Why Portishead’s ‘Dummy’ Was the Perfect Album for Lockdown

 by Isaac Mead

Mid-April, peak lockdown, spending most of my time confined within the four walls of my bedroom and one album played consistently through my speakers for much of this: Dummy by Portishead. As someone who thoroughly enjoys music and collects vinyl as a hobby too, I am constantly seeking new music and am rather obsessed with finding the ideal soundtrack to whatever moment I am living in; the moment we were all living in was obviously a rather unique one so it took time to find the perfect match but once my Mum mentioned Dummy to me and I finally got round to listening to it, I couldn’t stop.

Meeting during a coffee break in 1991, producer Geoff Barrow who was an active member of the Bristol music scene in the early 1990s, and Beth Gibbons, who was a night club singer at the time, first began to exchange their love of music with each other. Barrow had previously produced songs for trip-hop pioneers such as Massive Attack and Neneh Cherry before working with Gibbons; these trip-hop influences of down-tempo cool jazz music are reflected throughout the whole of Dummy and the album was one of the first commercially successful ones from the genre that helped popularize it. The final member of the band, Adrian Utley, who produced nine of the tracks and wrote eight, soon joined the band after the album’s release. Dummy was an album that skyrocketed the band to fame with it winning the Mercury Music Prize in 1995 and spawning three singles from the album: ‘Numb’, ‘Sour Times’ and ‘Glory Box’.

I find the best way to describe the bleak world of Dummy is through comparing it to a classic film noir – shadowy, mysterious and dark.  In fact, before the album was even released, the band made an actual ten minute short film called ‘To Kill a Dead Man’, which is a rather meandering and inconsequential spy movie that instead serves to translate the cinematic nature of the music directly into an aesthetic that reflects all of the themes of the album. Whilst the film was rather mediocre, the soundtrack that accompanied it was most certainly not: the subtle intensity of frontwoman Beth Gibbons’ voice, combined with the hypnotic instrumentation provided by the cinematic strings, and stuttering beats that echo throughout every song, create an absolutely ethereal soundscape.

Track 8 of the album, ‘Roads’, became my lockdown anthem – the song summed up everything I was feeling, and the general inertia I felt my life had come to, manifested itself in the chorus - filled with Gibbons mournfully crying out:

‘Oh

Can’t anybody see

We’ve got a war to fight

Never find our way

Regardless of what they say’

Loneliness resounds through the opening line ‘Can’t anybody see’ as Gibbons questions who is looking out for her in her solitude. Then, the juxtaposition between the title ‘Roads’ and lines referring to not being able to ‘find [a] way’ are perfect, as roads are designed to lead you somewhere, but the point of them is nullified if you have no direction. This metaphor gives a sense of just fumbling through life, which was coincidentally how I felt when trapped indoors for hours on end.  

As I listen to the album repeatedly, I think that even by glancing at some of the titles, they sum up the distinct atmosphere of March – June on a whole. Names of songs such as ‘Numb’, ‘Mysterons’, ‘Wandering Star’ and ‘Sour Times’ all encapsulate the ominous aura of the pure unknown that resonated through lockdown.

What makes the album and lyrics even more compelling is the mystery enshrouding frontwoman Beth Gibbons, who has completely shied away from any public image and only done a handful of interviews throughout her whole career. The lack of information leads to interpretation for the listener: Who is Gibbons singing about, or is she projecting her troubles onto a fictional character? Why does this lovelorn persona that pervades every track believe ‘it’s time to move on’ in album closer ‘Glory Box’ and do they ever escape from their isolation? All of these questions left unanswered just add to the enigma that is Dummy.

Whilst running for only an hour, Dummy has occupied my head for the past few months whenever the music was and wasn’t playing, and it has provided me with some extremely memorable moments so if you have time, do give it a listen. I will end the blog post with one final reason for why Dummy was perfect for lockdown: the album was released during a period of Tory rule. Great art is created during times of oppression and this album was no exception.