Massive Attack v. Mad Professor - No Protection

There is some crazy, crazy shit happening here. We've got nunchucks, guns, freaky baby aliens, spaceships, death rays shooting out of the hands of the three Massive Attack guys, and a towering Mad Professor with more slobber than a rabid St. Bernard.

Massive Attack - Mezzanine

It didn't take long for trip-hop to become hopelessly mired in yearning female singers and lite dance beats. The cover of this 1998 Massive Attack release, however, perfectly symbolizes the original sound of the genre: a juxtaposition of beauty and ugliness; calmness and anxiety; peace and violence; subtlety and aggression. The beetle on the cover is, well, icky... especially to those of us who don't like creepy crawlies. But like the music within, the image twists things around and confronts us with the horrific beauty of something we might otherwise overlook.