I have this bad habit of saying "back in the day..." - so much so that sooz says I should have a BITD category on my blog/in my life. But...BACK IN THE DAY, my favorite album was My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. Recently, I threw it in the CD player and it refuses to come out.
Figuratively. Not literally.
Starting with the sonic wall-o-guitars that is "Only Shallow," a song so perfect in its execution you just don't care if Bilinda Butcher's vocals are intelligible. She's Liz Frasier-like in that regard. The soaring guitars and throbbing pedals make every song on this album a dissonant lullaby. I adore it, I do, I do!
After they nearly bankrupted their record company recording this album, MBV more or less disappeared. Kevin Shields has been keeping busy, but there's not much else to report. Rumor has it they recorded another album after Loveless which has never been released.
If you don't have it already, buy Loveless today. You won't regret it.
Posted by shannon at July 01, 2002 06:39 PMwhoa! I just did some writing about this CD last week with thoughts of posting here. Here's what I wrote:
"My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (1991)
This is the album that nearly bankrupted Creation, MBV's record company. Reportedly costing over $500,000 (or was that pounds) to make, and ludicrously late, it's still a masterpiece of the "shoegazing" scene. MBV frontman Kevin Shields was a notorious perfectionist and just sequestered himself, holing up with the tapes and fiddling for months. MBV haven't been heard from since.
It's still not a particularly accessible album. When I first heard it, my reaction was "beautiful noise." And that still holds. It's an album that rewards lots of patience, though. Feedback and guitar squeals that sound more than a little off key are layered over indecipherable but lovely singing. It's best to just let these sounds just wash over you. Headphones are good.
I've been putting the last track, "Soon," on mix tapes and CDs for years, in the hopes that what to me sounds like the most radio-friendly track will tempt someone to pick up "Loveless" and give it a chance."
Posted by: James on July 2, 2002 08:05 PMThis has always been a Diamond Album. I've had 3 copies of it, cos I lost or had it stolen from me.
I could not find it again for love or money, but I picked it up in New york. Still spinning in my CD Player.
I would love to hear about the suppopsed 60 hours of new music which Kevin recorded