Now I will admit that I was never in the MBV-camp. When Loveless came out in 1991 I was firmly in the metal and classic rock world. The most likely opportunity for me to catch on would have been college, but I went the power-pop and chimey guitars route, not much interested in the MBVs and Sonic Youths of the world. These were bands that said stick-it to pop music conventions. For me, I was always drawn to melody and a catchy tune. I enjoy bands that make a racket just fine, but I still like to hum it.
Loveless is now found in my iTunes, mainly because it's one of those albums I was supposed to have. Before I fell for the vinyl-resurgence I was a max subscriber with eMusic. With all those credits available it allowed me to back fill the collection rather nicely. One of the things I did was go through Pitchfork's list of Best Albums of the 1990s and add those in. Some I drew the line at, but Loveless made it in.
Right after the New Year My Bloody Valentine, after a few months of rumors and suggestions and false alarms, dropped their new record mbv. It came about without any official fanfare but exploded on the appropriate Twitter accounts. It was available for purchase at their website and the demand was so much it crashed their servers. I waited till the next day, when I ordered the vinyl (naturally). It came with a digital copy of the record so I have been listening to it since it downloaded. I held off on saying anything about it because I wanted to wait until I could hear the actual record.
Last Tuesday it finally arrived. And last night I gave it the headphone experience. And it left me pretty much the way it did listening through the computer speakers. Which is to say underwhelmed. Mainly that has to do with pseudo-expectations, or trying to hear what everybody else who raves about is hearing. The first three tracks are classic sounding MBV, which is to say a wall of guitar noise. It gets kind of synth-y in the middle before going to a hybrid on the last couple tracks. It's the middle section I like, songs like "if i am" and "the new you" are the highlights. They float along like good 90s indie rock should. The breathy vocals throughout are muddy, buried way in the mix; I think there was only one line that I could actually understand what was being said. Rock writers call these ethereal; I call it muddy. Listening to the record, I wonder why MBV even bother with lyrics because you can't hear them. They do that on one song, "nothing is," and if that's what all of their instrumentals would sound like then I reckon they best keep up with the ethereal vocals because that song is horrific...it seems to be a loop of noise that goes no place.
The reviews from the expected places are uniformly ecstatic. Pitchfork gave it 9.1. I think if Kevin Shields (he pretty much IS MBV, like Tom Scholz is Boston) could take a shit on a record and the reviews would be glowing. It makes me think that this is a record that really only other musicians like. Stuff like Sonic Youth and the Velvet Underground. David Lee Roth (of all people) has an excellent observation attributed to him, that rock writers love Elvis Costello because they all LOOK like Elvis Costello. I think he is on to something.
It obvious that there is a lot of effort expended for this record. A lot of tinkering and exploring is going on and Shields took his time tuning it exactly the way he wanted it. Whether that's because the music needed that long or whether he's just a perfectionist or he and the band just had shit to work out doesn't really matter. Here the record is. Personally I don't feel it should have taken 22 years to make THIS, but it is what it is. For all that time spent, it still sounds like a record that would have come out a year after Loveless.
I guess this makes me some kind of knave or ignorant schlub or unsophisticated boob. Go back to your Skynyrd records, caveman! No, that's not true. I don't really like Skynyrd. I appreciate MBV and Kevin Shields effort and dedication and craftsmanship, and I applaud finally getting it done and the non-descript way they went about it. And if you, dear reader, love it and find joy in it, then I am all for it.
Here's the song I like best: "the new you"
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