I love Massive Attack. Specifically, I love their albums “100th Window” and “Mezzanine”. Whenever I want to really concentrate on something for an extended period of time (programming, bringing up databases, creating spreadsheets, etc.) I’ll put the headphones on and loop these albums back to back. It puts me into a sort of hyper-focused “let’s get this done” mode straight away.

I love this band. I first got into them with their Misplaced Childhood album (which I listened to repeatedly) back in 1985. Then “life happened” and I kind of lost track of them after the Clutching at Straws record. Then sometime around 2013 a friend told me that they were still at it so I decided to check them out. I ordered their “Sounds That Can’t Be Made” album and was hooked again. Since then I bought a couple of their live DVDs (which I think at times are better than their studio albums, super good!), went to the “Marillion Weekend 2015” in Montreal, saw them play in San Francisco on their F.E.A.R tour in 2016 and recently received their excellent All One Tonight – Live at The Royal Albert Hall DVD.

Their story is fascinating. They went from early massive success to almost complete obscurity to helping pioneer crowd funding to cultivating a large dedicated international fanbase and hosting their own music conventions every 2 years – much of it as an independent band creating their own fantastic music their own way. I’m really happy to see them have this level of success and recognition all these years later. Congrats, guys!