4th November - My Bloody Valentine's Loveless

Artist – Album: My Bloody Valentine - Loveless

Released: 4^th November 1991

Sounds Like: What you want 

Next to Top of the Pops 2 and Pitchfork Media.com, below my parents’ CD and tape collections but ahead of just listening to the radio, the now sadly defunct The Word magazine had a huge impact on my music taste. The free cover CDs, attached to the front by a strange slither of snot-like glue, were invariably amazing and they introduced me to, amongst others, Sigur Rós, Sufjan Stevens and The Go! Team (or, if you prefer, Half Man Half Biscuit, The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and Lord Kitchener). 

I remember that the first copy I bought also had an engrossing piece on the greatest underrated albums of our time. Thanks to Rocklist.net (a website you need to check out if you, like me, enjoy a good list) I’ve managed to track down the full 100, with the following introduction: 

 “… what of those masterpiece records that were undernourished at birth, or cold-shouldered by the critics, or simply slipped between the floorboards of the industry, those discs whose ever-expanding virtues genuinely deserve to be trumpeted from any available rooftop? … a few of our favourite writers & musicians offer their personal bids for The Great Underrated Albums of Our Time”.

Below choices from Johnny Marr and Phil Jupitus (Roy Harper’s Stormcock and Madness’ Keep Moving respectively), and before Nick Lowe’s selection of Jimmie Vaughan’s Strange Pleasure, was the former editor of NME Danny Kelly’s pick: My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless.

That magazine came out in June 2005, so I was on the cusp of my 17^th birthday. I bought Loveless on the strength of that review, and I can honestly say that no album before or since has so blown my mind on first listen. If – somehow – you haven’t yet heard the Irish band’s 1991 shoegazing classic, I implore you to drop all that you’re doing, enter itunes, pay the £7.99 and play the whole album in its entirety. Once finished, repeat (at least three times).

Maybe one day you’ll write a blog about your various musical influences and this post will get a mention. 

Albumaday... rating: 10/10

1.       Only Shallow – 4:17

2.       Loomer – 2:38

3.       Touched – 0:56

4.       To Here Knows When – 5:31

5.       When You Sleep – 4:11

6.       I Only Said – 5:34

7.       Come in Alone – 3:58

8.       Sometimes – 5:19

9.       Blown a Wish – 3:36

10.   What You Want – 5:33

11.   Soon – 6:58

Listen to ‘What You Want’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azXLPL-iuSI

Also released on the 4^th November:
1983: Paul Simon - Hearts and Bones

Also released on the 4^th November:
1991: Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque

Also released on the 4^th November:
2008: Explosions in the Sky - The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place