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The Rip (song)

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"The Rip"
Single by Portishead
from the album Third
Released9 June 2008
Recorded2005–2008
Genre
Length4:29
Label
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Portishead
Portishead singles chronology
"Machine Gun"
(2008) 		"The Rip"
(2008) 		"Magic Doors"
(2008)

"The Rip" is a song by English band Portishead. It was released on 9 June 2008 as the second single from their third studio album, Third (2008). The animated music video for the song made by Nick Uff was first broadcast on 12 May 2008, on the band's website. The song peaked at number 98 in France and was listed at #199 on Pitchfork's top 500 songs of the 2000s.[3]

Composition

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The song has two sections: it begins as a slow acoustic track with a guitar and theremin. It later transitions through a sustained note by the vocalist Beth Gibbons' voice into being electronic with what Sal Cinquemani of Slant describes as a "cyclic synth-bass loop".[4][5][6]

The Siel Orchestra's sequencer the band used was not sophisticated enough to play the arpeggios in "The Rip", so they recorded the notes individually and edited them into an arpeggio pattern. The track also features a toy acoustic guitar the band member Adrian Utley found in a junk shop.[7]

Critical reception

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Garrett Kamps of The Village Voice called the song "so good it may have been worth waiting 10 years for", with Jim Windolf of Vanity Fair thinking of it upon first listen as a "new classic" comparable to "Stairway to Heaven" or "You Are My Sunshine".[4][8]

Legacy

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The English musician Thom Yorke has played the song live as a part of Radiohead in 2008 and with Portishead in 2015 at Latitude Festival.[5][9] On Third's release, Yorke called "The Rip" his favorite song on Portishead's "best record".[9]

The song has been used in an advertisement campaign for the Gucci Bloom line of perfume.[10]

Track listing

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  1. "The Rip" – 4:30
  2. "Silence" (Portishead live on Current TV) (EU digital download bonus track; Japan iTunes Store bonus track) – 4:37
  3. "The Rip" (EU and Japan iTunes Store bonus video) – 4:10

Charts

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Chart (2008) Peak
position
France (SNEP)[11] 98

References

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  1. ^ "Video: Portishead, "The Rip"". The Fader. 12 May 2008. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  2. ^ Jones, Chris (28 Apr 2008). "BBC - Music - Review of Portishead - Third". BBC. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  3. ^ "The 200 Best Songs of the 2000s". Pitchfork. 21 August 2009. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  4. ^ a b Kamps, Garrett (2008-04-15). "Portishead: Replicants of Funk". Village Voice. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  5. ^ a b "Watch Radiohead cover Portishead". NME. 14 June 2008. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  6. ^ Cinquemani, Sal (2008-04-17). "Review: Portishead, 'Third'". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 2024-08-28.
  7. ^ Forrest, Peter (November 2008). "Adrian Utley: Recording Third". Sound on Sound. Cambridge, England: SOS Publications Group: 32–40. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  8. ^ Windolf, Jim (20 June 2008). ""The Rip": Where Radiohead Meets Portishead". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  9. ^ a b Kreps, Daniel (19 July 2015). "Watch Thom Yorke Join Portishead for 'The Rip'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  10. ^ "Gucci - Bloom - TV Ad Music". Retrieved 2018-12-17.
  11. ^ "Portishead – The Rip". lescharts.com (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved 7 June 2013.
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