Tricky.

Maxinquaye. 1995.

Of course, a landmark album. Ten years on, the paranoid edges have softened somewhat. Almost sounds acceptable as pop music.

Nearly God. 1996.

Sheer genius. Tricky distilled into cold, dark emptiness. Minimal hip hop. The best thing he's ever but his name to, which ironically he didn't really put his name to, releasing it under the Nearly God moniker.

Pre Millennium Tension. 1996.

In which Tricky begins his descent into willfully difficult, suffocating paranoia. Still contains some stellar moments, the minimal funk of "Christiansands", the classic mournful trip hop "Makes me wanna die".

Angels With Dirty Faces. 1998.

Further down the path of murky paranoia, it is around here that we find many fans lose patience. Strange, as I still consider this to be a solid album. Everybody has their own take on his work, of course. One person's favourites is another person's trash. I still see beauty in this trash.

Juxtapose. 1999.

Again, further agitating fans. Certain corners consider this a fuck-you by the numbers effort to complete his record label obligations. And again, in what some consider trash, I consider to be a brilliantly sly record, and one of the more clear headed release to have come from Tricky in a while.

Product of the Environment. 1999.

Perhaps not exactly a Tricky production technically. But he had a guiding hand in spirit. A series of interviews with convicted criminals set to some smokey beats. Apparently there were efforts to tour this with one of the criminals doing a spoken word bit that got a very poor reaction. I don't know who dares heckle known murderers. A fascinating release worth tracking down.

Blowback. 2001.

When every release you do is a comeback, it may be a sign you're past your time. So here is where I begin to lose patience with Tricky. There are still some good moments of sly pop, but it begins to become too much work to sit through the bad to get to the good.

Vulnerable. 2003.

Rubbish. Tricky, please, before your next "comeback", think it through. This is just unacceptable.