My Bloody Valentine (band)

"However decadent one might find the idea of elevating other human beings to deities, My Bloody Valentine, failings and all, deserve more than your respect."

- NME review of Loveless, unintentionally encapsulating their legendary status in alternative rock.

"Whenever anyone uses the phrase swirling guitars, this record is why."

- Chuck Klosterman describing Loveless.

Irish-British Alternative Rock band that pioneered a genre known as Shoegazing and carried it to its apex so thoroughly that it died soon after they dissolved. They are the quintessential shoegazing band, famous for their ability to make mountains of raging distorted guitars sound beautiful.

Its most famous lineup is:
 * Kevin Shields - vocals, guitar, main songwriter/mastermind (fella on the top-right in the picture)
 * Bilinda Butcher - vocals, guitar, other important member, handling most of the lead vocals, focus of fandom's attention for some reason (top-left)
 * Debbie Googe - bass, often forgotten (bottom right)
 * Colm Ó Cíosóig - drums, he of the unpronounceable name (fella on the bottom left, looking like he wants to murder you)

My Bloody Valentine were formed in 1984 by Irishmen Kevin Shields and Colm Ó Cíosóig. Shields played guitar, Colm handled drumming, and Dave Conway was brought in for vocals, with his girlfriend Tina Durkin playing keyboards. Their name was taken from a 1981 Canadian slasher film. They spent three months in the Netherlands and then Berlin, where they recorded a mini-LP This Is Your Bloody Valentine, which was mostly bland synth-heavy Post Punk that did not anticipate their later direction.

After losing contact for a while and sorting out a housing issue, the band regrouped and settled in London. Tina had left in the chaos, and Debbie Googe was brought aboard as bassist. They released an EP on Fever Records, Geek!, in December 1985, but this did not bring the anticipated reaction. However, they persisted and signed to Kaleidoscope Records. Here they released two more EPs, The New Record by My Bloody Valentine (1986) and Sunny Sundae Smile (1987). Soon they built up a small following through regular live gigs. Dave Conway left the band in 1987 from dissatisfaction. After a tortuous audition process, the band hired Bilinda Butcher as a vocalist and secondary guitarist, who appeared on two new EPs, Strawberry Wine and Ecstasy (1987). The band finally settled down after years of false starts and EPs with a stable lineup and a new home at Creation Records.

My Bloody Valentine finally found their new sound with the EP You Made Me Realise, released in August 1988, followed in November the same year with the EP Feed Me With Your Kiss and their first full-length, Isn't Anything. Their style, combining multi-layered and aggressive guitars with breathy, muffled singing was soon termed "shoegazing" (thanks to their lack of motion onstage and use of effects pedals) by the press and imitated by many.

The band began recording the follow-up album in 1989 and initially said it would be done "in five days". However, the process stretched out over two years and grew to involve almost nineteen studios (two used for taping vocals, one for mixing/mastering), sixteen credited engineers (most of whom ended up bringing Shields tea and coffee; only Anjali Dutt and Alan Moulder actually engineered anything), Shields' obsessive studio perfectionism, bizarre behaviour (he didn't allow engineers to listen to him and Butcher while they were recording vocals) and a rumoured enormous studio bill. In the meanwhile, the EPs Glider (May 1990) and Tremolo (February 1991) were released to keep an active profile.

My Bloody Valentine's second album, Loveless, was released on 4 November 1991, to universal acclaim and modest commercial success (reaching #24 on the UK charts and on the other side of the Atlantic, the single "Only Shallow" became a moderate hit single on American alternative radio). It is considered their Magnum Opus, taking their painstakingly over-dubbed aggressive-but-dreamy guitar playing, ethereal vocals, and obsessive studio perfectionism (every sound on the album is either guitar, vocals, bass, drums, or a sampled and manipulated version of the same) to a whole new level, and basically remains the essential Shoegazing album. For a long time, McGee claimed the album cost £250,000 to record and nearly bankrupted Creation Records, but Shields has always denied both charges, claiming the 250.000 is an exaggeration and most of the money spent on the album was "money to live on", with only a few thousand going into recording itself.

MBV embarked on a short tour of England and the USA (co-headlining with Dinosaur Jr and Yo La Tengo) as a result of Creation's financial dire straits, and were dropped from the label soon after. They signed with Island Records in October 1992, and began building their own studio, which was completed by April 1993. After churning out a cover of "We Have All The Time In The World" for a charity album and "Map Ref. 41°N 93°W" for a tribute album, Shields' severe writer's block and extreme perfectionism (reportedly nearly 60 hours of material were recorded and discarded) caused the band to slide into a decade of inactivity and disintegrate, and earned him comparisons with famous nutcases like Brian Wilson and Syd Barrett to boot.

However, this hiatus only served to amplify their legendary status in the Alternative Rock scene. They eventually reunited in November 2007 and played their first gigs in 13 years in June 2008. They also headlined several 2008 festivals, including: Roskilde, Benicássim, Bestival, and All Tomorrow's Parties. They are currently working on their unfinished Loveless follow-up, which is totally not going to end up being the Duke Nukem Forever or Chinese Democracy of Alternative Rock.

The band recently announced on their Facebook page that remastered versions of Isn't Anything, Loveless and a compilation of the contemporary EPs are scheduled to be released on 7 May 2012. And it actually happened. OMGness ensued.

Please don't confuse them with My Chemical Romance. It's been a problem. Oh, and don't confuse them with the movie, from which they took their name, which doesn't have near as many instances of people staring at their shoes. Nor should you confuse them for Bullet for My Valentine, which is a completely different band entirely.

And in a rather ironic turn for the NME quote above, they're now part of the TV Tropes music pantheon.

Discography:
 * Early stuff. Disowned by the band (who pretend it never happened) and the fanbase (following the band's example).
 * This Is Your Bloody Valentine EP (January 1985)
 * Geek! EP (December 1985)
 * The New Record by My Bloody Valentine EP (1986)
 * Sunny Sundae Smile EP (1986)
 * Works whose status fall somewhere between the above and the below.
 * Strawberry Wine EP (August 1987)
 * Ecstasy EP (November 1987)
 * The more well-known part of their discography. Includes Loveless.
 * You Made Me Realise EP (8 August 1988)
 * Feed Me With Your Kiss EP (November 1988)
 * Isn't Anything (November 1988) [remastered and re-released on 7 May 2012]
 * Glider EP (April 1990)
 * Tremolo EP (February 1991)
 * Loveless (4 November 1991) [remastered and re-released on 7 May 2012]
 * EP's 1988-1991 (4 May 2012) [released alongside the Isn't Anything and Loveless remasters, compiles You Made Me Realise, Feed Me With Your Kiss, Glider, Tremolo, the "Instrumental #1" and "Instrumental #2" bonus songs from the 7 bundled with Isn't Anything, the full version of "Glider" from the "Soon" 12 single, "Sugar" from the French single release of "Only Shallow", and three previously unreleased songs]

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 * Canon Discontinuity + Old Shame: The band and their fanbase pretend the band did not exist before 1988. The band themselves have made sure that earliest release still in print is Ecstasy and Wine, a combination of the Strawberry Wine and Ecstasy EPs. Good luck finding anything earlier than that, you'll need it.
 * Cover Version: Covered "Map Ref. 41°N 93°W" by Wire and "We Have All the Time in the World" by Louis Armstrong (originally the theme for On Her Majesty's Secret Service). On the other side, some brave souls occasionally take a hack at a My Bloody Valentine song - "You Made Me Realise" was covered by Silver Sun, Midway Still and Amusement Parks on Fire, with none coming nowhere near the level of the original.
 * Deliberately Monochrome: They have normal pictures, yes, but the more famous/commonly used ones tend to be black and white (see below under Small Reference Pools).
 * Development Hell: Nothing's emerged about the new album since Kevin confirmed that they are, in fact, still recording, and the Loveless remaster has been delayed for at least two years.
 * Garfunkel: For the duration of Loveless' recording, Colm and Debbie. Kevin even said that "I'm basically the only musician on the album except for 'Touched' [Colm's song]".
 * Girl with Psycho Weapon: The "You Made Me Realise" EP cover, a dreamy black-and-white image of a girl surrounded by flowers and holding a knife to her own throat.
 * A Good Name for a Rock Band
 * Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have!: Bilinda. an ungodly amount of people like to point out that, at 48, she still looks largely the same as back in 1991. Kevin seems to have aged well, too.
 * I Am the Band: Kevin, basically and Bilinda, what with having a really nice voice and all. Colm and Debbie? Garfunkels.
 * Intercourse with You: "Swallow". All the distinguishable lyrics are the refrain, which goes something like Swallow, swallow, love, I close my mouth.Their stuff in general tends to be more about Silly Love Songs than, y'know, getting physical.
 * "To Here Knows When" is hardly subtle with (barely intelligible) lyrics such as Move on top, because that way you touch her, too. The song itself sounds like druggy sex.
 * All of which is still lyrically subtler than "Slow".
 * Intentionally Awkward Title: They named themselves after an obscure 1981 Canadian slasher film (that was remade in 2009 in 3D).
 * Loudness War: Averted. Loveless is mastered at 1991 loudness (or slightly below it) but has an excellent mastering and thus doesn't clip or cause any trouble. Live however, is another story...
 * It's almost unreal how Loveless can sound radically different depending on which stereo (speakers, headphones etc.) you play it on.
 * A 2-CD reissue (including a remastered version, plus the original recording) is slated for UK release on March 8, 2010. Mark your calendar in pencil, as that release date has been pushed back endlessly over (at least) the past year. It's finally received a new release date of May 7, 2012.
 * Lyrical Dissonance: So many examples, but just for one, "Once in love/I'll be the death of you" sneaks into the otherwise ethereal "Blown a Wish". To be fair, this is an album of unintelligibles we're talking about, so you really need to know what you're listening for or you need to have listened to it many times to catch it.
 * Minimalistic Cover Art: All of their stuff. For example: Realise is just a picture of a woman lying in a field with flowers holding a knife to her own throat, Feed is a creepy close-up of a woman's face, Anything has a blurred picture of Kevin and Bilinda so as to appear faceless, Glider is a photomanipulated image of two people kissing, Tremolo is a less creepy, blurry close-up of a woman's face, and probably the most iconic one of all, Loveless is a close-up of Kevin's guitar, manipulated to appear pink.
 * Mythology Gag: At least one of their publicity photos nods to their name being swiped from a Canadian slasher movie. (That photo in particular doubles as Multiple Reference Pun since it has Bilinda holding up a butcher's axe. Unfortunately, it doesn't have Kevin defending himself with shields.)
 * Overshadowed by Awesome: Debbie. As far as the general recollection goes she didn't play on Loveless despite being credited (Kevin also took over Bilinda's guitar parts, but she didn't mind because she didn't think she was very good and wanted recording to go faster). Also, doesn't inspire the fans in a certain way like Bilinda. Colm too, who's also saddled with an unpronounceable name and didn't contribute that much to Loveless either.
 * Performance Video: "Only Shallow", parts of "Soon".
 * Pun-Based Title: Well, the movie they named themselves after is this...
 * Sampling - Used on Loveless for beats due to Colm's personal and physical issues (and homelessness) interfering with recording. Shields himself admitted that only two of the songs have live drums ("Only Shallow" and "Touched") while for the rest they sampled whatever Colm played and looped it. He also mentions that he believes the listener probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference, except for the more obviously dancier work like "Soon".
 * Serial Escalation: The infamous "holocaust section" from "You Made Me Realise", one minutes of noise and cacophony sandwiched in the middle between the Epic Riff and Ear Worm chorus. The band always plays the song last in concert, and drags the holocaust section to up to 20 minutes of pure cacophony and noise before ending, fully justifying its title.
 * There's also Loveless's recording process. Ungodly amounts of money, 19 studios, 16 engineers, bizarre behaviour, by the end they needed a week to master it instead of the customary day, and the cherry on the cake - during mastering, the computer they used threw the entire album out of order and Kevin had to put the tracks back together from memory.
 * Serious Business: NME's famously hyperbolic review, whose conclusion was quoted above.
 * Shoegazing: The shoegazing band.
 * Silly Love Songs: Just delivered at an ear-shattering volume with heavy doses of droney psychedelia.
 * It's fun to think of MBV as The Smiths if the latter were tortured in Hell.
 * Small Reference Pools: Generally, if you see something about MBV, it will use one of two band pictures. One of them's also used on this very page, the other one being a bit more unsettling, what with the Death Glare-ish looks and all. Doesn't help that those are the best and most famous images of the band, with others not really measuring up.
 * Something Completely Different: After an album's worth of shoegazing, "Soon" ends Loveless by tossing a funky Madchester beat under the band's signature guitar walls. And it kicks arse.
 * Something Something Leonard Bernstein: With all the Mondegreens, My Bloody Valentine's lyrics basically embody this trope. Notably, Midway Still attempted to cover "You Made Me Realise", but admitted to Melody Maker that they couldn't understand the lyrics and they made some of them up instead. Understandable, since that song basically boils down to Epic Riff, "something something you may as well commit suicide", the refrain of "something something insane eyes, you made me realise" and the holocaust section.
 * Soprano and Gravel: Averted. Butcher and Shields have similar voices.
 * The interplay between the breathy vocals and fuzzed-out guitars arguably creates a similar effect, particularly on a song like "Sometimes".
 * Surreal Music Video: the 1990-1991 videos directed by Angus Cameron are low-budget but very psychedelic. "Only Shallow" is a Performance Video run through heavy hallucinogenic processing. "To Here Knows When", "Soon" and "Swallow" take the blurry effect and run with it.
 * Troubled Production - Loveless.
 * The Unpronounceable - Non-Irish people will inevitably butcher Colm Ó Cíosóig's last name or just stick with "Colm".
 * If you're interested, it's roughly Kolm Oh Kweesoigue.
 * Video Full of Film Clips - "You Made Me Realise" alternates low-quality footage of the band performing with bits of other films, including the "Ludovico treatment" scene from A Clockwork Orange.
 * Word Salad Lyrics - Taken to eleven: they did not publish their lyrics and buried their vocals in the mix, at some points even singing nonsense lyrics - one of their writing methods was as follows: Kevin would sit down and sing something, and then Bilinda would listen to the tape and write down what she thought he sang. Kevin Shields even admitted that he at one point considered grading fansite transcriptions of their lyrics based on accuracy.
 * According to Word of God, ironically, writing the lyrics was one of the more time-consuming parts of "Loveless". Shields himself once said, "there's nothing worse than bad lyrics".