My Bloody Valentine - Loveless

[Creation : 1991]

Why do I love ‘Loveless’? A friend of mine once remarked that My Bloody Valentine’s 1991 release Loveless made them feel seasick. It’s true there’s a lot of motion in the music, but for me it’s more like an obscure lullaby that rocks me to into a strange dreamlike state. It is also the album I’ve bought more copies of than any other in my lifetime. Loveless is the record you lend people and never get back - particularly boys I’ve dated, so I've always kept buying extra copies. Not that my personal investments would have helped Creation records recoup the reported 250,000 pounds the album cost - which famously (and, kind of, awesomely) almost bankrupted the label. By 1992 Creation Records was sold to Sony and not long after signed Oasis who went on to record the biggest selling British album of the decade, so you know, whatever.

Ironically, I’m not generally a fan of guitar driven music and I tend to loathe indulgent boys-with-guitars bands as much as I do pre-fabricated pop princesses. [Ed: Which definitely isn’t a consistent ethos with all AOTW staff.] I do, however, like a healthy dose of experimentation with my music; enter: ‘Loveless’. Indulgent? Yes. Guitar driven? Yes. Experimental? Absolutely.

Kevin Shields, MBV’s ‘creative force’, or ‘driven perfectionist’ created a wall of swirling guitar fuzz and added obscured hazy lyrics and sampled drum loops that - despite sounding like a recipe for inaccessible “intellectual” music - somehow creates uplifting, otherworldly, danceable guitar music. Go figure.

Two years in the making, Kevin Shields’ tenacity, vision, bloody single-mindedness, several engineers, loads of recording studios and what sounds like a whole lotta pain and (ironically) not much cash, has given me – and countless others - hours of listening pleasure and perfect solo dancing moments in my lounge room.

It also captures a very specific moment in time for me - as our favourite albums often do. I came out of a small independent cinema with my best friend late one night after seeing Wim Wenders’ “Until the End of the World”. We had both just had our minds blown wide open and, unable to form actual sentences, we just sat in the car and listened to ‘Loveless’. I think it’s an ‘end of the world’ kind of album – or maybe the soundtrack for the beginning of a new one?
Those former boyfriends of mine never returned my copies the album – nor did they hang around in my life. Do you think maybe we are what we listen to? Is it loving ‘Loveless’ that is keeping me single...

[Ed: Thanks to our super rad contributor Jen Moses for articulating the pure love of 'Loveless' that millions of peeps share]


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