Loveless: Classic or Not That Classic

I didn't like Loveless until last week, and I had had it for a year. It's a pretty good record, which the Smashing Pumpkins shamelessly cannibalized. But a few too many fluffy major seven chords for me, and only until I read the last thread did I realize that the singer was Kevin Shields. Christ he sounds like a girl. Anyways, I dig, but it's still been massively overhyped.

And there ain't nuthin' wrong with singing like a girl. :-)

Classic or not that classic? Oh, I *hate* it. Can't imagine *ever* liking it!

Unless you're Stuart Murdoch, I assume, Ned?

I've heard some girls say that they like it if boys sing like girls, but they can't abide girls singing like girls. Which makes some kind of sense, in these crazy cross-dressing days of the big sexual crisis. That reminds me, did we ever find out where the hypersexualised environment was?

I've got Loveless on a tape somewhere. Must give it another listen sometime, seeing as it's the best album ever made and all.

Stuart sings like a girl? I always thought he sounded like he was having intestinal difficulties. And I like Belle and Sebastian...

Anyway, this album is one of 'em that got me on the first listen, and I feel like I cannot praise it enough. It captures some of the most hard-to-describe emotions I have, and listening to it in a half-awake state is one of the most interesting sonic experiences of my life. Certain times, it can even make me feel physically ill, but not necessarily in a bad way at all. I get nervous and tense while I'm listening to it, because I know after it's over I'm going to have to go listen to something that I probably don't like quite as much. So yeah, beyond classic.

I'm listening to it on CD and on headphones for the first time. (I've had a cassette for a while, but I never listen to it, and I've always considered it overrated.)

Are you saying you don't have albums like that for yourself? ;-)

I was just listening to this actually!

no, i can't think of one album or even one genre that serves as a kind of organizing principle for my tastes.

Good! Then you might be surprised to find you are not alone.

Shoegaze is to dream pop what funk is to soul.

...

In that shoegaze is an extension of dream pop in which some of dream pop's elements are further emphasised, like funk is a variation on soul with some of its elements further emphasised.

i guess i see funk and soul as two "branches" off of "r&b"

shoegaze more like dream pop + noisy indie rock

i don't know what i'm talking about, though

ha

ya the world of categorizing music

basically though i never thought of cocteau twins in the same style as mbv, specifically because of mbv's noisier aspect

but then again i can see cocteau twins and slowdive being compared so who knows

My view of this is based 100% on the guitar magazine article I read when I was 13 that introduced me to the concept: "dream pop" and "shoegaze" are synonyms.

And both terms refer to a psychedelic aesthetic where vocals are buried under a barrage of processed guitar sounds, extending the sonic experimentation of early Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix. I dunno wtf the Cocteau Twins have to do with this.

Actually, I have never heard anyone say "dream pop" irl.

I want to find that article. It made the music sound so amazing. Loveless is great but I don't know if it ever fully lived up to what I imagined when I read it.

I'm Only Sleeping

When I discovered MBV in the early 90s at the radio show their music was referred to as noisy rock or like Dinosaur Jr. or even Yo La Tengo at the time. I always found the term shoegazing a bit silly as it does not really describe the music.

Radio show of Bernard Lenoir on France Inter...

Shoegazing doesn't describe music at all, it describes looking down at pedals. That's not to say it isn't a daft term.

I always thought AR Kane or Simon Reynolds writing about AR Kane came up with the term "Dreampop". And AR Kane were doing shoegaze before MBV as well if I'm not mistaken.

damn, i totally thought dreampop = cocteau twins and cranes

research into Ethereal Goth and Dreampop (and other stuff for fans of early 4AD and Projekt)

possibly but i don't think simon had pump up the volume in mind when he came up with it?

more of the cocteau twins sound

Ha, I never knew A. R. Kane was part of M/A/R/R/S.

possibly but i don't think simon had pump up the volume in mind when he came up with it?

more of the cocteau twins sound

probably means the when you're sad/so far away 12"

Lol yeah I wasn't referring to their M/A/R/R/S stuff.

I'm on an MBV kick thanks to this thread.

"Off Your Face" is amaaazing

The only thing bad I can say about *Loveless* is I know of no other album that's harmed as much by mp3 compression. This one really, really requires FLAC to breathe.

Just this nagging feeling that the album wasn't quite as revolutionary as it was made out to be

This is still one of my favorite albums, but i remember at the time thinking that Glider was the totally revolutionary release. I don't just recall where i was when I first heard "Soon" on the EP, but I can recall the entire experience. Loveless was perfect, and it would have been more revolutionary had it appeared first.

If there's any what-if about the album, it's how the album would have sounded had Colm performed more "live" drums on the songs as opposed to his parts being sequenced. Some of the songs might have benefitted from more emotional drumming.

yeah he was the secret weapon each time i've seen them

"Off Your Face" is

yep, brilliant song

https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/my-bloody-valentines-kevin-shields-dissects-his-new-loveless-vinyl-remaster-talks-new-album/
Talking to the 54-year-old about Loveless is fascinating because it’s clear that the record is, for him, very much a living thing that exists in the present.
...
Are you working on a new My Bloody Valentine album now?

We started recording it a year ago
...
So you’d like to have it out next year?

Oh, we one hundred percent will.

m b v is the best thing they've ever done. I want to believe the next one will top it.

When it comes to technical stuff Kevin has this way of saying things that sound like they might be bs but are actually entirely the case.

Obviously this principal does not necessarily apply to release schedules.

Though you could have made this new vinyl version a 2xLP set, putting less information on each side and improving the overall quality, you decided to do a single disc. Why?

I wanted it to actually be played the way it was originally conceived, which is basically an A and B side: Loveless is like a mirror image of itself on each side. It works as a continuous thing. That’s where I got a little nuts, but it was one of the things that I got right (initially). The obvious thing to do in this day and age would be to cut it onto two vinyls. That’s something I will do someday, just for the pure sound quality. But from the perspective of listening to it, I didn’t want that to be the only version that people had access to, because it just breaks it up. There are compromises.

very cool

https://d1rgjmn2wmqeif.cloudfront.net/r/l/254190-1.png

The official Shirt.

£144

Made without love

I'd buy that

Got a notification that my records had "shipped" but it was only the label being created and it's not at the post office yet, been like a week

Same here!! I keep checking tracking and USPS is still waiting for it (label created and that's it).

Shipping Label Created, USPS Awaiting Item
October 25, 2021 at 8:29 pm
YPSILANTI, MI 48198

2 weeks

aw bummer, i got my deluxe loveless last week

xpost - well i guess it's somewhat comforting that it's not just me but seriously they've had my money for a long time now it's annoying

30 years of Loveless. i still can't help but wonder how big MBV could have gotten if someone (such as myself) had delivered them a "radio ready" mix and master

are you ready to take your career to the next level and want your mixes to stand up today's pop hits? contact me today pic.twitter.com/aAmMQonJq1

— collin (@spiketvviewer) November 4, 2021

"margaritaville millennial"

sure thing, jerkass.

Uncertain as to whether that's very well pitched niche satire or... well, lols either way.

loveless (magaritaville remaster)

kevin shields:

"collin never had any hand in mastering the album. i remember him making margaritas at some point, and he had these weird ideas about making the album radio friendly, whatever that was supposed to mean, so we completely ignored him, other than the margaritas, which were also not very good".

Going to guess some kevin shields bass would knock that stupid stuff off the top of his eoeakers

Speakers, argh

Margueritas not included.... Oh wait! (on the right)