Yea if anything, Massive Attack can be broadly categorized as Downtempo, and only Triphop in certain scenarios. Portishead sticks more to a specified formula in regards to remaining under a Triphop umbrella, and they do it well.

Contributions are welcomed in this thread-album reviews etc. Reviews from myself coming soon.

Both great. I love Massive Attack. "Angel" is one of my favorites.

Portishead is a personal triphop pick of mine as well.

We need another one soon Jackhammer, mid-terms are coming up and I needs some new writing music. The stuff last.fm has been recommending me has been complete and utter ****e too I'm afraid.

I was kinda hoping members would put their own reco's up but I will add a couple of albums very soon.

But guys, DJ Shadow isn't trip hop.

Massive Attack, like, created trip hop. What?

Endtroducing is generally classed as a Trip Hop staple even if I'm not a massive fan of it and Massive Attack are generally regarded as one of the frontrunners in the Trip hop scene along with the Wild Bunch collective in Bristol U.K but you cannot attribute any one band to the creation of a genre on the whole.

The term Trip Hop is not liked by a lot of the early bands.

I went through my itunes yesterday and simplified my genre classification system by taking all electronic music that isn't hip hop and labeling it "BEATS". The genre snobbery is really giving me a migraine.

Hehe! I organised my music a month or so back and tried to keep it as simple as possible but even with electronica I couldn't resist having these sub folders:

Ambient and Electronica
Breaks and Beats
Dance/House Music
Drum and Bass
Dubstep
EBM
Glitch/IDM
Techno
Trip Hop

and then you have bands such as Thievery corporation who went into a World Fusion folder!

Okay, why should DJ Shadow be labeled trip hop?

Massive Attack is the original trip hop group like My Bloody Valentine is the original shoegaze group. Sure, the idea and elements existed before, but Massive Attack is THE trip hop group, and My Bloody Valentine is THE shoegaze group.