By 2013, the legend Loveless had accumulated impossible weight. My Bloody Valentine’s second album has long been coded as one of the masterpieces of the 90s, one of the masterpieces of the alternative music era. A unique vision that spawned legions of copycats, an entire genre. Twenty-two years after its release, countless words and breathless praise have made it one of those classics that could never be repeated. During my last semester of college, the first semester of 2013, a music writer who is about 15 years my senior visited our pop culture criticism class and said that when he cuts, his color bleeds. Loveless cover This was sacred territory. My Bloody Valentine made an album that re-orientated what was possible with sound, the boundaries of guitar-driven rock music, and then they never followed through. Because of course, how could you?
Part of the legend was how Loveless he barely came out into the world. What Creation Records originally thought might take days ended up taking three years. Rumor has it that the album’s seemingly tortured genesis nearly bankrupted Creation, prompting Alan McGee to quit the band shortly after its release; Kevin Shields always insisted that wasn’t true. Part of the legend is what happened next. MBV goes with the Isle of the Majors, spending part of the 90s trying to create a successor. Loveless. The band disbanded in the mid-90s, Shields says he went a little crazy, in 2001 Island sued Shields because he hadn’t released music in the 10 years their contract was in place.
All of this feeds into a certain, well-worn trope, the idea that Shields was one of those difficult, mercurial, reclusive artists. In many recent interviews, writers are still surprised to report that he is a relatively normal and fluent conversationalist, if carrying a certain peculiar definition of the passage of time. But even on the road, he was never out of sight for too long, touring with Primal Scream, occasionally collaborating with other artists, making music Lost In Translation:. When My Bloody Valentine regrouped for their infamous 2008 tour, there was talk of new music. But by then everyone had bought into the legend. No matter how much you’ve seen Shields re-emerge, no matter how much the band is present on stage, we’ve come to accept that there will probably never be another My Bloody Valentine album. They gave it to us LovelessAfter all. That was enough. How could you follow up an album of such stature, an experience so life-changing? Not even bothering made sense.
In January 2013, Shields took to the internet to announce that a new My Bloody Valentine album would be released within days. In the 00s, he talked about new music, and at this point it was hard to believe him. But then, suddenly, at midnight on February 2, it was true. Ten years ago today, mbv arrived on the band’s website and immediately crashed as fans scrambled to download it. What no one thought would ever happen was real. Somehow, 22 years later, the album My Bloody Valentine appeared Loveless.
mbv it was one of those collective musical experiences that mostly stemmed from surprise releases by major artists in the ’10s. There was one thing I could never admit back then. When I first pressed play, sitting in my girlfriend’s dorm room, I was just a little… disappointed. The hum and sludge of “She Found Now” was a hazy whisper of re-enactment; I could not appreciate it then, at that moment, because somewhere inside me I was waiting for the long-awaited sequel; Loveless to have that shocking jolt of reality I felt the first time I heard Only Shallow. Anecdotally, I seemed to be in the minority, especially when you considered that the writers were revising; mbv on time. Many who were around when Loveless they had arrived at once, looked upon this as the second coming which had been promised, and were therefore duly delighted.
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