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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'.
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.
Eqd Speaker Cranker clone
Monte Allums TR-2 Plus mod kit
Trading feedback: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/60602/
Eqd Speaker Cranker clone
Monte Allums TR-2 Plus mod kit
Trading feedback: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/60602/
Eqd Speaker Cranker clone
Monte Allums TR-2 Plus mod kit
Trading feedback: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/60602/
I don't think it fits into any genre or movement and is all the better for it.
If you like MBV you may dig the impeccably named Ringo Deathstarr.
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.