Playlist - [90s Style 4 - Anodyne Future (Triphop)]

Today's post unleashes part four in my ongoing series of 90s genre playlists. This sound is oddly paradoxical for me. From my perspective triphop is both a glimpse into the future and a look back into the past.

Turn off your mind, Relax, and float downstream.

...

As much as I loved the 90s, they were a troubling time. The decade, the century, and the millennium was ending. For some people that meant that the end was nigh. For others it meant the future was almost here.

On the upside, all your credit card debt will be erased.

Y2K was eminent and everything was about to change. In the latter half of the 90s music began to reflect the growing omnipresence of expanding technology. Synthesizers and electronica became more and more prevalent in modern music. Hip-hop had pimp-slapped rock further and further down the charts and popularized other electronic means of creation with turntables and samplers.

What did the 5 fingers say to the Rock Star?

Out of this wave of innovation and foreboding, came Triphop. Thoroughly modern, at least slightly psychedelic and a little bit funky, it was the perfect cure for your “Pre-Millennium Tension”. A great many bands dabbled in the sound, but very few specialized in it. The most defining of which was Massive Attack, who despite their name, are typically very low key.

This calming music was a reassurance that our new computerized life wouldn’t be all harsh binary nightmares. Despite a slight sense of doom, there was still a possibility that we were in fact entering the age of aquarius. In two-thousand zero zero the party was just beginning and we were far from out of time.

Is that the future I hear?

…

It’s certainly arguable what constitutes a triphop song. I have my own personal nebulous criterion. I thought these 20 gems made a nice cohesive playlist. I tried to keep it calm without being boring.

Also, I am aware that Supreme Beings of Leisure was released in 2000. But, it was February of 2000 which means it was written and recorded in 1999. I stand by its eligibility.  

Now take a chill pill and enjoy some music.