Neil Davidge facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Neil Davidge
Davidge in 2014
Background information
Born	Bristol, England
Genres	Trip hop, film score, industrial
Occupation(s)	Record producer, songwriter, film score composer, musician
Instruments	Bass, keyboards, guitar, drums

Neil Davidge is an English music producer, songwriter, and composer. He is also a talented musician. He is best known for his long-term work with the famous music group Massive Attack. He helped write and produce many of their songs.

Neil has also created music for many films and TV shows. These include movies like Push and Bullet Boy. He also made extra music for Clash of the Titans.

He has worked with many well-known artists. Some of these include David Bowie, Snoop Dogg, and Damon Albarn. In 2012, Neil wrote the music for the video game Halo 4. He also composed the music for the TV series Britannia in 2017. More recently, he worked on the music for Apple TV+'s Criminal Record in 2023.

Career

Early Work (1989–1992)

Neil Davidge started his career working with a UK music duo called DNA. This was between 1989 and 1992. He helped produce several of their songs and one album.

Working with Massive Attack (1995–2010)

Neil met Massive Attack's Andrew Vowles in 1991. He later joined the rest of the group in 1996. He produced a song called 'The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game'. This song was for the Batman Forever movie soundtrack. It featured singer Tracey Thorn.

Neil worked closely with Robert Del Naja from Massive Attack. Together, they shaped the sound of the band's third album, Mezzanine, released in 1998. This album included the popular song "Teardrop". This song later became the theme music for the TV show House. Mezzanine won an award for Best Album.

Neil and Robert Del Naja also led the creation of Massive Attack's fourth album, 100th Window. Making this album took a long time and was difficult. They even rewrote the whole record in the last six months. Neil said they didn't want to repeat themselves after Mezzanine.

After 100th Window, Neil and Robert opened a new music studio in Bristol. This studio became the main place for Massive Attack to record. They also used it for their movie music projects.

Neil also helped write and produce "Live With Me". This song was released before Massive Attack's "best of" album, Collected, in 2006.

Their fifth studio album, Heligoland, came out later. Neil co-produced this album and helped write most of its songs. He also played keyboards, bass, and guitar on the album.

Music for Film and TV (2004–Present)

In 2004, director Luc Besson asked Neil and Robert Del Naja to create music for a movie. This movie was first called Danny The Dog and later became Unleashed. After that, they scored music for films like Bullet Boy and Battle in Seattle.

They also worked on Trouble the Water. This documentary film was nominated for an Oscar. It showed the lives of people affected by Hurricane Katrina. Neil also worked with Snoop Dogg to score the music for In Prison My Whole Life. This was a documentary about a journalist on death row.

Neil also scored music for the movie Push by himself. He provided extra music for the Warner Brothers film Clash of the Titans. He worked with composer Ramin Djawadi on this project. He also scored the documentary Citizen Koch and the action thriller Good People. Another project was Monsters: Dark Continent, which was a sequel to the movie Monsters.

He has also scored two TV films for the BBC. These include 8 Days: To The Moon and Back and Sitting in Limbo. The latter won a BAFTA Award.

His first TV series music was for Spotless. He then scored New Blood and In the Dark. Both of these shows were on BBC One. In 2018, his "stunning" music was featured in Britannia on Sky Atlantic. He also scored Hard Sun for BBC One. Neil has also worked on documentaries like All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur for Amazon Studios. He also co-scored Earth From Space for BBC Earth. His latest project is Criminal Record for Apple TV+, released in 2024.

Halo 4 Original Soundtrack (2012)

On April 11, 2012, it was announced that Neil Davidge would compose the music for the video game Halo 4. Neil was a big fan of the previous Halo games. He and the game developers felt the music needed to change for the new series.

Neil said they wanted the music to "evolve, not completely change." They wanted it to be more electronic and have more beats. This is why they chose him. They wanted to create a new sound for the game's universe. Most of the music was written in Bristol. It was recorded in famous studios in London. Neil used a 50-piece orchestra and 26 singers for the soundtrack.

The Halo 4 soundtrack was released on October 19, 2012. It reached No. 50 on the Billboard 200 chart. This made it the highest-charting video game soundtrack at the time. Almost 9,000 copies were sold in the first week. Later, a remix album and a second volume of the soundtrack were also released.

Slo Light (2014)

Neil Davidge opened his own music studio in 2010. His first solo album, Slo Light, came out in February 2014. It featured guest singers like Low Roar and Sandie Shaw. Three songs from the album were also released as singles.

Filmography

As composer

Film

Television

Video games

Discography

As solo artist

Studio albums

Singles

As composer

Soundtrack albums