alex maiolo wrote:mr.arrison wrote:1. My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless"
so overwrought with 96 tracks of compressed effects that it is god-like.
But "awful quality?"
Please explain more.
-A
I knew someone would challenge me on this.
It's the first album I ever heard where I knew computer software was involved and made the sound contained inside possible. Seeing MBV live proved they were indeed a nauseatingly loud rock band. I think the production on "Loveless" gave many a shoegazer the idea that MBV wasn't ferocious and brutal while being simultaneously gauzy and beautiful. I think the gauziness comes through on the recording, but the ferocity is lost. This lack of documented perverse-mind fucking ferociousness and brutality provided fodder for many pale imitators of shoegaze to carbon-copy the Loveless approach- making the way for many wussy, spineless, stare-at-my-shoes and strum a Hagstrom through a Marshall JCM800 with tons-of-pedals.
MBV was a band that made me physically ill to watch live. Loveless is "warbly" but it doesn't make my neck sweat nor does it make me the least bit uncomfortable. It's soft.
example: guitars don't sound like guitars (SOOOoo heavily processed), the drums aren't really drums- they are triggered samples (I think), and layers and layers of compressed and processed guitar stacked on top of each other sort of give you the audio equivalent of a really dense fudge chip chocolate cookie drenched in liqueur. I wouldn't call it a "dynamic" record at all (ever seen the waveform of one of the Loveless songs?) Regardless, a colossal album.
Another example on a lower-fidelity scale would be Dinosaur Jr.s "You're Living All Over Me". Awful recording, like coagulated chocolate pudding but a tremendous album.
