Why the Loveless love?

strumjoughlamps

Now fuzzy gaze has been my main love ever since I can remember and I own a fair whack of the genre, and what I don't own I know of.

I own MBV Loveless and now and then I give it a listen and always come to the same conclusion. 

Why all the love for this album.... I just don't get it. I can think of tons better shoegaze albums. Their 1st album being one, and their eps before that.

Blueingreen

Not a shoegaze fan but I also don't get this album.  It's probably unique in its ability to conjure up a certain palette of emotions, I just don't find the overall effect pleasurable.  Quite beautiful but too oppressively angsty and bleak.

Heartfeltdawn

strumjoughlamps said:

Now fuzzy gaze has been my main love ever since I can remember and I own a fair whack of the genre, and what I don't own I know of.

I own MBV Loveless and now and then I give it a listen and always come to the same conclusion. 

Why all the love for this album.... I just don't get it. I can think of tons better shoegaze albums. Their 1st album being one, and their eps before that.

Because there's nothing else quite like it and it really isn't shoegaze. 

So much shoegaze is traditional rock played into some effects. An album like Nowhere by Ride comes to mind, A Storm in Heaven by The Verve. You could imagine that songs being played in the 70s without the effects and they'd still stand up.  A lot of shoegaze is yer jangly Cocteaus/Lush stuff. Quite a bit of Isn't Anything is both camps and it bores the arse off of me. Lose My Breath simply sounds like trad indie shit playing into some effect boxes. 

Loveless for the most part is a whole different level. I'm happy to say I'm a Loveless fanatic right down to buying SPX90s and a Jaguar to see how it all fitted together. To me, there's nothing else quite like it. It's less of an album where guitars are put through effects and recorded as the effects themselves becoming instruments. It's about making guitars sound like things that aren't guitars. The alternative tunings, the whole trem arm ripping through the Reverse Gate setting... it really is its own thing. The production is much better and really it's only the crappy drums on Soon that sound like a relic from previous works. 

For me, there's nothing quite like it and that's generally reflected in the albums put forward as 'Best shoegaze albums ever'. 

pintspiller

I saw them live once. All the chorus, flanging and phasing gave me a sore head. The noise section in Feed Me With You Kiss made my ears continuously pop and my eyes water. Worst gig I attended. Morseo than The Las.

MagicPigDetective

As @Heartfeltdawn dawn said, it the sounds, but also the emotions they evoke. Having not listened to it for a few years I’ve been reacquainting myself with Loveless now it can be streamed. I’m hearing new things....  it still sounds like nothing else. As well as the sounds, the chord progressions and vocal melodies evoke something I can’t describe... the words aren’t important, I’ve no idea what’s being said or what they’re about. The way that chords bend and melt into each other, wave after wave, sometimes with no clear beginning and ending.... as HF said.....Loveless seems more removed from traditional rock and blues influence of other shoegaze, moving into a new thing. Never heard this said before, but listening now to I Only Said, dare I say the Cletic/Irish influence of dreamier ambiguity..... plus those moments of mysterious longing coupled with darker chaotic undertones. Might be talking shit here, hard to describe it but for me there’s plenty of love for loveless. 

Seen them live twice after they reformed, I found them incredible sonic experiences (ear plugs essential to remove the white noise). I found the holocaust section hypnotic, feeling and hearing the force of the sound.

Heartfeltdawn

MagicPigDetective said:

As @Heartfeltdawn dawn said, it the sounds, but also the emotions they evoke. Having not listened to it for a few years I’ve been reacquainting myself with Loveless now it can be streamed. I’m hearing new things....  it still sounds like nothing else. As well as the sounds, the chord progressions and vocal melodies evoke something I can’t describe... the words aren’t important, I’ve no idea what’s being said or what they’re about. The way that chords bend and melt into each other, wave after wave, sometimes with no clear beginning and ending.... as HF said.....Loveless seems more removed from traditional rock and blues influence of other shoegaze, moving into a new thing. Never heard this said before, but listening now to I Only Said, dare I say the Cletic/Irish influence of dreamier ambiguity..... plus those moments of mysterious longing coupled with darker chaotic undertones. Might be talking shit here, hard to describe it but for me there’s plenty of love for loveless. 

Seen them live twice after they reformed, I found them incredible sonic experiences (ear plugs essential to remove the white noise). I found the holocaust section hypnotic, feeling and hearing the force of the sound.

One of the things I finally got round to over lockdown was listening to a ton of Joni Mitchell. She's good but the album that grabs me is her first one because it's produced so simply compared to the later ones which do get a bit overblown for my tastes. After hearing her, I had to go and learn how to play her and so the transcription section of her website was called upon. Apparently the back story for her tunings is that she has weakened hands due to childhood polio and so would retune to make things easier to play. So you end up with a lot of simple chord shapes with drone strings thrown in above or below. 

Take something like "I Had A King", the first track on her first album. Tuned to EBEEBE.

https://jonimitchell.com/music/transcription.cfm?id=539

Whereas To Here Knows When:

E B E F# b e (low to high). 

Or Loomer:      EADGBd    



So I agree on the Celtic/Irish influences. Thisyear I've been on quite a British folk binge, the whole Fairport to Pentangle to the ISB road, and learning some of this stuff makes me see where Marr got some influences from on Smiths tracks and with MBV too. 

So you're combining a lot of folky tunings at times with a lot of delay sounds, for Reverse Gate is a series of delays that get louder rather than the modern reverbs we have now. Do that whilst slightly detuning and chorusing the actual guitar strings (the glide guitar) and you end up with this really special sound. Couple that with finally getting to work with a good producer in Alan Moulder and you end up with an album that stands up on its own. 

Edm123

pintspiller said:

I saw them live once. All the chorus, flanging and phasing gave me a sore head. The noise section in Feed Me With You Kiss made my ears continuously pop and my eyes water. Worst gig I attended. Morseo than The Las.

As a huge La's fan, I have to ask what was wrong when you saw them? Was it back in the day or one of the more 'recent' outings. 

drofluf

@Heartfeltdawn not sure whether to thank you or curse you for the Joni link . It’s probably my whole day accounted for.  

But on balance thanks!  

Heartfeltdawn

@drofluf It's a superb website. I can honestly say that finding that and focusing on her albums got me through this lockdown. It's also been inspiring because she's not the greatest darn acoustic player in the world but she has her own technique and does her own thing. It's a good thing for me to remember when I get frustrated at not being able to play everything my heroes can play perfectly. 

robinbowes

@Heartfeltdawn Ever analysed the tunings used by Kate Rusby?

Heartfeltdawn

Never. Having a look now and Double Dropped D comes out. 

robinbowes

robinbowes

Sorry for the thread hijack

Heartfeltdawn

Not at all, this is how music should be.  We can go from NME friendly shoegaze to Kate Rusby and find links between them. I have gone rather folkie at the minute through music and books. Electric Eden by Rob Young is superb and Joe Boyd's autobiographical piece White Bicycles is now one of my favourite music books ever.  

JezzaSnr

My gig buddy & close friend of 30+ years saw MBV around this time. He maintains that, without a shadow of a doubt, it is by far the worst gig he's ever been to. I'd possibly disagree, but it makes the top 3... 

Whitecat

I love Loveless and I think it's MBV's masterpiece. "Shoegaze" is an abused term for sure, but I don't worry about that. It's just a sonic journey if you're in the right mood. I have no desire to see MBV live - have heard nothing but negativity and I don't think my ears would appreciate it anyway - and besides, Kevin played everything on the records except Bilinda's vocals, so I have a feeling it would be like seeing the Smashing Pumpkins - a couple interesting elements but otherwise a wall of suck from an experience which is finely-crafted in the studio but virtually impossible to hash out live.

pintspiller

Edm123 said:

pintspiller said:

I saw them live once. All the chorus, flanging and phasing gave me a sore head. The noise section in Feed Me With You Kiss made my ears continuously pop and my eyes water. Worst gig I attended. Morseo than The Las.

As a huge La's fan, I have to ask what was wrong when you saw them? Was it back in the day or one of the more 'recent' outings. 

@Edm123 it was maybe thirty years ago. I'd seen them on Late Show doing That'll Be the Day and knew There She Goes, so was expecting upbeat tunes and got dark and depressing instead . This was before the album was released, and I think it might have been about the time the first attempt was abandoned.

monquixote

I love the album just because it sounds like nothing else, which is so rare. 

I don't think it fits into any genre or movement and is all the better for it.

Heartfeltdawn

Whitecat said:

I love Loveless and I think it's MBV's masterpiece. "Shoegaze" is an abused term for sure, but I don't worry about that. It's just a sonic journey if you're in the right mood. I have no desire to see MBV live - have heard nothing but negativity and I don't think my ears would appreciate it anyway - and besides, Kevin played everything on the records except Bilinda's vocals, so I have a feeling it would be like seeing the Smashing Pumpkins - a couple interesting elements but otherwise a wall of suck from an experience which is finely-crafted in the studio but virtually impossible to hash out live.

Their modern appearances from what I've seen do sound a lot better than their 80s and 90s outings but I'm with you on the live stuff. 

Dopesick

It’s like listening to one long ketamine trip. The front cover is the perfect accompaniment. ‘Soon’ still gives me chills every time I listen to it, just an eerie cold-hearted drone.

If you like MBV you may dig the impeccably named Ringo Deathstarr.

markv

I'm afraid I don't get Isn't Anything but on the other hand, "You Made Me Realise" is brilliant and hard to understand how it could be classified as "shoegaze" anyway.

And Loveless is awesome but unclassifiable. The sounds are just immense and immersive, and completely unique. "Sometimes" is just fantastic in the way it builds up and up.

That said, it might be a time-and-place thing. It's in my top 10 albums but I rarely listen to it any more and when I do, it doesn't have quite the impact it used to. So maybe it's about how old - or young - I was when I first heard it.