8. My Bloody ValentineLoveless
Again, something that gets to me every time I play it. People call it shoegaze, whatever, but what they did with that album is utter perfection. My daughter is much cleverer than I am, and she loves her music too. But she doesn’t get my adoration of this “odd stuff”, like The Fall, music that is slightly out of tune. She can’t cope with that. To me the real, great art is to put that odd stuff in there, and that makes it beautiful, great art. You won’t hear that in many pop tunes because that is often music by numbers, it’s meant to be like that. I’ve realised some people just aren’t wired to take either perfection or the out of tune stuff. If I would have listened to Wham! when I was at Chelsea, I would actually get a headache. But ‘Upside Down’ by the Jesus and Mary Chain? Fine! This is the wrong way round for many people.
Anyway, I didn’t get to see My Bloody Valentine at the time but saw them when they reformed and that was just amazing! Ear damaging, but yeah, there you go… When you work with that music it stands out too. I DJ a bit and there was that great mix of ‘Soon’ by Andy Weatherall. Because I like mixing I mixed both versions together and it sounds brilliant. If you get the levels right it works fantastically well, and it can run on for about nine minutes or so. But when you start mixing, you start seeing the things you’re doing and I don’t want to kill the magic, I really don’t! Though I can read music, and play clarinet I’m not a talented musician and I don’t want to go too deeply into it and take the magic of music away. When I dissect music I’m losing it.
Loveless is one of those albums that I decide not to listen to for six months or so. To leave it, not to go over the edge with them.
