My favourite albums - Juxtapose & listening to Tricky

If you've been reading the weekly Sunday Music posts you know that for the last few weeks I've been posting Tricky songs every week. The problem is, that's only one or two songs out of six I post on a Sunday. Here's a solution. It's moving a little too slowly for my liking. It's been a while since I've made a new entry in the My favourite album series. This is a way to kill two birds with one stone.

Today I'll be talking about Tricky's 1999 release, Juxtapose.

Juxtapose was released in 1999; the first album to not feature Martina Topley-Bird on vocals. It is, I think, a big step forward in Tricky's style. Maxinquaye was such an impactful album that all the albums that followed it felt like reactions to it. Not attempts to copy it or improve it necessarily. The albums that followed Maxinquaye were all good; I personally rate Pre-Millennium Tension very highly. None of them quite stepped out of the shadow that the masterpiece that is Maxinquaye cast.

Juxtapose does step away from it. It's an entirely different style of music. Maxinquaye is over the horizon and in the past.

Contradictive by Tricky

This is the sound of a more mature Tricky. No longer an artist worrying about the trip-hop label being hung on him; he decisevly moves away from mid-90's trip hop. There's an argument to be made that trip hop follows the direction Tricky sets on this album, that doesn't change the altered course Tricky lays down here.

For Real by Tricky

Some credit for the album must of course go to producers DJ Muggs & Dame Grease. DJ Muggs is Cypress Hills' DJ & producer and has worked with a lot of other bands and artists. Including, oddly enough, Simply Red and, most famously, House of Pain. Dame Grease is probably most well known for his production with DMX and Nas. There's an entirely different feel to this album than all the ones that went before and a lot of that must be down to the producers.

She Said by Tricky

All that said, this is still unmistakably a Tricky album. His vocals are still delivered with that characteristic low almost growling tone. His lyrics are down to earth and often poignant. It is a Tricky album and it is a great one.