Loveless - My Bloody Valentine

Tim's Ultra Rough Guide To Rock - Part VI

After my previous post on Debbie Googe I thought I'd put up this old bit I wrote on on Loveless.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE - LOVELESS [1991]

Really do I need to spill another word onto a page about the merits of this LP? This recording is one of the most pillaged albums in rock’s history. The Jesus & Mary Chain laid down the blueprint via Phil Spector, The Beach Boys, The Velvet Underground, The Ramones, Dr. Mix & The Remix, Aeroplane Runways and more. Dinosaur Jr., Husker Du and Sonic Youth added the extra flavour and My Bloody Valentine made noise rock at its most beautiful, blurry, melodic, disorientating and come on I have to say it, BLISSED OUT (er..thanks Mr Reynolds). Kevin Shields provided his considerably unique guitar talents along with Belinda Butcher. They together did their extraordinary girl/boy vocal thing. The rhythm section was none too shabby either with the aforementioned Deb Googe on her heavy, dubby and sometimes pummelling bass. Colm O'Ciosoig provided the drums as well as occasional sampling/production/engineering duties. It all began to come together in 1988 with the release of the You Made Me Realise EP and Feed Me With Your Kiss followed by the brilliant LP Isn’t Anything. My Bloody Valentine were on an incredible roll that turned into an avalanche with 1990’s Glider EP & 1991’s Tremolo EP followed by Loveless! Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation may have taken rock to its furthest reaches but Loveless took it beyond the universe and even into un-rock regions ie. ambient and ultra vague dance-rock. This was future rock’s cherry on top. We thought ongoing sonic exploration of rock was to continue but this was it. Loveless has now become an almost melancholy sonic document, like modernist Russian architecture that’s now in ruins, because it was never bettered. Don’t let that get you down though because this is a hell of a peak for rock’s innovation to go out on. Here come the cliches. Loveless was hazy sweet languidity with a noisy and chaotic undercurrent played with frenzied and laconic enthusiasm. Like the band’s name suggested a conundrum was at work here where apathy and hysteria were used to describe the same song. Did I say deliriously indolent? No? Well I have now. What about listless exhilaration? One tends to forget this record also fucking rocked as well as swimming in oceans of intoxicating euphoria, sometimes all at once. Oh yeah, Loveless is also pop music at its finest. Ecstatic aural pleasure at its Zenith.

Someone once commented 'Why didn't they do a whole side of the sort of stuff like Touched and the in between track hazy ambient gear?' That would have been great wouldn't it?

Best opening tune to an LP ever?

That's a good game: Best opening songs to albums. Simon should rally everyone for that can of worms.

* My original review taken from the HC Website. 

Shoegaze

I saw that Slowdive were reforming on a website. I thought I'll dig out those early Slowdive tapes (no one ever stole tapes) and cds. The first 3 EPs Slowdive (90), Holding Our Breath (91) and Morningrise (91) plus most of their debut LP Just For A Day (91) I always rated. Listening back to them the other day revealed that I was perhaps correct, well I enjoyed them anyway. They had some stellar tunes Celia's Dream, Catch The Breeze, She Calls & the amazing epic Primal. They were definitely the most Cocteau Twins influenced of the shoegaze brigade whereas say Ride, early on, were probably more influenced by 80s noise rock. The meeting point for all these bands was My Bloody Valentine, they would be the centre of your Venn diagram. On the outside would be girl groups, stadium rock, cutie, goth, fx pedal worship, ambient, psych pop etc. Of those Ride tunes I recall diggin the first four EPs Ride, Play, Fall (all from 90) and Today Forever (91) as well well as like three quarters of the debut LP Nowhere (90) but only a couple of tracks from the follow up Going Blank Again (92). I saw Ride play live a couple of times and they were a powerhouse wall of noise band (gee the drummer was good) compared to their more sedate recordings, I liked that dichotomy. What about the others? The Pale Saints and The Boo Radleys had their moments, Chapterhouse didn't. I didn't hate Lush I just didn't buy their records.

Then there was Curve whose first couple of EPs were terrific but I don't think you were meant to like them. They were the corporate machine co-opting the underground once again and perhaps signalling the end of the scene. The lead singer of Curve Tony Halliday was one of these Allanis Morrissette, Robin Thicke types who was signed to a major label, had a failed pop career then somehow got a second chance as a totally different type of artist. There was even a shoegazing band from Sydney called Jupiter who I saw once in a South Melbourne pub. They had a great tune Sense (note to self track down that EP). There was a time circa 90/91 when you thought this thrilling bliss would last forever. America even had a go with The Drop Nineteens whose record Delaware (92) was pretty good (I listened to it the other day) as was Medicine's Shot Forth Self Living (92) LP. Anyone remember Smashed Orange (very vague memory of them) or The Belltower's Outshine The Sun? Some kind of award should go to Lilys who sounded so much like My Bloody Valentine it was preposterous. They were so absurd you couldn't help but admire their commitment see their LP In The Presence of Nothing from 92. There were many more I don't remember but when a girlfriend at the time showed up with a record by Revolver (a C-grade Ride rip off) you knew the end was near. I never bought Slowdive's Souvlaki (93) or the follow up Pygmalion (95). Some people rate these highly maybe I missed out, maybe I didn't. Worth missing out on though were The Boo Radleys Wake Up (95), Ride's Carnival Of Light (94) and The Pale Saints had lost it by Slow Buildings (94). After the release of Loveless in 91 My Bloody Valentine went AWOL for the rest of the 90s and even Lilys changed their style mid decade. The spirit of MBV lived on with Seefeel, Third Eye Foundation, Moonshake and Flying Saucer Attack making excellent music in other genres during the 90s. There have been resurgences and revivals over the years....some current groups probably consider the original wave of shoegazers an influence.

Award winning genuine fake.