At a glance
- Artist
- My Bloody Valentine
- Released
- 4 November 1991
- Label
- Creation Records
- Catalogue number
- crelp 060
- Format
- 12″ Vinyl
- Country
- UK
- Tracks
- 11, 48:40
In the issue
It set the production standard the genre would be measured against for decades.
Loveless is shoegaze's magnum opus, recorded over roughly two years at nineteen different studios at a reported cost of £250,000. Released in November 1991, it set the production standard the genre would be measured against for decades. Kevin Shields would record a guitar part, listen back, decide the tone was wrong, and start again—a process that nearly bankrupted the label that funded it.
How it was made
The sessions became shoegaze's creation myth. Kevin Shields entered the studio in 1989 with a vision that consumed him. "After the first seven weeks we had the basic tracks all down to everything—pretty much everything bar one song," he explained in a 1992 interview. "Because of that we were always in a position where we could just bang it out but we never wanted to." Alan McGee watched the bills mount with growing horror, later saying the album 'was the reason Creation almost went under.' When "Soon" was released on the Glider EP in 1990, it reached number 2 on the UK Indie Chart despite being, in Brian Eno's words, "the vaguest music ever to have been a hit." McGee dropped My Bloody Valentine shortly after Loveless was released, unable to afford another Kevin Shields production. But what emerged was transcendent—the Citizen Kane of shoegaze.
Listen
Track list
- A1Only Shallow4:18
- A2Loomer2:38
- A3Touched0:57
- A4To Here Knows When5:31
- A5When You Sleep4:12
- A6I Only Said5:34
- B1Come In Alone3:59
- B2Sometimes5:19
- B3Blown a Wish3:37
- B4What You Want5:33
- B5Soon7:01
The label
Alan McGee's Creation released the Jesus and Mary Chain's first single, "Upside Down," and went on to sign My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Slowdive, making it the scene's central label. Loveless's reported £250,000 budget nearly bankrupted it. McGee dropped My Bloody Valentine after Loveless and, as he turned toward Britpop and Oasis, dropped Slowdive after Pygmalion in 1995.
More by My Bloody Valentine in the issues
- Isn't Anything1988
- m b v2013