Paradise Circus by Massive Attack

Album: Heligoland (2010)

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Songfacts®:

Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval contributes vocals to this track over handclaps and a minimalist chord progression .
Massive Attack founding member Robert "3D" del Naja discussed this track with The Independent February 12, 2010: "That was one of G's [Grant, the other half of Massive Attack] adventures actually. And they did it all by wire. None of us ever met Hope. On the whole, our most successful collaborations come from being with people in the studio. This one is actually the complete opposite. And it's only one of a few we've done like this, another being with David Bowie when we did a track for Moulin Rouge. I quite like the idea of it being that way. Musically, we were trying to get a sense of being in a room, almost as if during a seance. We wanted to make it feel slightly conspiratorial, very visual and simple and really personal and up close."
When this song was first played live it was known by its working title of "Harpsichord."
A low-budget film vignette was released for this song directed by Toby Dye and featuring former porn star Georgina Spelvin giving commentary on her notorious 1973 film The Devil in Miss Jones.
A Gui Boratto remix of this song was used as the background music for a Lincoln car commercial in the US over the fall of 2010. It was the first time in their career that Massive Attack had permitted their music to be used in an advert for a car. The band saw the offer from Lincoln as an opportunity to help environmental groups currently working to clean up after the ecological tragedy created by the BP oil spill disaster earlier in 2010. All income from the commercial was donated to Save Our Gulf, an initiative of the Waterkeeper Alliance.
"Paradise Circus" is the opening/title theme across Series 1, 2, and 3 of Luther. Composer Paul Englishby's notes in the official soundtrack booklet, the production team knew "Paradise Circus" was their theme "the second we heard its romantic, seditious opening line."
In 2023, a "Fallen Sun Version" of the track, featuring Ghostpoet, was released for the Netflix film Luther: The Fallen Sun.

Comments: 1

Daniela from BerlinThis were used as opening theme for the BBC TV show "Luther"

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