Senior Project Article #3: My Bloody Valentine

My Bloody Valentine is one of those artists that fall into the category of being an acquired taste.  They do not write songs that have any chance of appealing to an audience any wider than their dedicated cult following and other musicians.   

With the release of their 1988 debut album, Isn’t Anything, My Bloody Valentine helped define the shoegazer sound; named for the performers tendency to look at their effect pedals, while creating dense, wall-of-sound atmospherics.  Their second album, 1991’s Loveless, is one of the genre’s defining masterpieces, a cornerstone of guitar experimentation in the late 20^th century.  While their influence can be heard in, or has been acknowledged by, the likes of U2, David Bowie, The Cure, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, and Phish, My Bloody Valentine were equally influential on their contemporaries, fellow shoegazer bands like Ride, Slowdive, and Chapterhouse, who helped develop a style that continues to mark the work of Sigur Rós and Godspeed You! Black Emperor today.

Founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1983 by singer and guitarist Kevin Shields and drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig, My Bloody Valentine were joined by Belinda Butcher on guitar and vocals, and Debbie Googe on bass in 1987.  From there the quartet signed to British independent Creation Records, releasing two albums for the label.  Released in November, 1988, Isn’t Anything is chaotic and noisy; it combines early hip-hop influenced drum loops with the lush, dream pop atmospherics of mid 80’s indie groups like The Jesus & Mary Chain and Cocteau Twins, then submerges it all under an ear-bleeding wall of sound influenced by noise rock pioneers Dinosaur Jr.  “Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside)” combines rhythmic samples and bass fills with churning guitars; elsewhere “Lose My Breath” and “No More Sorry” drift along lazily with Butchers soft intonations.  “(When You Wake) You’re Still in a Dream” and “Feed Me With Your Kiss” drives forcefully into noise, while “Nothing Much To Lose” revels in the loud-quiet-loud dynamic prominent at the time in the works of the Pixies. 

Shields took nearly two years to deliver the follow up to Isn’t Anything, and it was rumored that the band nearly drove Creation Records into bankruptcy.  Whether or not this is true is debated, but what is certain is the subsequent album is one of the defining albums of its genre.  Released in November 1991, Loveless is the masterpiece vision of one extraordinary artist.  Although Butcher contributes vocals, and drummer Ó Cíosóig plays on two tracks, all of the music on the album is played by Shields.  The drum tracks on built from samples and loops of Ó Cíosóig playing, rather than actual live drum tracks.  For the unique, aquatic sound of the album, Shields developed a style he called “glide guitar,” which involved playing the guitar while holding the tremelo bar.  The album is a master class in studio technique; with many listeners believing Shields used more guitar effects than he actually did, simulating the feel of certain guitar effects by drastically working with tone and pitch to attain similar feels.

“Only Shallow,” the albums explosive opener, saturates the listener with layers of pitch-shifting guitars and Butcher’s soft, angelic voice.  “Look in the mirror / She’s not there / Where she won’t care / Somewhere,” she sings, the vocals painting more of an emotional tone poem than any sort of narrative.  Much of Loveless flows from one song into the next seamlessly, creating a seething mass of sound as blurry as the album’s cover.  Psychedelic loops of guitar and keyboards weave in and out on “To Here Knows When,” while “When You Sleep” is straight-ahead driving indie-noise.  Shields glide guitar becomes a full on sonic assault on “I Only Said,” curling up and down like a yo-yo, before settling into a diesel-like hum.  The album’s closer, “Soon,” had nearly single-handedly defined the shoegazer sound when it appeared the previous year on the band’s Glider e.p.; the song stands today as a groundbreaking sonic explosion, mixing pure guitar white noise with electronic rhythms, loops and samples.

The prolonged and reportedly expensive recording process for Loveless caused Creation Records to part ways with My Bloody Valentine following the album’s release.  However, if Creation had frowned on Shields taking two years to record the follow up to Isn’t Anything, it’s a good thing they got out when they did, because other than Shields contributing music to the soundtrack for Sophia Coppola’s Lost In Translation, My Bloody Valentine would remain absent from the music scene until a brief reunion tour in 2008.  The band wouldn’t release any new music until February 2013, over 21 years after the release of Loveless.

Released in 2013, M B V finds Shields up to similar tricks as he was on Loveless; and though it’s not the sonic groundbreaker its predecessor was, M B V maintains the quality of Loveless.  It is as rich and layered as anything likely to come out this year, and it is the kind of album one can spend days getting lost in.