I love trip hop, and you may too, even if you don’t know it yet. Trip hop is a beautiful music style that creates its own unique atmosphere by combining elements of hip hop and electronica with melodies and vocal stylings drawn from both jazz and R&B. Born out of the UK, like most great music, let’s be honest, in the early 1990s, it wasn’t until 1994 that music journalist Andy Pemberton coined the term "trip hop" that we all know today.
I love trip hop, and you may too, even if you don’t know it yet. Trip hop is a beautiful music style that creates its own unique atmosphere by combining elements of hip hop and electronica with melodies and vocal stylings drawn from both jazz and R&B. Born out of the UK, like most great music, let’s be honest, in the early 1990s, it wasn’t until 1994 that music journalist Andy Pemberton coined the term "trip hop" that we all know today.
If you, like me, run to Sirius XM to listen to chill hop or study beats, or if you’re one of the millions of people who tune into Lofi Girl on YouTube while working or studying, you very well could have trip hop to thank for that. My scholars also have the privilege of listening to it during their 65 minutes each day with me, and we all know learning is better and knowledge can grow deeper with some great tunes in the background. I mean, music really is like water for the brain. If it weren’t for acts like Massive Attack, Tricky, or my personal favorite trip hop band, Portishead, those modern stations simply wouldn’t exist.
Here in the United States, trip hop never quite dominated the mainstream scene the way it probably should have. Portishead seemed to have the biggest impact on the domestic charts, peaking at No. 53 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the absolute classic “Sour Times (Nobody Loves Me)” in 1995. The following year brought the Sneaker Pimps’ “6 Underground,” which was my personal introduction to the genre. That incredible song came off an even more incredible album, Becoming X. That record still remains in my top 10 albums of all time, and on any given week, it could easily land in my top 5.
Go listen to “Becoming X” right now!
Trip hop was really my gateway into electronic music as a whole. By the time Madonna’s classic Ray of Light was released, I was already deeply familiar with electronic production and the sounds of the UK, courtesy of my local Tower Records and Q magazine. For me, the standard American radio scene of the 90s and Y2K just wasn't doing it. I had to look across the pond for my music or pay those steep import prices, and I vividly remember dropping $35 or more on import CDs. Ah, the price of being a young gay guy with exceptionally fine taste in music!
Trip hop was really my gateway into electronic music as a whole. By the time Madonna’s classic Ray of Light was released, I was already deeply familiar with electronic production and the sounds of the UK, courtesy of my local Tower Records and Q magazine. For me, the standard American radio scene of the 90s and Y2K just wasn't doing it. I had to look across the pond for my music or pay those steep import prices, and I vividly remember dropping $35 or more on import CDs. Ah, the price of being a young gay guy with exceptionally fine taste in music!
Bjork and Tori Amos!!!!!
This brings me to a playlist I recently created: SB 001 | 1999 | Trip Hop. (Link Below)
While I was writing my last newsletter all about the year 1999, I was actually listening to the Sneaker Pimps and Portishead, which got me thinking… what trip hop was actually released in 1999? So, here it is: a curated collection of some of my personal favorite tunes from that genre, released in the final year of the “1900s,” as my kids love to call it.
Before I go, I have to tell you a quick story about one specific track you’ll hear on the playlist: “Moonchild” by Cibo Matto.
Now, the band, consisting of Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, who you might also know as the voice of Noodle from Gorillaz, aren’t strictly trip hop artists, but they are a band that I absolutely LOVE. Their debut album Viva La Woman was released in 1996. If you want another great trip-hop-adjacent song by them, check out "Sugar Water" or my personal favorite, “Theme,” which actually shares a sample with The Cure’s “Pictures of You” remix from Mixed Up… oh boy, I’m getting incredibly off-topic, apologies!
“Moonchild” is in the playlist above.
Anyway, Viva La Woman was one of my favorite albums during my junior and senior years of high school. They weren't massively popular, so finding information about them during those pre-internet dark ages, and shoot, even those early years of the web were pretty bare, was tough. The internet wasn't filled with everything yet. But somehow I found out, though I wish I could remember how, that they had released a second album, Stereotype A, in 1999.
I was living in downtown Phoenix during those years, and I could not find that album anywhere. Trust me, I searched high and low. It probably wasn’t until the year 2000 or 2001, while I was up in the college mountain town of Flagstaff, that I popped into a little record store and there it was! Oh, I could not wait to slide that disc into my car’s stereo. It was a very different album from their debut, and I don’t know if I was into it straight away, even with an Obi-Wan Kenobi reference, and you know I’m a massive Star Wars fan, but the track “Moonchild” is just so beautiful. The very soul of that song is born out of trip hop, and I’m excited for you to hear it.
I hope you enjoy this week’s playlist! Let me know if you are a fellow fan of trip hop. Was there a specific song on the mixtape that really grabbed you? Hit reply and share your love of the genre with me, or drop some of your own favorite tracks. I always love finding new gems!
TTYL,
Bryan Barry
Search for @skullboidotcom on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music or at skullboi.com
