My Bloody Valentine: Loveless

The hardest thing for me to do is rank my favorite albums, mostly because I always think to myself “What’s the difference between 27 and 28?” I personally find ranking albums to be totally arbitrary and subjective to a time period. If you had met me in 7th grade, I would have told you that “Sweet Child O’ Mine” was the greatest song ever written.  So it gives me great pain to say that this is my favorite album of all time.  Also, sorry about the font, I did this on Word and Copy/Pasted it.

When I speak to people about Loveless, a silence dawns upon the group, as if someone said Beetlejuice three times.  And when someone younger than you approaches you about Loveless, you can only respond with a glare that says “You are not worthy.” 

Is anyone worthy?  Is anyone worthy of hearing a piece of recording so artfully and ethereally composed?

Perhaps the only one that is worthy is the album’s mastermind. Kevin Shields.  He was so worthy of it, that Loveless has set an impossible standard for him to follow.  He has yet respond to his cult following.  His absence of a follow-up has drawn comparisons to Brian Wilson or Kurt Cobain, musical geniuses who went crazy via their own perfection. 

Enough myth I guess, time to try to decipher this album for all that its worth, and that’s a lot.  First off is the contradictions that this album thrusts.  Melody verses pure noise turns into beauty versus chaos.  MBV have masterfully made something beautiful, chaotic.  Take for example, Sometimes, my personal favorite track on the album.  At first, layers upon layers of distortion crash like hurricane waves.  That first D chord smacks with familiarity, as if you can tell what it was if it wasn’t guised with, well, noise.  But dig up the buried lyrics and you find so much more.  ”Maybe you could not love me know.”  Imagine the surprise when it’s revealed that its a love song. 

But not just a love song.  One of the few songs where the melody matches the tone and passion of the lyrics.  Listen to the hard guitar part and think, isn’t that just what love is?  Noise in your head that you can’t get out? Indescribable static that is painful yet passionate yet angst-ridden yet totally worth it.  And that’s what Loveless is all about.  If love is ordered and make sense in the conventional world, than this album is certainly Loveless on all points considered.