"Dummy" is the debut studio album of the English electronic music band Portishead, hitting shelves on 22 August 1994 courtesy of Go! Beat Records.
 
Receiving widespread critical acclaim, the album clinched the prestigious 1995 Mercury Music Prize. It's often lauded for propelling the trip-hop genre into the mainstream and frequently finds itself on lists of the finest albums of the 1990s. Notably, "Dummy" attained triple platinum certification in the UK by February 2019, boasting sales of 920,000 copies within the United Kingdom as of September 2020. Globally, it had amassed a staggering 3.6 million copies sold by 2008.
 
The album's production showcases a fusion of hip-hop techniques, including sampling, scratching, and loop-making. Remarkably, "Dummy" was not crafted digitally; instead, the band employed a method involving sampling from vinyl records alongside recording their original music onto vinyl, subsequently manipulating these recordings on record decks. To cultivate a vintage aesthetic, Barrow revealed that they distressed the vinyl records by unconventional means, such as walking across them on the studio floor and utilizing them akin to skateboards. Additionally, they captured sound through a broken amplifier, further enhancing the album's distinctive sound.