"Unfinished Sympathy"

Massive Attack
(Virgin, 1991)

Trip-hop gets its own "Don't Leave Me This Way" and its own "Wings of Desire" in one swell sweep, on a string-drenched track that anticipates the Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony," UNKLE's "Lonely Soul," and even Madonna's "Frozen." Shara Nelson sings as if she'd never realized she had a heart until somebody broke it; countless studio dweebs would quickly xerox the shook-down, smoked-out, reggae-ragged beats on the rest of Massive's seminal Blue Lines LP, but never with this much soulful hunger.

-- Alex Pappademas