- Loveless · 1991
- Loveless · 1991
- Loveless · 1991
- Loveless · 1991
- Loveless · 1991
- Loveless · 1991
- Loveless · 1991
- Loveless · 1991
- Loveless · 1991
- Loveless · 1991
- Loveless · 1991
- Glider - EP · 1990
- m b v · 2013
Essential Albums
- Much has been written over the years about the arduous, painstaking creation of my bloody valentine’s 1991 masterpiece. Loveless took over two years to record, with the band visiting over 20 different recording studios in that time. It was an intensely stressful period where frontman Kevin Shields was determined not to compromise an inch of his artistic vision. “The stress was more because of circumstances,” Shields tells Apple Music. “There were chaotic times with no money. There should have been money around, but the direction we went in meant there was no money around.” After the first three months of working on their second album, Shields knew exactly what it should be and developed what he calls a “hardcore attitude” of not letting anything get in the way of that. “If we had any studio problems, I would just stop,” he recalls. “Turn the switch off and go, ‘Robot doesn’t work now,’ and basically not function.” Despite all the external pressures, Shields was able to protect the thing that mattered most to him: the music. “The actual record that you hear, everything was recorded in a really good, non-stressful atmosphere,” he says. “It was done in a positive, happy environment. It just meant all the stressful bits were downtime.” An intoxicating, hypnotic listen, it’s propelled by opener “Only Shallow,” a rush of heavy guitar strums, stomping drums, and dreamy vocals. “It’s basically a bunch of ’60s guitar equipment but then sampling it and playing it over itself a few times,” says Shields. Although the production techniques here were pioneering and complex, Shields’ approach to the songs was all about directness. The mesmerizing sway of “Sometimes” sums it up perfectly. “The basic idea for that was brief and quite simple, complicated in some weird ways. I wanted it to be this vocal thing and I imagined this musical thing happening at the end, very straight and simple.” Loveless is rock music as soundscapes that seem to shape-shift right in front of you, purposely designed so that each listen is different. “It was mixed in a certain way so your mind can easily focus on differences,” Shields says. “There’s nothing obvious to focus on. So, because of that, it depends what mood you’re in or how loud you’re hearing it.” It means that Loveless’ creator gets to experience it as anyone else would. “It happens to me as much as anybody else, even though I know exactly what’s happening.”
- There was a point during the making of Isn’t Anything when my bloody valentine frontman Kevin Shields turned to one of the engineers working on the record at Foel Studio in Wales and said, to his own astonishment, “I think this might be original.” Shields looks back on it now as a significant moment, the point at which he got to experience for himself the sort of beguiling “what is this?” joy that would soon wash over listeners enchanted by the band’s debut album, released in November 1988. “It was a pivotal 30-second exchange,” Shields tells Apple Music. “I was saying, ‘I’m not really thinking of anything else, I’m not referring to anything, I’m just doing it. And it doesn’t sound like anything else.’ I remember that moment.” It was with that spirit of sonic adventure that my bloody valentine approached their debut album, a record that diverted the course of rock music. They had already hinted at this bold new sound, melding their love of Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, Public Enemy, and The Byrds with tape-machine experiments, strange tunings, and an arsenal of effects pedals, on the You Made Me Realise and Feed Me With Your Kiss EPs. Here their alchemical majesty was fully realized. “I was completely inspired by this new way of doing things,” says Shields. “There was a point around that spring and summer of 1988 where what came before was then and everything after was the future. We were just full of new possibilities and ideas. It felt like something different. It was a very free kind of feeling.” For a record frequently held up as an example of production wizardry, the truth is that its creation was purposely kept simple. “We wanted it to be live and raw, we didn’t want lots of overdubs, something that was very easy for us to play live,” says Shields. That approach is encapsulated by the thumping ripples of “Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside),” an opener that immediately pulls you into my bloody valentine’s distinct sonic world. Tracks such as the soothing “No More Sorry” were a bold new listening experience, making you feel as though you were inside the song. It was strange and wonderful. Isn’t Anything immediately set a new dynamic blueprint for what a guitar band could be—a densely textured album that was still intricate, where walls of white noise coexisted harmoniously with melody. Shields says there was nothing laborious about the album’s creation, a period of creative exhilaration that felt like “being plugged into this inspiration machine.” “It was extremely natural,” he says. “We got six weeks in the studio, which was six times longer than we’d ever had. Four or five of the songs were done over the course of 11 days. It was just a really super creative fun time; everything was just ‘let’s try this or that.’ If it didn’t work, it didn’t work. But mostly it worked.”
Albums
Music Videos
- 2008
- 2008
- 2008
- 2008
Artist Playlists
- The kings and queens of beautiful noise.
- The records that first made Kevin Shields stare at the floor.
- Not just for the shoegazers.
About my bloody valentine
It’s easy to imagine a band whose music is as transportive as My Bloody Valentine as never having to worry about the banalities of mortal life, but of course, they do. Looking back on 1991’s Loveless—an album that invented a dreamlike strain of rock no band had explored before—bandleader Kevin Shields says the mythology surrounding the album’s fraught recording process had less to do with the birthing pains of creative genius than paying the bills. “There where chaotic times with money,” he says. “There should’ve been ore one around. But the direction we went in meant there was no money around.” The direction we went in. While Nirvana was reconfiguring the basic vocabulary of rock, MBV (who formed in Dublin, Ireland, in 1983) evolved from ethereal post-punk (“Feed Me With Your Kiss,” “Lose My Breath”) to a sound that mixed the conventional bass-drums-guitar setup with a production sensibility borrowed from techno and hip-hop, dissolving the boundary between rock and electronic music. (Ambient music pioneer Brian Eno once said their 1991 track “Soon” was “the vaguest music to ever have been a hit“—high praise in his circles.) After taking three years between 1988’s Isn’t Anything and Loveless, the band famously took 22 years before releasing their next album, 2013’s darker, more fragmentary m b v. “I realized it was actually better and more relevant than I thought it was,” Shields says of revisiting the album’s initial sessions in 2006—the irony being that it sounded no less relevant seven years later. When nobody’s walking your path, you can take as long to pave it as you like.
- ORIGIN
- Dublin, Ireland
- FORMED
- 1983
- GENRE
- Alternative