My Bloody Valentine - ep's 1988-1991

 

Let's start at the beginning. The first time I heard my bloody valentine was in 1988 on the John Peel radio show. The song was 'you made me realise'. Things were never the same for a young evlkeith. I won't even attempt to describe how great it is, but the emotional power it still holds over me, even to this day, is immense. It's one of those rare songs that I liked the first time I heard it and continued to like it for ever after. Give it a listen and see what you think.

They'd set the bar so high that they would struggle to even get close again. The singles are, as you'd expect seeing as though b-sides are also included, a bit of a mixed bag. The gems are: 'i believe', 'don't ask why' and 'off your face'. CD2 is a bit of a waste of time apart from 'how do you do it'.

So what do my bloody valentine sound like? At their best: guitars distorted beyond all recognition coupled with barely audible - and definitely undecipherable - harmonically entwined male and female voices. At their worst: a dirge worthy of PJ Harvey. I think I'm right in saying that shoegazing started with my bloody valentine. Not sure if that's a good thing or not. But without them we wouldn't have had Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Pale Saints and Lush.

'soon' is an oddity in this collection. The rest of the tracks are fairly timeless. And some of 'soon' is too. It contains many of the requisite my bloody valentine classic features but also contains a godawful riff that sounds like something from 'Step On' by The Happy Mondays placing it firmly in the early 90s. The drums are not much better either.

As with Leatherface's inability to ever topple the greatness of 'Razorblades and Aspirin', my bloody valentine had already hit their peak with 'you made me realise' but there were still some more glorious moments to come...

evlkeith