The cover art depicts a black beetle on a white background, photographed by Nick Knight at the Natural History Museum in London.
Composition
Mezzanine has been described as a trip hop In 1998, Manfred Mann sued Massive Attack for unauthorised use of a sample of the song "Tribute" from Manfred Mann's Earth Band's eponymous 1972 album, used on "Black Milk". The song has subsequently appeared as "Black Melt" on later releases and at live performances, with the sample removed. Later digital editions of Mezzanine have retained the original song, with Mann being added to the songwriting credits.
Reception
Mezzanine entered the UK Albums Chart at number one,
John Bush of AllMusic had positive words for the album's song "Inertia Creeps", saying it "could well be the highlight, another feature for just the core threesome. With eerie atmospherics, fuzz-tone guitars, and a wealth of effects, the song could well be the best production from the best team of producers the electronic world had ever seen." In 2003, the album was ranked number 412 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", and while it was not included in the 2012 update of the list, it reentered the 2020 update ranked at number 383.
By April 2000, the album had sold 2.5 million copies worldwide. As of February 2010, it had sold 560,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Mezzanine DNA
On the 20th anniversary of Mezzanine release, the record was encoded into synthetic DNA—a first for an album. The project was in collaboration with TurboBeads Labs in Switzerland; the digital audio of the album was stored in the form of genetic information. The audio was then compressed using Opus, coded in DNA molecules—with 920,000 short DNA strands containing all the data—and then poured into 5,000 tiny glass beads.
20th anniversary reissue
The album was remastered and reissued for its 20th anniversary. The two-CD anniversary edition was released on 23 August 2019, and comes with a bonus disc of previously unreleased dub mixes by Mad Professor, which were originally intended to be released on a Mezzanine remix album. A triple-LP vinyl version was also planned; initially delayed from its proposed release date, the triple-LP version was eventually cancelled.
In lieu of the vinyl reissue, the Mad Professor remixes were released as a pink 12-inch vinyl single entitled Massive Attack v Mad Professor Part II (Mezzanine Remix Tapes '98) on 20 September 2019.
The Mad Professor remixes include "Metal Banshee" (an unreleased dub version of "Superpredators", which was a reworked cover of "Metal Postcard" originally by Siouxsie and the Banshees), and "Wire", a track recorded for the soundtrack to the film Welcome to Sarajevo.