Chords for My Bloody Valentine's Loveless (in 5 Minutes) | Liner Notes

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_ _ _ If Loveless, [G] the seminal sophomore album by Irish [B] shoegaze pioneers My Bloody Valentine,
sounds like a revelation to this day, it's because it was at the time.
The brainchild of noted perfectionist and sonic auteur Kevin Shields,
Loveless was an album big enough to kickstart the band's career,
help bankrupt their label, and popularize a movement that still leaves ears ringing today.
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[F] _ _ But Loveless did not come from nowhere.
Formed in 1983, and allegedly not named after the identically titled 1981 slasher flick,
My Bloody Valentine spent most of the 80s perfecting their live set.
By the release of Isn't Anything, their first full-length studio album in November of 1988,
the band had found a sweet spot, influenced by the Jesus and Mary Chain's 1985 landmark Psycho Candy,
as well as 60s pop music.
By this point, previous vocalist David Conway had been replaced by singer and guitarist Belinda Butcher,
who also provided lyrics.
In 1990, My Bloody Valentine would release a noisy, defiant EP called Glider,
burning Isn't Anything's beatific haze in its wake.
Brian Eno hailed opening tracks Soon as a new standard for pop.
Glider, and its equally [F#] inventive follow-up EP, Tremelo, formed the runway from which Loveless took off.
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_ _ _ _ [F] At least seven months after the Tremelo EP, and just six weeks after Nirvana's Nevermind,
Loveless was a labor of love that took two years and cost a half million dollars to record.
While Kevin Shields has defended his band against accusations [G] of single-handedly bringing creation records towards bankruptcy,
the album's long gestation period proved both mentally and physically taxing for all involved.
Both Shields and Butcher [Em] experienced bouts of tinnitus during the recording sessions,
while Shields claims to have spent entire months without seeing daylight.
The studio schedule was intensive, plagued by faulty equipment and Shields' increasingly obsessive habits.
The tambourine part alone in To Hear No One's When allegedly took an entire week to record, but the results were staggering.
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_ _ _ _ [Gm] Introduced by the iconic drum fill of opening track Only Shallow,
Loveless represented the perfect storm of droning guitars, cloudy rhythm, and swooning melodies that would define the shoegaze genre.
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[D#] With Loveless, and the confrontational wall-of-sound production style it introduced,
My Bloody Valentine rightfully earned their place as a leading light, influencing bands such as Radiohead and the Smashing Pumpkins.
They even received acclaim from the previous decade's influencers, like Husker Du's Bob Mould and The Cure's Robert Smith,
who lauded My Bloody Valentine as, _
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After [Gm] touring the album, accompanied by flautist Anna Quimby, who recreated the high-end feedback and vocal samples from the record,
Shields would enter a long period of hibernation.
He emerged only temporarily to give [F] interviews and contribute to soundtracks, including Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation in 2003. _
Talk of a follow-up album remained hushed and cryptic, but even while My Bloody Valentine was inactive, Loveless' influence never went away.
Throughout the 90s and 2000s, it remained an ever-present blueprint for underground music.
_ In [G#] 2012, they issued long-awaited remasters of all their work, including Loveless.
Finally, in 2013, they surprise-released a self-titled follow-up album, a mere 22 years later.
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