| abstract
| - 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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