Merrick Deneen
Staff Reporter
Not very often does a single album have the ability to supposedly bankrupt an entire record studio while also defining a genre of music, but My Bloody Valentine’s sophomore album Loveless was able to do both while also pushing the boundary of what people expected from music at the time and the idea of sound as a whole.
Loveless is the second studio album to come out of the Irish experimental rock band My Bloody Valentine. It was recording over the span of three years and released in 1991, just 6 weeks after Nirvana’s Nevermind, and is regarded as the poster album for the psychedelic shoegaze movement that begun to grow in popularity in the late 80s. My Bloody Valentine was lead by guitarist and singer Kevin Shields whose unorthodox production methods, frustrating attention to detail, and uncompromising vision for the album nearly drove the band crazy on several occasions. During the course of this album’s creation, the band went through 7 sound engineers and is rumored to spend 500,000 dollars on production. Most of this money was spent trying to perfect the heavily distorted and washed-out sound of the bands guitars and synthesizers.
The record begins with the track “Only Shallow” which is considered one of the strongest openers of the 90s. It plunges you headfirst into the drowned out waves of guitars and a synthesizer gliding over the top. Bilinda Butcher’s ethereal vocals are often pushed back in the mix and difficult to hear. This is common throughout the album and Kevin states that, “ The vocals were used as another instrument really”. The album then moves on to “loomer”. This song is calmer, but the fuzzed out walls of guitar remain unrelenting. Kevin Shields unusual strumming technique which has now been coined, glide guitar is also apparent on this track. This guitar technique brings the guitar in and out of tune as he plays which gives the illusion of multiple guitars playing at once. After a short demo of the synths clean sound with “Touched”, the band jumps right back into the pool of distortion in “To Here Knows When”. Shield’s uses effects to take out the sound of the individual notes, which makes his guitar sound like one continuous wall of sound that changes in pitch and tone. Some quick trivia about this song, the tambourine that can be heard through the whole track took a week to record. “When You Sleep” contains a real hook to it and it features Kevin and Bilinda singing together. “I Only Said” follows the same standard of pure feedback and Butcher’s high vocals. “Come In Alone” throws back to the bands earlier LPs with a combination of dirty bass, loud drums, and fuzzy guitar. “Sometimes” stands from the rest of the albums catalog with its acoustic guitar chords that is followed by a looming layer of deep fuzz. This song is regarded as of the best songs from the album and the shoegaze genre of music as a whole with its innocent vocals about love and its powerful use of sound. The record closes with the synth driven melody of “Blown a Wish” and the gritty gain in “What You Want”.
Kevin Shields creative use of his guitar, synthesizers, and feedback make Loveless a powerful culmination of the bands previous work as well as love letter to distortion which, before this, had never been utilized as an intimate tool for creating music. This album pushed the boundaries of what was expected from studio music at a time where formal rock was dominating the record industry.
Image Credit: Immo Wegmann on Unsplash
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