Loveless: Classic or Not That Classic

Meanwhile, things like the The New Record by... and Sunday Sundae Smile EPs are some 378 times better than is widely ackowledged (ie. what Trayce said!), but that debut is pretty messy.

Sleep like a pillow no one there
Where she won't care anywhere
Soft as a pillow touch her there
Where she won't dare somewhere

Sleep like a novel subject and
Think that you grew stronger there
Speak your troubles she's not scared
Soft like there's silk everywhere

Sleep is a pillow come somewhere
Where she won't dare anywhere
Look in the mirror she's not there
Where she won't care somewhere

?

Tiptoe down to the lonely places
Where you going now don't turn around
Little girls in their party dresses
Didn't like anything there

Pretty boys with their sunshine faces
Carrying their heads down
Tiptoe down to the lonely places
Where you going now don't turn around

?

Kiss your fear
Your red button falls from my mouth
Slip your dress over your head
It's been so long

Move on top
Because that way you touch her too
Turn your head come back again
To here knows when

?

Close my eyes
Feel me high
I don't know
But you could not love me now
You'll know
And I feel down to the ground
Over there
And I want to like tomorrow
You can hide
Oh my love, but where to?

Turn my head
Into sound
I don't know
But I lay down on the ground
You will find
And halt and hurt to love
Never cared
And the world turned hearts to love
You will see
Oh darling, on the way I do

You will wait
See me go
I don't care
When your head turned foreigner
You will wait
And I turn my eyes around
Overhead
And I hold you next view
Overhead
To my eyes, on the way I see

Close my eyes
Feel me high
I don't know
But you could not love me now
You'll know
And I feel down to
Over there
And I want to love to view
You can hide
Oh my love, but where to?
You can see or cannot on the way I do

?

Kevin Shields wants to know what love is!

dug out TIYBV and listened to it for probably the third time ever. and possibly the last. but i also dug out E&W and fell in love with it again.

That is throwaway nonsense.

in a recent interview, the interviewer referred to it as something like 'their wannabe birthday party' record and kevin shields seemed to agree w/ that. it was the interview on buddyhead.com. i can hear the cramps in it, also. they had a different singer named dave conway back then...have to say that i'm not a big fan of his vocal style.

Well, it just seems a bit thin and a bit of a drag in the middle now. It's entirely possible I heard it too many times half a lifetime ago.

As I posted over on the Japancakes thread, this is forthcoming:

JAPANCAKES - Loveless CD (Darla: DRL188: 708527018828) $12.00

EXCLUSIVE. Athens, GA's experimental, instrumental, Americana group, Japancakes cover My Bloody Valentine's classic Loveless record from start to finish with pedal steel and cello in place of vocal and lead melodies -- and without any distortion. MBV’s Loveless (Creation: 1991) remains the defining record of the genre and completely unparalleled by any artist since. This is super fun! Japancakes don't record together like other bands. They do play together but when they record in studio they do so one at a time. Each player writes their own part and adds it to the part(s) recorded previously by fellow band members. The result of this practice is that the personality of each individual player is often better captured. Each player's individual performance is strengthened by the technique. Japancakes is Eric Berg, rhythm guitar, Nick Belli, bass, Brant Rackey, drums, John Neff, pedal steel, Heather McIntosh, cello, Andy Barker, production.

And turns out there's a brief mp3 clip up for "Only Shallow," so there ya go.

I wonder where skot got those lyrics from? Most MBV lyric attempts I've seen are riddled with gaps and ??? here and there and never quite seem like theyre right (similarly cocteaus lyric fansites).

Hey that Japancakes stuff is really good! I was sad there is no singing on it though :( But its beautifully done.

no singing on it?

Right, let's get a copy and let's get some singahs!

Well "Only Shallow"'s vocal melody is there but played by a cello.

classic. not dud.

can't we just combine all the MBV threads into one thread and then make it its own board?

oh hay look japancakes are going to do a thing.

i bought a big muff and now im going to make my guitar glow

I heard Loveless after hearing m83 and fennesz, who are often referenced as influenced by and aesthetically similar, but it's not even about the thick noisy sound to me. It has a character I can't place, that's probably what I love about it.

is there much diff about the second disc of the remastered edition?

Just how important is this album, in terms of wider cultural effect? Does the average man in the street know about this in the way that he might know about Dark Side Of The Moon or OK Computer? How many copies did it sell?

Basically, what I mean is, does anyone other than indie geeks give a shit about the remaster / reformation?

Does the average man in the street know about this in the way that he might know about Dark Side Of The Moon or OK Computer?

No.

I don't think MBV as a name has that much 'presence' outside indie geeks. Pretty sure that at the 9 gigs there'll be more fans going to more than one gig (and a lot of them will only be travelling because they thought they couldn't get tickets to their nearest gig, as discussed on the 'return of mbv' thread) rather than people who are just curious as to what it'll be like. Maybe after the festival gigs it'll open up to people who hadn't heard of them before, but then again they're playing Bestival.

it'd be interesting to know how many copies they sold as against, say, the strokes' debut. the idea of someone buying that today wwould be kinda o_O but MBV have never not been cred.

When I told people at work I was going to see MBV this week they thought I meant Bullet For My Valentine, these are mostly people who listen to corporate indie/nu-metal/emo stuff so you'd think they'd at least be aware of them, but only one guy even knew who they were.

Interestingly enough, I listened to The Stokes' debut at the weekend and it was fucking great.

never liked it

There's a right time/right place element to Loveless; it crowned a genre critics treated cruelly, and which had performed terribly as full-lengths go. If "Soon" weren't rushed out on Glider, and saved for a lead single, Loveless would have crossed-over more. But even then I think you're talking about Pills n' Thrills / The Stone Roses levels of (market) success.

Loveless is one of pop music's Fabergé eggs. Fawned over, fondled, breathtakingly beautiful - even to casual observers - but essentially useless, and therefore easily forgotten by most. It is adored and worshiped by an exclusive, blindly devoted class who would miss a meal to behold it one more time.

Does the average man in the street know about this in the way that he might know about Dark Side Of The Moon or OK Computer?

Absolutely not.

i think 'pills and thrills' did ok, sales-wise. the singles were hits.

I think The Stone Roses might have sold a few copies as well.

Just saying those are better reference points for what it could have done in a best-case scenario than Dark Side of the Moon (Jesus) or OK Computer.

it's more like husker du, pixies, all that stuff that got as big as it could get, but could not have got any bigger. there wasn't anything to stop the stone roses or happy mondays (except themselves, their labels, etc) whereas i don't think mbv could ever have been a success.

That's it, banri.

UK Top Ten Best Selling Albums Of 1991:
1 Simply Red Stars
2 Eurythmics Greatest Hits
3 Queen Greatest Hits II
4 Michael Jackson Dangerous
5 Tina Turner Simply The Best
6 R.E.M. Out Of Time
7 Michael Bolton Time Love And Tenderness
8 Madonna The Immaculate Collection
9 Paul Young From Time To Time - The Singles Collection
10 Cher Love Hurts

If "Soon" weren't rushed out on Glider

"Rushed out" - ha ha. It was already 18 months since they'd released anything at that point, so Glider seemed terribly late. Of course they redefined "hiatus" after Loveless but, at the time, in the week-by-week scrutiny of the inkies, not to release anything during 1989 seemed a hell of a long break.

The general thing here is "quality not quantity" and exponential sales curves and associated gradual influence of records with cult followings rather than the passing fancies of the day. It'll go platinum circa 2021, I reckon.

MBV are really just the Irish Daniel Johnston

Except they're not, are they?

wait, what's ok computer?