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My Bloody Valentine - Loveless


Guy Berger

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Yeah, put me down as very underwhelmed by this one, but the kids seemed to like it though. On the same level as "Green Day is really what punk is about." Most overrated album in my opinion is Dream Theater: Metropolis PT. 2: Scenes From A Memory. Was not impressed at all.

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It seems like years after the release of Loveless, the CD is now for some reason regarded much higher then when it was released. When it came out I was disappointed in Loveless, in comparison to their previous CD Isn't Anything. In concert, I recall the music sounding much better, but that could have been because of how f*%#ing load they were. From what I recall it was a bill with Babes in Toyland, MBV, and Dinosaur Jr. headlining.

Now I think it's a pretty good time capsule from that time in my life, but I still prefer Isn't Anything to it.

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I haven't listened to it in several years, but just yesterday I ordered the new 33 1/3 book about it (Loveless). I was an MBV fan back in the 1989-91 era, really into Isn't Anything and even the EP comp before it, Ecstasy and Wine. I thought Loveless trumped both of those records and set a new standard for the British dreampop movement... turned out to be the pinnacle and pretty much the end of it. Saw them at the Vick in Chicago in 1992 (Yo La Tengo opened) and it was one of the loudest shows I'd ever been to... ears ringing for the next day or so (shudder to think about that now). Sister Ray on an Ecstasy trip... brilliant stuff, but I'm not surprised that it ultimately proved to be a dead end. Kevin Shields created an incredible sonic landscape, a beautiful, swirling, layered haze of sound, then anchored it with basic, catchy rock 'n roll riffs. Loveless was one of those albums that got played over and over for an entire year after it came out. Perhaps it's overrated in terms of influence (I think one could make that argument), but I don't think it's overrated as an achievement.

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There was some essay by someone whose name escapes me though I'm certain he's overrated as it may have been in Spin. I think he determined that Loveless was rated just right, in part because it only sold 200k copies.

I love the Ramones but I'd venture that as a group they're probably the most overrated. (Can't pick one album cause you know, one or two exceptions they all sound the same.) But then I guess I'm just a jizz lovin' Anglophile. POW!

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Definitely not overrated. Its a classic of feedback and twisting, looping wall of sound.

(Well I love it anyway!)

It was stuck in my tape walkman for months (quite a feat) back at the time (maybe with Husker Du on the other side)

I think it benefits from Sheilds never really following it up but its way ahead of lots of other stuff widely feted at the time and half as original (Primal Scream, Stone Roses spring to mind)

Play it loud.

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I have always liked this recording, usually headphones only or cranked in the car. I never seemed to tire of it. Though I do have MBV to blame for the partial deafness in my right ear from a 92 concert - before I wised up to earplugs.

Need to give it a new spin, haven't heard it in over a year. Also not sure if smoking something had to do with my enjoyment of Loveless. :blush:

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Yeah, I'm 30 in a month so you know how I came up, Clem. Cut my teeth on SY, Mudhoney, Dino, Sebadoh, (please don't say the N-word), Slint, Bitch Magnet, etc before expanding horizons later... YLT was never in the picture much for me, the influences being too obvious. The Dino sides on SST/Homestead I was always quite into, though the later stuff never did it for me (even tho that was coming out at the time I was getting into it). Supposedly J is in some sort of improv thing now, which I have yet to hear. Likewise, I wonder what woulda happened if Storm&Stress were actually decent improvisers?

Could give a fuck about the Replacements; Huskers I'm okay with (they've had their moments - "Eight Miles High," for example) and I do remember having the first couple of Jayhawks records and thinking them reasonably good - if no Uncle Tupelo. Soul Asylum? Yuck!

C

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Clem, I actually do have both of those Spacemen 3 records (still!) and dug 'em at the time. (British music press had a field day w/the falling-out between Jason & Sonic Boom... man, they just thrive on that sibling-rivalry-type stuff, don't they?) You're right, they should be given more credit than they are... I used to play them on the overnight show at WFHB here in B-town and precede it w/some deep, dark, scary blues. They were a great band and I loved them... but I had a hell of a sweet tooth for MBV and probably still do (this whole discussion will no doubt inspire me to haul out the CDs/EPs again for replay). I never heard Here's Your Bloody Valentine or any of the other mid-1980s stuff... entry point for me was the 1987 Ecstasy and Wine, which is a comp of EPs and catches them sounding more like early Jesus and Mary Chain. "Consensus" on the early material is that it's awful, but "consensus" is almost always dubious. My laugh for today: I ordered the 33 1/3 book about Loveless--delayed already for three years--and then found out last night that they had to yank it from the printer because "Kevin Shields has some last-minute changes for the author." God help us...

Another note re: Spacemen 3--they came up with one of my alltime favorite album titles, Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs By. Ain't it the truth!

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Another note re: Spacemen 3--they came up with one of my alltime favorite album titles, Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs By. Ain't it the truth!

Was one of the Spacemen 3 guys also involved with the band Spiritualized?

Guy

Yeah, that was Jason's band after Spacemen 3 broke up.

Clem's rec re: PERFECT PRESCRIPTION is well-taken. I used to have the cassette & I think I kept it even after I got the CD--some tracks on each that aren't on the other.

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Another note re: Spacemen 3--they came up with one of my alltime favorite album titles, Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs By. Ain't it the truth!

Was one of the Spacemen 3 guys also involved with the band Spiritualized?

Guy

Yeah, that was Jason's band after Spacemen 3 broke up.

I assume Spacemen 3 was a better band?

Guy

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Another note re: Spacemen 3--they came up with one of my alltime favorite album titles, Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs By. Ain't it the truth!

Was one of the Spacemen 3 guys also involved with the band Spiritualized?

Guy

Yeah, that was Jason's band after Spacemen 3 broke up.

I assume Spacemen 3 was a better band?

Guy

Clem and/or others could probably speak better to that. I didn't really follow either Jason or Sonic Boom's solo career.. the last Spacemen 3 album had come off as a dud to me & I just sort of lost interest, but Spiritualized was a critical fave throughout the 1990s in the UK (seems like Ladies & Gentlemen, We Are Now Floating In Space gets namechecked a lot as one of their better efforts). I'd still seek out the two titles that Clem mentioned (Perfect Prescription and Play With Fire).

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Another note re: Spacemen 3--they came up with one of my alltime favorite album titles, Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs By. Ain't it the truth!

Was one of the Spacemen 3 guys also involved with the band Spiritualized?

Guy

Yeah, that was Jason's band after Spacemen 3 broke up.

I assume Spacemen 3 was a better band?

Guy

It was a really different band. I always heard them as a very loud, droning take on 60s garage rock. I always liked them.

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You are all on drugs. Loveless IS the greatest rock record of all time. The record is suppossed to sound the way it does. At the time (and subsequently), there has been no other record like it. Hard-driving, emotive and an ass-kicker in terms of density.

You want overrated - what about all of that Baby Boomer crap that has been shoved down our throats the last thirty plus years :bad:

Shall we start an overrated thread?

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No, that's the Clash's London Calling. :)

I actually haven't listened to this in several years but last time I heard it I remember being distinctly unimpressed. I will give it a spin tomorrow and re-evaluate.

Guy

Can't speak for "Loveless," as I've never heard it, but "London Calling" is one of the greatest albums ever made, punk or otherwise.

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You are all on drugs. Loveless IS the greatest rock record of all time. The record is suppossed to sound the way it does. At the time (and subsequently), there has been no other record like it. Hard-driving, emotive and an ass-kicker in terms of density.

You want overrated - what about all of that Baby Boomer crap that has been shoved down our throats the last thirty plus years :bad:

Shall we start an overrated thread?

I have a friend for whom Loveless is her favorite record, and she is not without taste.

I haven't ever given it a proper listen.

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