Every once in awhile an album comes along that completely changes the trajectory of music history. The Velvet Underground inspired a legion of miscreants to start their own bands in 1967 with their lo-fi avant garde production quality, Eric B. & Rakim’s 1987 magnum opus Paid In Full introduced complex rhyme structures that changed the game in hip-hop forever, and Blink-182 ushered in the era of pop punk in 1999 with Enema of the State which catapulted the burgeoning genre into the mainstream. None of these albums are the most commercially successful or critically lauded albums of all-time, but they possess the indelible trait of inspiring a generation to follow in their footsteps and helped reshape the sound of popular music in the decades that followed.
My Bloody Valentine accomplished much of the same with their 1991 album Loveless. This album thrust listeners into a dreamlike auditory journey that transcended conventional boundaries of rock and shoegaze, cemented itself as an ethereal masterpiece, and evoked a sense of both beauty and despair in its relentlessly pulsating sonic wall of sound.
At the heart of Loveless lies its groundbreaking production led by guitarist, vocalist and lead producer Kevin Shields. Shields built a world where layers of guitars wash over each other in a swirling tapestry of sound. Tracks like “Only Shallow” and “When You Sleep” exemplify this sonic landscape, where Shields’ meticulous attention to detail crafts an immersive experience that blurred the lines between noise and melody. It’s complex, it’s dense, it’s brutal, and it’s melodic, all at the same time. When combined with co-vocalist Bilinda Butcher’s ethereal voice, which delicately floats above that wall of sound like a butterfly being battered in a hurricane, the end result is a hauntingly melodic album that doesn’t just sound like love and longing. It personifies it.
Standout Songs: “Only Shallow”, “When You Sleep”, “I Only Said”, “Sometimes”, “What You Want”
