, on how the opening track, “Mysterons,” sets the tone of Dummy:
You hear the sound of what sounds like a theremin on [“Mysterons”]. It’s actually a synthesizer tuned to sound like a theremin. It’s got that spooky sound, and as we’ve discussed frequently on Soundcheck, the theremin is famous for movie scores and that spooky sound. You hear it, and that’s immediately what you think of. And then, Beth’s voice is this kind of precious jewel coming in. Right from the start, you know what you’re going to get from this album.
On the cinematic feel of “Sour Times,” and its corresponding video:
Believe it or not, all of the bits of the video come from a short film that Portishead made just before the album came out, called To Kill a Dead Man. To this day, if you buy the CD of Dummy, you’ll see in the corner a very small re-creation of a poster for [the movie]. To Kill a Dead Man is an 11 minute film — it’s not even very long, I don’t think it got a formal theatrical release — but it sets the template for everything that Portishead did, because it’s like an assassination thriller, it’s wordless, it’s very evocative, it’s very noir.
On Dummy's closer, “Glory Box”:
This song in particular has had a really strong legacy. It’s appeared in any number of movies over the years. It’s one of the most signature songs, if not the signature song, of Dummy. Jeff Barrow would sometimes even transfer stuff that wasn’t originally on vinyl back to vinyl just so he could scratch it for the surface noise, and the ability to manipulate it. This is a band that loved that deep, thick sound.
