Yo La Tengo vs. My Bloody Valentine

they're BOTH vastly overrated

Behind Low if anyone, that's what the new album reminded me of the most.

Oh yeah and to answer Nude's question: YLT all the way. MBV does not deserve nearly as many of the accolades as they've received. (Q: will I be defending this opinion at the moment? A: No.)

But, you know that MBV wouldn't have lasted, so you're OK with it. It's all good.

And of course YLT are still poo, but that's me. ;-)

I say that because I was initially going to agree with David, and then I realized that my love of Yo La is actually focussed on a very small portion of their work: I'm not a fan of anything from before McNew's arrival apart from Fakebook, which I find amazing; Painful strikes me little more than okay. It's Electr-o-Pura that really does it for me, along with I Can Hear the Heart...; the last one is pleasant and pretty good (and nothing like Low, Ned, whatever do you mean?) but certainly not Earth- shattering.

So based on that, I'm actually going to say MBV. And in saying that, I'm actually counting the entire body of work, because I actually quite enjoy Dave Conway-era MBV, and would certainly rather listen to that than early Yo La.

My love (and knowledge) of YLT is basically focused on their Matador Years. My love (and knowledge) of MBV is focused on Those Two Albums, w/ a vague familiarity w/ what preceeded them. What I was trying to get @ with my salacious and (to Ned) sacreligious metaphor is that YLT has been able to sustain themselves for a much longer time (15 years?) than MBV, while also providing a more fulfilling (and voluminous) body of work..

I think Loveless was mind-blowing, orgasmic, eye-opening, and so on. But, then, it's over - that was their ending. However, YLT offers me a more complete and fulfilling experience, exploring different avenues, constantly experimenting with new ideas, learning and growing. This isn't to say that MBV couldn't have done the same - it's just that MBV didn't exist long enough to do so. Nor is this to say that everything YLT has created is godhead - that's rarely true for any artist that's been around for a long time.

Nine times out of ten, though, I'll take the slow-and-steady over the live-fast-die-young. Hence, the metaphor.

Seems to me that the body of work theory of music is sorta overrated. There's much to be said for only having a few things to yer name. Did the Kingsmen ever need to do anything more than record "Louie Louie" the way they did? ;-)

No one is allowed to give up hope until Kevin is dead!

I'm trying to think of everything Kevin said he was listening to, post-Loveless. Immediately afterward, he talked about being extremely into jungle and then drum'n'bass, which raised all sorts of possibilities -- an MBV jungle-influenced record in 1994 or so could have been more amazing than Loveless was. Shortly after that, during his psycho chihuahua-breeding period (or was it chinchillas?), he said he was beginning to think that speed metal was the only relevant genre left. (Which, despite the "umm, okay, Kevin" reaction that got, could still have been hugely interesting.) He was sensible enough not to talk about getting into trip-hop, as he would have been laughed off of the face of the Earth at that point. But now? Working so closely with Primal Scream is probably not a good sign. If I remember correctly, Island gave up on him, and I sincerely doubt any label will touch him unless he comes to them with a finished record, ready-to-release. To which I think I speak for a lot of people when I say: thanks a fucking lot, Kevin.

Note, though, how he's always anticipated the curve of music pretty well. It struck me a while ago that "We Have All the Time in the World" pre-figured the whole Stereolab-y continuum pretty well.

With a couple notable exceptions the *very* best MBV songs ("Soon" of course, also "You Made Me Realise") have a strong and hard rhythmic edge to them, an element totally lost on most of the wispy shoegazer followers, explaining why I don't like them.

Re: overrating and things: (maybe this is obvious but) it makes a difference what you read about them before you heard them. When I got into MBV I hadn't read all the press on them: they were just some weird cool British band that someone told me to check out because I liked the Pixies [!] Encountering the whole discourse about their being godlikeoceanicwallofsoundtoendallmusic didn't happen until after I had already decided to like them.

Re: the original question, I think it's a no-brainer. In my mind MBV wins by a landslide because they're much more pop.

MBV: well, their peaks are peaks indeed, but I simply don't find myself listening to their records much any more. They still win.

That's cool. The only person from my point of view who has to care about anything I like is me, after all. ;-) Years ago I might have argued the point more, but there's no reason to now. You could line up oodles of people shouting at the top of their lungs about how MBV bites the big one and I'd just shrug.

To Josh -- it's easy, m'friend: just clone Chuck Eddy oodles of times. Behold!

Mitch, your dream record/MBV in glitch mode = Fennesz - Endless Summer. I suspect that this Fennesz fellow doesn't exist and is a front for Shields to unload his long-lost albums. Really. ;)

the way they use the guitars as primary instruments is alot like seefeel.

Except it's not. It's the Velvets, it's the Kinks, it's bossanova and freakbeat and French pop and Neil Young and Sun Ra.

''but MBV's tiny output was so revolutionary it stopped music and started it again in a different direction.''

please. OK so the two recs and the Eps are fantastic. nearly three hours of wonderful pleasure but they did not revolutionise music. The shoegazers will most certainly haggle but MBV were in a scene of one. no band has come up with that kind of guitar work. and it died when Loveless was released because no one has been able to do anything in that continuum at all. they did not come up with concepts that other bands could use so that it would revolutionise music.

They made distictive records and they were wonderful for that.

early YLT >>>> early MBV (pre-"Strawberry Wine") for goddamn sure.

Stuff I enjoy of theirs: Electr-O-Pura, which is just a good and moderately unique example of gazery American indie; the Heart Beating as One etc., which is probably the height of that "curating" thing and has some well-organized tunes on it; and Fakebook, which I think is just a great listen and a great thing to have done. (I like the idea of bands doing their covers albums stripped down and with the same production and instrumentation all across them: first of all, hardly anyone does records period like that anymore, and in the covers format I think it leads you to put your stamp on the song not through your usual sonic and stylistic tricks but by actually playing it as you experience it.)

Obviously I like MBV better, though.

if you want to arg for something, remember NOT to quote momus.

for what it's worth...

I caught YLT in Austin last night; they opened with a nearly 20-minute (utterly fantastic) version of "I Heard You Looking" with blissfully extended noisy parts, then closed with a 15-minute version of "The Story of Yo La Tango" that did more or less the same thing; both of these versions were *very* reminiscent of the extended live versions of "You Made Me Realise" that I've heard floating around.