Blue Lines

Blue Lines slowed sound-system culture to walking pace, founded trip-hop, and put Bristol on the musical map. Shara Nelson's torch vocals over the group's dread-laden grooves produced 'Unfinished Sympathy' and 'Safe From Harm', still two of the record's untouchable peaks. Soul, hip-hop and sound-system weight occupy the same room without competing for space. Two of its nine tracks are ordinary. That is the only thing keeping it behind two instrumental records.

The whole thing starts here. A Bristol sound system turned into a group, with Shara Nelson, Tricky and Horace Andy passing the microphone around at a tempo nobody else was using. Unfinished Sympathy is still the genre's peak single by some distance.