When you first heard Loveless, did you think your copy was defective? Did you bring it back to the store and ask for your money back?

i listened to isn't anything first, so by the time loveless came out i was kinda used to that blurry sound. i recall the first time i ever listened to victorialand tho: some guy inadvertedly played the entire A side on the radio at 33 rpm and i clearly remember thinking it was the weirdest shit i'd ever heard.

Loveless will always be connected to Super Metroid on the SNES in my brane.

How's that?

Poll Closing Date: Monday, October 14, 2013 8:00 PM (in 11 months)

http://i45.tinypic.com/2ibhxr9.jpg

"y-you mean it's supposed to sound like that?"

I thought my copy was defective. I brought it back to the store and asked for my money back.
I thought my copy was defective, but I didn't do anything about it.
I actually thought there was something wrong with my CD/tape/record player ¯\(°_o)/¯
I downloaded it and thought the mp3s were defective!
I didn't think my copy and/or player and/or files were defective.

― and yet (unregistered), Monday, October 15, 2012 3:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The first time I played Loveless, I thought my copy was defective because it just sounded so odd to me.

I really liked My Bloody Valentine. Their album Loveless is a great favourite. I bought it on cassette in 1991 and I clearly remember wondering if the cassette was warped, so strange was some of the music, till you got used to it. I'm sure other people thought this as well, the first time they heard it.

Then the drummer in a band I was in at the time brought in a cassette of Loveless when it came out. He gave it to me and said you really must hear this shit. So I played it for a few days and brought it back to him and said, that's great but the tape is all warbly and fucked up. He said no it's supposed to sound like that.

When I first pressed play on the classic album "Loveless", I assumed my old CD player was broken. A strange distorted wall of noise collided with my ears and drove me back. A look of bafflement passed over my face and I took it out. Then I tried ripping the CD and listening to it on my PC. Then I said the immortal words "Oh, so it’s supposed to sound like that."

I first heard My Bloody Valentine in the 8th grade, when I downloaded Loveless on Napster. This was late in Napster’s existence, when most of the files were likely to be corrupt or mislabeled. When I opened up the first track on Loveless, and was hit with that mess of noise ("Only Shallow" feels like a punch in the gut that first time, doesn’t it?), I thought, bullshit, more fucked up files. I deleted the album and didn’t try again until a few months later. Anyway, what a great song, huh?

I still remember the first time I heard Loveless I actually thought the tape was warped since it sounded like it was constantly speeding up and slowing down. I soon realized that it was only the guitars ebbing and flowing in and out of tune. Took me a couple of listens to acclimate my ears to the new sound, but it was worth it!

mt wrote: "The guitar tracks sound like they warble"

Uh, this was intentional. first time I heard it I thought the cassette was fucked up.

I know a guy that bought Loveless when it came out on tape, and he went and bought the CD version because he thought the tape was warped.

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless, first album that blew me away entirely and taught me that immediacy isn't a necessary attribute for a good album (I thought the tape was warped).

I heard this on a tape initially. I thought the tape was warped. Turns out it was intentional

I recommended this album to a girl I was seeing when it first came out, as I loved it. She took it back to the shop three times because she thought the tape was faulty..

At the time, nothing sounded like this. When I first heard it, it was on a shitty cassette my roommate had, so I thought the tape was warped or something. Then I got the CD and realized it was supposed to sound that way.

I remember a time, when playing 'Loveless' in my car, a friend urgently ejected the tape with a panicked look on his face. He thought the tape was being chewed up!

Years ago, I made a compilation tape for my sister. The last track was MBV's To Here Knows When. My sister thought the tape was damaged in some way!

my bloody valentine “sometimes”…when i first heard this it was on a cassette i bought used and i thought the tape was fucked up. i was pissed, but something told me not to shut it off and by the time this song came on i realized it was supposed to sound that way.

i often tell this story (grandkids *ahem*), but the first time i got loveless i got it on tape and i thought the tape was dodgy because of the way the guitar mix pitchbends.

The first time I heard Loveless, I thought my tape was being chewed up by the machine.

True story. The first time I put the CD of Loveless in my CD player and hit "play" in 1991 or 1992 or whenever it came out, I thought my CD player was broken.

When I first put on Loveless I thought my CD player was broke, (it was the 90s)

I already had the 'You Made Me Realise" 12" so I was quite familiar with how (for want of a better phrase) fucked up mbv's music was and still when I got Loveless home and dropped the stylus on the record and Only Shallow struck up I thought my record player was broken.Years later I read that the staff at the Creation office thought the advance cassette they got of some of the Loveless era stuff was wonky also.

The first time I heard it (on vinyl) I thought my record player was going bad because of the way Kevin Sheilds makes the guitars and synths warp in and out - eerie stuff!

distinctly remember when i picked up this CD when I was a KUCI DJ.....back then any DJ was able to comment on the CD jewel box and everyone, I mean everyone was raving about this....comments like "this song is God", etc. So I went to the local Wherehouse at UCI Plaza and bought it. To my embarrassment, I thought the CD was defective! Somehow I thought the album was recorded in reverse. That was how new the shoegaze sound was to me, at least MBVs version of it. I bought another one and once again, that really weird guitar sound. It was only days, maybe weeks later that I finally "got" it.

― and yet (unregistered), Monday, October 15, 2012 3:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

1991: The first time I heard Loveless, or MBV in general, it was a cassette being played in a friend's crumbling Ford Escort. I assumed the tape was fucked up, or the stereo was broken, or both. When I was told otherwise, I immediately went out and bought it.
― Steve Gertz (sgertz), Saturday, June 4, 2005 4:18 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark

― suggest butt (Pillbox), Monday, October 15, 2012 3:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha ha, great thread title

― Dr X O'Skeleton, Monday, October 15, 2012 3:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember thinking how it sounded just like the cover art suggested it would.

― nicky lo-fi, Monday, October 15, 2012 3:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a friend's stepmom, way back in the day, on overhearing us listening to Touched: 'is this supposed to be music? it sounds like whales dying.'

― suggest butt (Pillbox), Monday, October 15, 2012 3:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is that a picture of the Annie OST?

― wk, Monday, October 15, 2012 3:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm a bad ILMer: I still think it sounds messed up and still want my money back. Everytime I hear tracks from Loveless, I think "gee, this would be nice if it were mixed properly".

― Moodles, Monday, October 15, 2012 4:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I definitely remember redownloading this same album from a different place because I was not sure if it was supposed to sound like this.

― silverfish, Monday, October 15, 2012 4:07 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I bought the cd a couple of months later and until listening to that I was never really sure if the mp3s I had were ok (though I enjoyed listening to them anyway)

― silverfish, Monday, October 15, 2012 4:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I heard the remix of "Soon" in Listen Records in Reading (long gone) and bought it immediately, and the normal 12" a couple months later.

From the same shop, I bought the pre-release 12" promo of "To Who Knows When", and thought it was pressed off-centre. After close examining, decided it was not.

I didn't like it. But I kept going back to it...

By the time "Loveless" came out, I was ready! Oh, and Listen was closed down...

― Mark G, Monday, October 15, 2012 4:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"I didn't think my copy and/or player and/or files were defective.... I did think 'this is what the hype is about!?'"

― fauxmarc, Monday, October 15, 2012 4:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah I'd heard so much about the album beforehand that I was not really shocked at all by the sound

― frogbs, Monday, October 15, 2012 4:23 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i bought it the first time about a year after it came out, so I had already done the same panicked tape exchange with Faith no More's Angel Dust.

― sorcery is in the gutter (how's life), Monday, October 15, 2012 4:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait, why with "angel dust"?!!?

― the late great, Monday, October 15, 2012 4:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh wow have i been listening to jizzlobber all mixed-up all this time

― fauxmarc, Monday, October 15, 2012 4:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xp: there's an undulating noise in the first track that sounded like some sort of grindy cassette problem, sort of like that weird hum that you get under early mountain goats tracks.

― sorcery is in the gutter (how's life), Monday, October 15, 2012 4:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've been listening to youtubes of Angel Dust and can't hear what I was talking about! But I swear there was something there that I had never heard before and couldn't stand hearing. I marched that tape back to Musicland in the hot summer vacation sun and filled out an exchange slip and everything.

and when I got home with it, I accidentally c&p'd the entire thread!

I went back to the torrent site and commented, "0/10, do not seed fake files sounds like screech noize!!111!!"

I did not have this reaction because I bought it in the mid-90s after reading everywhere that it was so amazingly weird-sounding and yet the greatest masterpiece of all time etc etc zzz, but I'm still not 100% sure if my (official but second-hand) tape of Isn't Anything is meant to sound like that, as not only is it warbly and pitchbendy but the sound's so damn thin too, something you can't say of Loveless

if anyone replies and says "the sound on Isn't Anything is not thin, you have terrible ears" then I'll assume it's the tape. or I could just download some mp3s to compare I guess

can't find the thread where i told the story about me and my mate listening to it on cassette just after release and knowing it was meant to sound like that but pissing ourselves laughing at the notion of McGee spunking a quarter of a million quid on it

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

no but i did think this about exile on main street, way back in 2006.

Was forewarned on both this album and Tortoise's Million Now Living Will Never Die. However my cassette tape copy of Sgt Pepper did not have anything like the infinite inner groove loop, which had me worried for a bit.

^ yeah, have heard of Millions Now Living being returned to shops.

unregistered is a hero fwiw

This poll should have taken 12 years to conclude

I think I took it back cos it sounded really muffled. Did i get a faulty copy?

& I came away with a replacement copy which may or may not have been better, think it was actually.

Was going to say, someone must have had a defective copy.

I did not think my copy of Loveless was defective (everyone's talking about "To Here Knows When" presumably), nor "Djed" off of Millions Now Living Will Now Die... but I will admit that the "moment" circa 3m21s of "Golden Ball" off of Transient Noise Bursts With Announcements had me scrambling across the room to my turntable on the first spin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sTN9ozglRo

My copy of TRNBWA is the only CD I've purchased that DID have a defect! A scratch that killed off the last two tracks. New CD as well. Monsieur Le Fopp, you truly spoiled it!

the initial scene release of the comlag ep by radiohead had a glitch on one track, short bursts of crunchy white noise here and there, that i thought was intentional (on the part of radiohead not the mp3 encoder)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Conclusive!

Man taht cassette is not cheap to find

Only a few people bought Loveless when it first came out, but every one of them wanted their money back

So they could buy even more copies?

xps I bought a CD copy of Björk's Vespertine the day it came out and noticed while listening that it had a small, deep scratch that caused a couple of tracks to skip. I took my copy back to the store (RIP Streetside Records STL) to exchange it, and the clerk looked at it and said "huh, that's a defect." He started opening every copy they had, and surely enough that identical scratch was present on about half of them. They gladly exchanged it for a clean copy. Did anyone else ever encounter a defective Vespertine? I don't remember hearing anything about it after that.

Also I believe that was the same day Stereolab's Sound-Dust dropped. Good day for Elektra Records!

When I first heard it I was deliriously happy and wondered how I’d lived without it.

Two tracks were singles and I'd heard Only Shallow on the radio anyway.

First time I played it was on a CD-ROM drive that was kind of (in theory) rad in itself in 1991.

^ Exactly. Pretty sure I hadn't heard "Only Shallow" itself but "When You Sleep" and the singles had been on radio here for months before I borrowed a library copy. I'm kinda impressed that so many people seemingly procured stuff based purely on... what? Particularly vague recommendations, or something?

I think I read a review in the VV or somewhere. I only remember having the cassette and being infatuated and playing it in the car for my friends

Shields should just come out and say "we didn't intend for it to sound that way, but we left the tapes out in the sun and we didn't want to redo them"