| "Unfinished Sympathy" | ||||
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| Single by Massive | ||||
| from the album Blue Lines | ||||
| Released | 11 February 1991 | |||
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| Genre | Trip hop | |||
| Length | 5:12 (original version) | |||
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| "Unfinished Sympathy" on YouTube | ||||
"Unfinished Sympathy" is a song by the English trip hop group Massive Attack. It was released on 11 February 1991 under the temporary group name Massive.[1] The song was written by the three band members Robert "3D" Del Naja, Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall, the song's vocalist Shara Nelson and the group's co-producer Jonathan "Jonny Dollar" Sharp. It was released on 11 February 1991 as the second single from the band's first album, Blue Lines (1991), on the band's Wild Bunch label distributed by Circa Records.[2] The name "Massive" was used to avoid a radio ban, as the track's release coincided with the Gulf War. Produced by Massive Attack and Dollar, the song incorporates various musical elements into its arrangement, including vocal and percussion samples, drum programming and string orchestration by the arranger Wil Malone.
"Unfinished Sympathy" topped the Dutch Top 40 and was a top-20 hit on the singles charts of several countries, including Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The accompanying music video, directed by Baillie Walsh, was a single continuous shot of Nelson walking through a Los Angeles neighbourhood, oblivious to her surroundings. Regarded[by whom?] as a pioneering song in the development of British dance music, "Unfinished Sympathy" was acclaimed by music critics for its production and Nelson's vocals. It ranked highly on several publications' year-end lists of the best singles of 1991, and has since appeared in many polls of the best songs of all time by both music critics and the public worldwide. The song was later used on the soundtrack of the 1993 film Sliver. It was covered by American singer Tina Turner on her 1996 album Wildest Dreams.