Isn't anything

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Isn't anything
My Bloody Valentine studio album

Publication
(s)

November 1, 1988

admission

Spring-Summer 1988

Label (s)
  • Relativity Records (USA)

Format (s)

CD , LP , MC

Genre (s)

Indie rock , shoegazing

Title (number)

12

running time

37:48

occupation Electric guitar , vocals : Kevin Shields,
electric guitar , vocals : Bilinda Butcher,
bass guitar : Debbie Googe,
drums : Colm Ó Cíosólg

production

the band, Dave Anderson, Steve Nunn, Alex Russell

Studio (s)

Wales

chronology
Ecstasy
(1987) 		Isn't anything Tremolo (EP)
1991

Isn't Anything is the debut album by Irish shoegazing band My Bloody Valentine . It was released on Creation Records in November 1988 , after the band had only released extended plays , singles and mini-albums for three years .

History of origin

After the band's original vocalist, Dave Conway, left the band in 1987, he was replaced by Bilinda Butcher. So the band continued with their noise-pop style for a while until Kevin Shields led the band back on more experimental paths. The band found out what was possible with the recording techniques when they signed their recording deal with Creation Records in 1988 . The first fruits of this willingness to experiment were found on the single / EP You Made Me Realize from July 1988, until Isn't Anything followed later in autumn. Most of the album was recorded in a studio in Wales. When the album was recorded in a short period of two weeks, the band only slept about two hours a night. Bilinda Butcher described the effect of this lack of sleep on her singing:

“It was often half past seven in the morning when we recorded the singing. By then I was mostly asleep and had to be woken up to sing. Maybe that's why it sounds so sleepy. I usually try to remember my dreams when I sing. "

- Bilinda Butcher

These extreme production conditions intensified with the band's follow-up album, the shoegazing milestone Loveless from 1991.

style

The album contains elements of the ethereal ("Lose My Breath", "No More Sorry" and "All I Need"), noise-rock- like guitar songs ("(When You Wake) You're Still In A Dream", "Feed." Me with Your Kiss ”,“ You Never Should ”) and dream pop melodies (“ Several Girls Galore ”,“ Sueisfine ”). Dave Thompson , in his book Alternative Rock, described the album's sound as "dry-ice-cutting, intense guitar drones and violent nods in a contagious hardcore soup, creating a contradicting trance-relaxed feel. Noise becomes beauty, because the feedback is placed over the singing and then again over the feedback ad infinitum ” . The song "Several Girls Galore" was described as a " Cubist attempt à la The Jesus and Mary Chain ".

The album became a huge influence for many bands, which would later be described as shoegazing .

reception

The album was positively received at the beginning and has since blossomed into one of the best albums of all time for many critics. So it listed The Guardian in its list 1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die . The list The top 40 Irish albums of the Irish Times placed the album at # 24 and finished the Guardian also ranked # 16 on the list "Alternative top 100 albums ever". Pitchfork Media selected the album as one of the "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s" (# 22). UNCUT author David Stubbs called "Isn't Anything" "one of the most important, most influential British rock albums of the eighties".

UNCUT author Stephen Troussé said when the album was re-released in 2008: "If there were rock algebra, you could say [My Bloody Valentine] have worked out a new formula including the wicked languor of Mary Chain , the speed-mad urgency of Sonic Youth and anotherdollop ofthe Vaseline sauce. But none of it proves the wild, wistful result. "

Track list

All songs were written by Kevin Shields unless otherwise noted.

  1. Soft as Snow (but Warm Inside) (Shields, Colm Ó Cíosóig) - 2:21
  2. Lose My Breath (Bilinda Butcher, Shields) - 3:37
  3. Cupid Come (Butcher, Shields) - 4:27
  4. (When You Wake) You're Still in a Dream (O'Ciosoig, Shields) - 3:16
  5. No More Sorry (Butcher, Shields) - 2:48
  6. All I Need - 3:04
  7. Feed Me with Your Kiss - 3:54
  8. Sueisfine (Shields, O'Ciosoig) - 2:12
  9. Several Girls Galore (Butcher, Shields) - 2:21
  10. You Never Should - 3:21
  11. Nothing Much to Lose - 3:16
  12. I Can See It (but I Can't Feel It) - 3:10

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Stubbs, David (1999) "Sweetheart Attack: My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything is the Eighties rock album," UNCUT, February 1999
  2. ↑ a b c d Reynolds, Simon (2008) " It's the Opposite of Rock 'n' Roll ", SPIN , August 2008, pp. 78-84
  3. ^ Blashill, Paul (1989) " My Waking Dream ", SPIN , May 1989, p. 12, accessed April 25, 2010
  4. ↑ Engl. Original: Often, when we do the vocals, it's 7:30 in the morning: I've usually fallen asleep and have to be woken up to sing. Maybe that's why it's languorous. I'm usually trying to remember what I've been dreaming about when I'm singing.
  5. ^ Thompson, Dave (2000) Alternative Rock , Miller Freeman, ISBN 0-87930-607-6 , p. 512
  6. ↑ "1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die: Volume 4", The Guardian , November 21, 2007, p. 3
  7. ^ "The top 40 Irish albums," Irish Times , February 29, 2008, p. 4
  8. ^ "Alternative top 100 albums ever," The Guardian , January 29, 1999
  9. ^ " Top 100 Albums of the 1980s, " Pitchfork Media , November 20, 2002, accessed April 25, 2010.
  10. ↑ Troussé, Stephen (2008) " MY BLOODY VALENTINE REISSUES SPECIAL- ISN'T ANYTHING / LOVELESS / THE CORAL SEA ", UNCUT , accessed April 25, 2010.