Trip Hop Anthology

If you think Trip Hop is defined by being female led vocal groups (i.e. Morcheeba, Portishead or Hooverphonic, all artists I love) it's not. Trip Hop is defined as Trip (Trippy/Psychedelic/Ethereal) Hop (as in the Hip-Hop estheric (I.e. Funky Beats/scratchung/Samples.) And it is all that. I have 100's of Electronic/Chill-Out comps. & while a few of the songs on here are on others, the choices are great ones + 95% I did not have. It is definitely NOT Downtempo! The songs are all pretty much Fast to Midtempo & lots are Funky. An excellent comp. of Electronic, Late Night Funky Trippy Grooves that does not disappoint.

When I think of Trip Hop I think Morcheeba, Massive Attack, Portishead, Lamb, Laikay, Mono, The Starseeds, Crustation, Frou Frou and many many more. If Wagram music wanted to release a Trip Hop Anthology they would have included these artists and everyone on "She - A Female Trip Hop experience" which is an excellent example or representation of the bpm, tone and overall mood that dictates a track as Trip Hop.This feels all over the place but sticks within the "lighter" electronic genres as defined under "downtempo" such as Acid Jazz, Ambient, Illbient and Chillout and yes there are some scarce hints of Trip Hop in here but not nearly enough to be called a "Trip Hop" Anthology. This would have been better titled "Downtempo" the Anthology, or something along those lines.The only reason why I can't let this go is that anyone new to the genre of Trip hop could be easily mislead by this title.Just read the track titles before buying this one. Still a worthy collection of tracks, most of which will be very familiar to most having heard a lot of chillout, downtempo, electronic and trip hop.

Trip hop? This is mostly downtempo, lo-fi, chill, whatever, but it's hard to call this an anthology.Where's Morcheeba? Portishead? Massive Attack? Krush, Shadow, UNKLE? Only one track from Tricky? Guess you can't hit 'em all, but still...That being said, this is still a great compilation. You have some great tunes by some great artists on here, one that can open you up to checking out some artists you might not otherwise get to hear. For that alone it's worth picking up. Four discs of great tunes you'd be hard pressed to collect on your own.Fans of the sound and these artists will recognize the tracks here, removed as they from their original mixes. Because of this it's tough to give five stars as the tracks are often very much edited and just sound strange standing on their own. Still a nice sampler compilation.

I'd call this an inoffensive collection of downtempo sounds. It's not "trip hop", as most people would understand it. Don't let the Tricky track fool you - it's one of his more anodyne ones. There's no Portishead, Massive Attack, Lamb, Air...Now, it doesn't need to be "Trip Hop's Greatest Hits" for me to enjoy it, but it really shouldn't be badged as trip hop. I was looking forward to hearing some new artists in *that* genre. As downtempo, it's a little more anodyne than what I prefer.If you like chillout music, you might like this collection. Frankly, except for about 6 tracks (some of the ones you would have heard already, like Nightmares on Wax and Thievery Corporation), this is the electronica version of elevator music.

This review pertains to this Anthology set released in 2006. This is a wonderful collection of Downtempo from the mid-2000s. You really can't go wrong with it, if you love this genre! (The one released in 2010 is not nearly as good but somehow I cannot review these two separately. Er, thanks Amazon.)

This collection is admittedly more downtempo than not, yet it pulls together multiple artists (practically one song per artist in 4 CDs at about 15 tracks per CD). Also, it conspicuously lacks any tracks by Massive Attack or Portishead which is the biggest drawback to this anthology. That said, it's still great listening and will work as anyone starting out on trip hop.

Track after track of excellence. If you're like me then you don't know a lot of the bands on here but they're all great. You can't go wrong with this solid collection of Trip-Hop.