You may have heard of this little sporting event going on at the minute called the Olympics. I'm sure any Londoner would be able to fill you in on the whole thing, but I have heard one small story from it, that I thought would be nice to share with other Massive Attack fans.
Turns out, Jessica Ennis is a fellow fan of the former Wild Bunch crew. She's now a gold medal winning Heptathlon athlete, whom (at least from the British media perspective) is the face of this current Olympics.
In an interview after winning her gold, she mentions how she listened to Massive Attack on her iPod right before her 800m race and in some cosmic significance, or just plain coincidence (you decide?) the DJ on the overhead at the event just happened to play Unfinished Sympathy which she had just been listening to. She took it as a sign and went on to win.
Nice story, I think. It shows you the powerful motivator music can sometimes be. And I would imagine that Massive Attack would be well chuffed that they had some part, no matter how small, in securing Olympic glory for their country.
“I listened to Massive Attack over and over again on my iPod trying to switch off but it was so hard. My mind was all over the place. I kept thinking about crossing the line and winning gold — then I thought, ‘What if I fall over?’ What was funny is that while I was waiting to come out for my 800m race the stadium DJ was playing Massive Attack. I kind of had a feeling it was meant to be in London.”
Massive Attack's debut album, Blue Lines came out in April 1991, so you'll have to forgive me as I'm nearly 6 months behind on writing this post to mark its 25th anniversary.
While alot of fans (including myself) eagerly await the upcoming Massive Attack V Adam Curtis shows this summer, in the interim anyone in London this May or June may want to take note of a special one-off exhibit by Massive Attack's 3D that will be taking place at the Lazarides art gallery.
They say imitation is the highest form of flattery.In music terms, that would apply quite aptly to the cover version. Massive Attack have certainly done a number of covers of other bands songs in their time, but as for this post I will be making a top 10 list of my favourite tunes other bands/artists have made out of Massive Attack tunes.