Dummy by Portishead

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The album's genius lies in its refusal to comfort. Despite spending decades soundtracking intimate moments and dinner parties, Dummy is fundamentally unsettling music. Where its title might suggest something soothing — a pacifier for comedown culture — it instead tastes metallic and bitter. The album sustains a singular, enveloping mood for 50 minutes, a carefully constructed atmosphere where every element exists to serve despair in its many variations. Portishead's achievement was in creating something so idiosyncratic that it transcended its influences, yet Dummy never feels derivative. Its obsessions are too specific, too doggedly pursued, and ultimately too strange to be mere synthesis.

Featured songs:

Mysterons
Sour Times
It Could Be Sweet
Roads
Numb
Glory Box