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Rating: 90s. Micro explosion/implosion of SHOEGAZE. Metaphysical vision of music.
- If you think an album must be immediate, concise, and catchy...
- If you don't love experimental and enigmatic music...
- If you want a powerful album without too many unnecessary frills...
...then don't judge this rare unique jewel of the world. You might alienate yourself from a crowd of people who esteem and adore it like a god (including myself).
It was the distant (almost 16 years ago) 1991, when Mother Music gave birth from her legs in green Ireland to a new child: LOVELESS. Attending the birth were My bloody Valentine, a group of 2 girls and 2 boys who at that time had patented a new musical formula: SHOEGAZE.
Unlike other bands, My bloody Valentine were never hailed like gods, even though they brought to light one of the most beautiful and innovative albums of all time. Erasing the musical background of their territory (folk-rock), the group conceived a new way of making music, merging guitar effects of Wall-of-sound with sweet and gentle voices that imperceptibly float in the amniotic fluid of the songs.
Named by critics "Shoegaze" for their constant habit of staring at the "shoes" (in reality, they were looking at the guitar effects pedals, which being numerous, required due attention in switches throughout the songs) the MBV left their companions Ride, Spacemen 3, Slowdive (closer to Dream Pop than pure Shoegaze), meticulously recording (though it might not seem so at first listen) their best album and also their farewell to the scene: Loveless.
The songs on the album unsettle the listener with their shy, calm anti-conformism and almost leave them in a state of ecstasy with that obsessive, repetitive, sparse and atonal sound, yet deep and mystical, insinuating images and figures emerged from the unconscious into the mind of the attentive listener. In a way, MBV's songs can be considered "Surrealist" because just like the great painters of the era (Mirò, Dali, Ernst) managed to fresco on their canvases, with figures emerged from their "automatic writing," MBV managed to imprint transposed and metaphysical images on a musical album.
There are no better or worse songs on this album. All work together to imprint a precise feeling in our minds without a logical thread but with a single purpose: to abstract the listener from the context they are in.
If you manage to find this album, now only orderable abroad (I waited months and months of research to find a copy), frame it, listen to it endlessly, and promote its listening. Not everyone has had the chance to listen to music so refined and brutal at the same time.
"Tip toe down, to the lonliest places"
Curiosity:
The lyrics of their songs are incomprehensible and enigmatic. On the band's official website, they are even transcribed, but many remain incomplete as no one has yet managed to decode and interpret what is being sung in their songs.
The song "Sometimes" was included in the soundtrack of "Lost In Translation" alongside other songs composed by Kevin Shields, singer, and guitarist of MBV, and along with songs from other great bands like Jesus and Mary Chain, Roxy Music, Phoenix, etc.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Only Shallow (04:19)
Sleep
Like pillow
No one there
Where
She won't care
Anywhere
Soft
As pillow
Touch her there
Where
She won't dare
Somewhere
Sweet
And mellow
Softer there
Feel
Like you grew
Stronger there
Speak
Your trouble
She's not square
Soft
Like her silk
Everywhere
Sleep
Like pillow
Comfort there
Where
She won't dare
Anywhere
Look
In mirror
She's not there
Where
She won't care
Somewhere
02 Loomer (02:40)
Tiptoe down
To the holy places
Where you going now
Don't turn around
Little girls
In their party dresses
Didn't like
Anything there
Pretty boys
With their sunshine faces
Carrying their
Heads down
Tiptoe down
To the lonely places
Where you going now
Don't turn around
04 To Here Knows When (05:33)
Kiss
Your fear
Your red button
Falls from my mouth
Slip
Your dress
Over your head
It's been so long
Move
On top
Because that way
You touch her too
Turn
Your head
Come back again
To here knows when
05 When You Sleep (04:13)
When You Sleep
When I look at you
Oh, I don't know what's (true)
Once in a while
And you make me laugh
And I'll see (you) tomorrow
And it won't be long
Once in a while
Then you take me down
Then you walk (away)
When you say 'I do'
Oh, I don't (believe) you
I can't forget it
__ ___
When you sleep tomorrow
And it won't be long
Once in a while
When you make me smile
07 Come In Alone (04:00)
Come in alone
You'll love
To let go
And I'll turn
You around
When your hopes
Gave me doubts
__ ____
Why I don't need
To believe
What you see
To look up
And around
You were gone
(Words came out)
To a sound
Feel
I'm alive
You will see
(Why I'm alive)
Felt like crying
Over her
I will go
To ____
___ f___ s___
08 Sometimes (05:21)
Close my eyes
Feel me now
I don't know how you could not love me now
You will know, with her feet down to the ground
Over there, and I want true love to grow
You can't hide, oh no, from the way I feel
Turn my head
Into sound
I don't know when I lay down on the ground
You will find the __ __ hurts to love
Never cared, and the world turned hearts to love
We will see, oh now, in a day or two
You will wait
See me go
I don't care, when you're head turned __ _ __
You will wait, when I turn my eyes around
Overhead when I hold you next to me
Overhead, to know the way I see
Close my eyes
Feel me now
I don't know, maybe you could not hurt me now
Here alone, when I feel down too
Over there, when I await true love for you
You can hide, oh now, the way I do
You can see, oh now, oh the way I do
09 Blown a Wish (03:38)
Midnight wish
Blow me a kiss
I'll blow one to you
Make like this
Try to pretend it's true
Show me all your favorite things
Show you all mine too
Make a wish
I'll give it all to you
Welcome to your promises
Welcome to mine too
Caught like this
I'll turn it in with you
Fall apart my bleeding heart
Nothing left to do
Once in love
I'll be the death of you
11 Soon (06:58)
Wake up
Don't fear
I want to
Love you
Yeah (doll of pain)
I let you get to me
Yeah yeah
Come back
Don't be
Afraid of me
Soon
That (I'll harm you)
Your eyes are blue
Blue jewels
Yeah yeah
Come back
Have faith
Someone like you
Can find the reason
Of what I did to you
Yeah yeah
Wake up
Don't fear
I want to
Love you
Yeah (doll of pain)
I let you get to me
Yeah yeah
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Other reviews
By jeremy
If Van Gogh had been a rocker, he would have sounded like this.
Melodies that tickle the unconscious, unlocking distant memories and unspoken desires.
By R13557436
Listening to this album is undoubtedly the greatest sensory and metaphysical experience a person can have.
Loveless is proof of the existence of the divine, a unique work that even escapes itself.
By joe strummer
All of My Bloody Valentine’s music is a perpetual clash between noise and beauty, between animalistic violence and divine sensitivity.
"Isn’t Anything" carries all the seeds that will bear fruit in 1991, yet it maintains its distinctive profile.
By joe strummer
"Loveless stuns with an unheard power and immediacy. Here lies the entire essence of rock. Violence and purity. Hypnosis and spontaneity."
"This album is exactly that, a huge accumulation of distortions, combined with the typically English melodic urgency and an unprecedented electronic framework."
By Taxirider
"Loveless should be appreciated in its entirety, like a hallucinated and disorienting suite that gently leads us into the recesses of our minds."
"An open door to another dimension... that’s what My Bloody Valentine were."
