Why are MBV so highly regarded?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Kind of the same as the Jesus & Mary Chain thread I started, I've been listening to Loveless, and I'm left with the impression that there's something really really fantastic going on, just out of my view.

I'm wondering, as Trayce did, whether it's something about being a certain age/there at the time?

(Sub-thread: Canonical albums that mean nothing to those who weren't there)

― person#0 (person#0), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:40 (twenty-one years ago)

because they're really good.

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:42 (twenty-one years ago)

(duh.)

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:42 (twenty-one years ago)

(also they sound like dr. c's vacuum.)

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Aren't there enough threads on Loveless already?

Is Dr. C selling his vacuum?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I do think its a fair point worth exploring. I'll happily admit I dont get/see the fuss about VU. They bore the pants off me actually. Yet I have to acknowledge theyre in the canon and are so much influence bla bla.

Its just a thought I tossed up really, I havent run with it too far.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Time and place certainly didn't hurt and as I've said elsewhere on this board eight million times, for me it was and remains the pinnacle of listening where I was fixed and frozen by astonishment when I first heard them -- I mean LITERALLY stunned, to the point when the song in question ("Soon") had stopped playing I realized that I had been standing there for seven minutes slack-jawed in amazement. Now mind you, this was 1990 and just about everything that would copy or rework that template had yet to be produced, so there was definitely a sense of the shock of the new. But at the same time, when I listen to Loveless these days I hear a band (and especially a person but not JUST him) trying to do their best to stretch what they have to hand.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Aren't there enough threads on Loveless already?

I was using Loveless as an example, but I was wondering more about MBV in general (of course, please point me in the right direction if we've gone over this already).

― person#0 (person#0), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Loveless is the only album I'm aware of that can be one of the most
calming, hypnotic albums and one of the most rock your ass albums simultaneously, depending on how loud you're playing it.

― Stephen Morris, Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:47 (twenty-one years ago)

If you need "help" enjoying music, you should just accept that its not your thing and move on. I don't like the Beatles! So I don't any of their albums!!

Loveless is pretty good though.

― Johnny Badlees (crispssssss), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:49 (twenty-one years ago)

(I feel a little funny liking the Velvet Underground when there are so many bands who have emulated them in various ways who I don't like. Right now, the one Nico one has lost a lot of ground for me, but selected songs from The Velvet Underground and White Light/White Heat are still going strong, which isn't an explanation of what I like about them, but maybe I'll say something once/if I ever get Peel and See.)

― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:50 (twenty-one years ago)

If you need "help" enjoying music, you should just accept that its not your thing and move on. I don't like the Beatles! So I don't any of their albums!!

I do enjoy it though, I just feel there's something missing that would make it *great* music. Of course the more I think about this, the less I think I know what I'm talking about.

― person#0 (person#0), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:54 (twenty-one years ago)

my bloody vacuum

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 00:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Is Dr. C selling his vacuum?

"Is..."? Didn't Markus Schmickler buy it, like, two years ago or something? 8-)

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't intend to sound so rude. I just think music is a personal experience and you can't tell someone how to enjoy it cause they aren't going to hear it the way you do. Loveless is "feel" as much as "hear" anyway.

― Johnny Badlees (crispssssss), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Um, I guess the thing about Loveless (and actually Public Enemy is almost exactly like this too for me) is the way in which it almost seems as though music just seems to flood (really over-flood) every single part of me when I listen to it. It's too big for headphones, for speakers. . . like I want to hear it on the biggest soundsystem in the world loud enough to expose every single beautiful sonic detail. I guess, part of it was the way in which MBV and PE just totally blew my mind the first time I heard them, but I am 12-15 years on my first listen of these guys and that feeling of absolute amazement at being completely enveloped by their sound has changed very little. < / okay close cheesy self-analysis >

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Yay Alex in SF! For that is an apt way to describe the impact upon me. :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:05 (twenty-one years ago)

You didn't sound rude, I know what you mean. Sometimes it helps me to enjoy an album if I know why others get excited about it -- it kind of rubs off on me!

(To be read: I am gullible and easily influenced)

Alex in SF; I think you have revealed the secret to me -- I owe you a drink sir.

― person#0 (person#0), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:09 (twenty-one years ago)

J. Badlees, I am sympathetic to that view much of the time, but sometimes you can have things pointed out to you and they click. I can't think of any examples when this has happened to me offhand, but I think it has happened occasionally. Regardless, I think it's at least a possibility. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to strain really hard to like something, though it's taken me forever to accept that, for now, I just don't like most jazz (despite a small portion of it that I like very much). Sometimes I keep coming back to try to figure out why I don't like something.

― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:11 (twenty-one years ago)

person#0: i've found that a lot of great music doesn't click automatically and that sometimes, years later, (and perhaps in complete silence) you may realize the greatness.

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:12 (twenty-one years ago)

kevin's guitar sounds, especially on the early stuff, still blow me away. i can't get enough of the trebly vacuum cleaner screech. beautiful beautiful beautiful

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, I think that people underestimate the songs themselves. Even without the disorientation/distortion etc, these are wonderful tunes with perfect melodies and harmonies - the absolute best reinterpretation of, for instance, the Byrds.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:19 (twenty-one years ago)

i was thinking today about how "emo" some of the lyrics are and how they would be taken today if mixed louder.

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:21 (twenty-one years ago)

that's the late 90s def. of "emo" btw.

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:21 (twenty-one years ago)

It has lyrics?

― person#0 (person#0), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:22 (twenty-one years ago)

oh gygax, that's just an awful idea.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:22 (twenty-one years ago)

i know, it's like... there's a reason why they're mixed down so low!

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:23 (twenty-one years ago)

gygax, by what insane stretch of the imagination could MBV ever be considered in the same breath as anything considered 'emo'???

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:24 (twenty-one years ago)

listen to those lyrics and then imagine conor o'berst singing them.

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:28 (twenty-one years ago)

No, because I refuse to have my holy musical icon tainted by such filth.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Why don't I just imaging Bob Marley singing them? Or Pavoratti, or Don Knotts. It would make about as much sense.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:29 (twenty-one years ago)

there's something really really fantastic going on, just out of my view.

Actually I think this sums up part of their appeal for me, actually! Everything's slightly off-kilter, like I'm not catching it right. Isn't Anything sounds better every time I hear it and Loveless is the classic everyone claims it is if I start the album with "When You Sleep."

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:29 (twenty-one years ago)

you missed the point in the blind defense of the sacred bovine!

the lyrics are very late modern-"emo"! they would not be out of place on a late-90s band's lyric blog.

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I've always been glad that the lyrics were totally indecipherable to me. I really don't want (or need) to know what he's singing about.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Gygax, that's just plain wrong. MBV are the inverse of emo - there's nothing confessional or emotive about them - in fact they're more plainly stated facts about being in the haze of love lust sex etc. Explain yourself - which lyrics exactly?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah I think the TITLE of the album sort of gives that away. Loveless, ya know?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:38 (twenty-one years ago)

The Cocteau Twins are actually total Crass style confrontational anarcho-political activists, it's just that Elizabeth Frazier chooses to "obfuscate" her voice so that it's all subliminal.

― donut bitch (donut), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:38 (twenty-one years ago)

and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone are actually an Andrew W.K. tribute band.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry, gygax!, but I'm not getting your point either.

Pretty much any lyrical sort about love or lack of it can be construed as "emo" if someone currently associated with "emo" sang it.

― donut bitch (donut), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Hell, you could give Chris Carrabas Hawkwind lyrics, and he'd still make them sound kyoot.

― donut bitch (donut), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:41 (twenty-one years ago)

"soon"

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

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:42 (twenty-one years ago)

but yeah yeah i get it, i get it...

"DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH THE SACRED COWS!!!"

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:43 (twenty-one years ago)

gygax, those lyrics are speculative. "doll of pain" seems unlikely to me.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:44 (twenty-one years ago)

cftpa songs are narratives
awk is rock music stripped away from any irony, hipness or coolness

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:44 (twenty-one years ago)

i think gygax is like me that he hears emo in everything.

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:46 (twenty-one years ago)

(xcept where he doesnt)

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:46 (twenty-one years ago)

(mbv are twee)

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:47 (twenty-one years ago)

yes!

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Haha well I'm certainly not going dispute the twee-ness aspect.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:49 (twenty-one years ago)

anyways, the lyrics are weak and bland, if these lyrics were associated with any music released today and mixed at a reasonably comprehensible level, i'm not sure that the band would be taken as seriously.

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 01:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 63 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

on wasted studio time mostly

(crosspost)

― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 11 December 2003 00:22 (twenty-one years ago)

wasn't there massive periods of inactivity and arsing about?

― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 11 December 2003 00:22 (twenty-one years ago)

all the anecdotes from the 'Magpie Eyes' Creation book are hilarious. Like Kevin insisting on switching studios multiple times because he was hearing background noise that nobody else was registering.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 11 December 2003 00:24 (twenty-one years ago)

anybody ever tell him what tinnitus was?

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 11 December 2003 00:26 (twenty-one years ago)

he probably couldn't hear them over the tinnitus

― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 11 December 2003 00:28 (twenty-one years ago)

He sounds like a fucking primadonna, and considering what little we've heard from him since I can see how this behaviour fits in with his creative process.

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 11 December 2003 01:22 (twenty-one years ago)

ie: paralysis

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 11 December 2003 01:23 (twenty-one years ago)

primadonnas tend to be accomodated for a reason...

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 11 December 2003 01:23 (twenty-one years ago)

to avoid drama?

― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 11 December 2003 01:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Knowing little to nothing about how Loveless came together inside the studio I can't qualify this, but I suspect that a huge amount of that studio time and money had little to no perceivable impact upon the final sound of the album. Of course, we'll never really know I guess.

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 11 December 2003 01:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, you could try to track down that book, it's excellent.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 11 December 2003 01:28 (twenty-one years ago)

thinking takes time

― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 11 December 2003 01:29 (twenty-one years ago)

(oh no! business speak! OH NO!!)

― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 11 December 2003 01:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Haha we all know that Loveless wouldn't have worked if it had tons of background noise on it!

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 11 December 2003 01:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I only listen to Loveless on my stereo set to 11

― bakhtin, Thursday, 11 December 2003 02:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Ok I'm not gonna parse through the whole thread to see if someone already noted this but I've totally been reading this as "MBV so highly retarded." Which is actually a more valid question judging by these anecdotes.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 11 December 2003 03:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, you could try to track down that book, it's excellent.

Title? Author? I love reading that kind of stuff.

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 11 December 2003 03:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I found this, due for release in Feb 2004. Is there anything else out there?

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 11 December 2003 03:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Try here

― Girolamo Savonarola, Thursday, 11 December 2003 03:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I hate to say this, but this album makes a lot more sense when you have taken a lot of drugs.

Kevin Sheilds was strung out on Junk and Ecstacy when he made the album and the psychology of those drugs really comes through on Loveless. It does not sound emo in any way, shape, or form. I have never heard any emo song that has made my head melt while I was walking down the street.

Emo peddles normal emotions that any 16 year old can grasp in a second, the lyrics on loveless aren't trying to convey a recognizable narritive reality, they express a shifted reality when emotions turn into colors and the subtlety of a syllable completely changes the meaning of a song. I cannot write a single line from that album but I know exactly what Belinda meant on everyone of those tracks.

― Nihilist Pop Star (mjt), Thursday, 11 December 2003 04:36 (twenty-one years ago)

That makes sense.

The first time I listened to Loveless from start to finish I was home from school with a nasty flu. I lay on my bed with the stereo up quite loud and I think the droning guitars melted my brain. To this day I still feel a little nauseated by some tracks.

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 11 December 2003 07:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I've been watching this thread for days now, thinking about how to put into words once again how I feel about 'Loveless,' but when it comes right down to it, that record just doesn't do it for everybody. Whenever someone would tell me they'd never heard it, I used to get all histrionic and gush about how it changed my life and it's the only record I really need etc., etc., and then I'd usually end up buying it for that person and getting immensely disappointed if they didn't think it was the greatest thing ever. So, in response to the original question, if you can't figure out why MBV is so highly regarded, don't worry about it. Hopefully, there's some other record out there that affects you the way 'Loveless' does me.

― rainman (rainman), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:07 (twenty-one years ago)

nps otm

― ds (disco stu), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:01 (twenty-one years ago)

ds otm about nps being otm.

basically, nps otm. That's probably the best description of MBV's music's effect on the listener. But I can definitely enjoy it without drugs.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:06 (twenty-one years ago)

nps off the mark.

i never said loveless sounded emo. i said the lyrics read emo.

also, i've never listened to the album on drugs and have what i consider full awareness, understanding, and appreciation of it.

in fact, i'd say the album is a substitute for drugs as listening to it produces that blissed out, ecstatic feeling that drug users crave synthetically.

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:22 (twenty-one years ago)

and stay off the drugs! they are altering your reading comprehension (like i'm one to talk!)

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:28 (twenty-one years ago)

"Emo peddles normal emotions that any 16 year old can grasp in a second, the lyrics on loveless aren't trying to convey a recognizable narritive reality, they express a shifted reality when emotions turn into colors and the subtlety of a syllable completely changes the meaning of a song. I cannot write a single line from that album but I know exactly what Belinda meant on everyone of those tracks."

I wish people would stop assuming all 16 year olds listen to and/or understand the appeal of emo...

― Stupid (Stupid), Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry, no music is a substitute for drugs (you might as well say music is a substitute for cream buns or choccy biscuits). In my experience, the people who really dig 'Loveless' don't take many/any drugs.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Friday, 12 December 2003 00:05 (twenty-one years ago)

But the people who made it did.

― Venga, Friday, 12 December 2003 00:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, but they were musicians. That's almost a given.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 12 December 2003 00:56 (twenty-one years ago)

i think i meant this: drugs are a substitute for really good music.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 12 December 2003 00:56 (twenty-one years ago)

does anyeone else agree that Loveless doesn't sound like a $500,000 record? (i got that factoid from rollingstone.com!)

i have no problem with a sea of sound, but loveless has a very high noise-to-signal ratio, which sort of negates the concept of a "sonic ocean" in the first place. rather than hear the nuances of the sounds, you hear them under a dulling hiss.

― MerkinMuffley (MerkinMuffley), Friday, 12 December 2003 02:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the CD is/was poor mastered which is too bad (same with Public Enemy ironicly) but it sounds like a very meticulous (as in someone spent a fair time in a studio) record to me and studio time is eXpensive.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 12 December 2003 03:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I wish people would stop assuming all 16 year olds listen to and/or understand the appeal of emo...

Sorry, my idea of an emo fan is either the doe-eyed worshipers I witnessed at TRL performance of Dashboard Confessional or the just out of high school kids who tell me about how awesome Bright Eyes are. I understand that younger people listen to other stuff (thank god!) but when I think of emo fans I think high school. IWO when I think emo I think of 16 year olds, but not *all* 16 year olds.

Sorry, no music is a substitute for drugs

I disagree with this. Music might not be a direct substitute (I’d take antibiotics over slowdive in a minute if I had a life threatening infection) but music can substitute the *function* of drugs. Like it or not, all music is consciousness altering. There are a lot of ways you can alter your mind, whether it is internally with chemicals or externally through sensory stimulation.

also, I’ve never listened to the album on drugs and have what I consider full awareness, understanding, and appreciation of it.

I hate to say it, but you don't know what you are missing. You really should get stoned at least once and listen to that record. Don't think of it as drug abuse, think of it as aesthetic research.

and stay off the drugs! they are altering your reading comprehension (like i'm one to talk!)

(Editor’s note: NPS is such a bore in 2003 that he doesn't even drink caffeine)

― Nihilist Pop Star (mjt), Saturday, 13 December 2003 00:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Here's another vote for Loveless sober, and/or as an aural substitute for narcotics.

Only a few others have ever made me feel that way, most notably / recently Safe as Milk. Now, I've come to love Beefheart comparatively late in life, and I wouldn't say that it's my favorite of his albums... but listening to it makes me feel like I'm on something. Totally.

I think this would be a good subject for a thread as long as I can be assured (as an ILM newb) that there are no Phishheads swarming the board.

― r, Saturday, 13 December 2003 01:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Whoops. Mirror Man. Don't know how that happened. Argh.

― r, Saturday, 13 December 2003 01:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Drugs on Loveless!

― Johnny Badlees (crispssssss), Saturday, 13 December 2003 01:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I think you should all pop a few pain killers and throw on Loveless.

― Johnny Badlees (crispssssss), Saturday, 13 December 2003 02:01 (twenty-one years ago)

yawning while listening to rock: classic -> mbv: classic.

― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 13 December 2003 02:03 (twenty-one years ago)

shifting pitch

― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 13 December 2003 02:10 (twenty-one years ago)

of the yawning?

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Saturday, 13 December 2003 02:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Also I must say that everyone who's mentioned the volume thing is completely OTM. I'm cranked to 3/4 on my unbelievably overblown stereo listening to Soon and it's fucking FANTASTIC.

― Andrew (enneff), Saturday, 13 December 2003 02:23 (twenty-one years ago)

person#0, I second Tico Tico above - check out the You Made Me Realise EP, on VINYL, at high volume!

― Paul (scifisoul), Saturday, 13 December 2003 07:50 (twenty-one years ago)

vinyl can eat my fuc

― the surface noise (electricsound), Saturday, 13 December 2003 11:07 (twenty-one years ago)

three years pass...

"Soon" is the reason why if they'd only hung around long enough to do a proper hip hop record, taking Sonic Youth's "Kool Thing" and Curve's "Ten Little Girls" as inspiration, they would have done something massive.

― Bimble, Saturday, 28 July 2007 05:27 (eighteen years ago)

Or at the very least they could have really capitalized on the dance market with 12" mixes and such eh? They could have collaborated with Giorgio Moroder, eh? Or Nile Rodgers here we come!

― Bimble, Saturday, 28 July 2007 05:29 (eighteen years ago)

Ahhh! Hearing Strawberry Wine now for the first time in a billion years! WOW!

― Bimble, Saturday, 28 July 2007 05:35 (eighteen years ago)

haha you should see what Loveless does to her pants

Hahahah this still cracks me up.

― Trayce, Saturday, 28 July 2007 06:06 (eighteen years ago)

eleven months pass...

Listening to Loveless today I realise the answer is because they are brilliant.

― I know, right?, Friday, 11 July 2008 12:29 (seventeen years ago)

Can't believe nobody started a "Why are MBV so highly retarded?" thread when this came out?

― Noodle Vague, Friday, 11 July 2008 12:53 (seventeen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.