Loveless

by My Bloody Valentine

Loveless cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: 4 November 1991
  • Label: Creation SireWarner Bros.
  • Country: Ireland
  • Length: 48:36
  • Community rating: 4.39/5 from 175 ratings

Artists on this release: Kevin Shields, Colm Ó Cíosóig, Bilinda Butcher, Debbie Googe

Album Notes & Community Reviews

A landmark of the shoegaze genre, 'Loveless' is defined by its revolutionary approach to guitar sound and production, burying pop melodies under dense, dissonant layers of noise. Masterminded by Kevin Shields during a notoriously protracted and expensive recording process, the album pioneered a 'glide guitar' technique and blended sampled drums with ethereal, androgynous vocals that function as an additional texture in the disorienting mono mix. This virtual reinvention of the guitar's sonic possibilities, achieved through meticulous studio manipulation rather than common effects pedals, cemented the album's status as a profoundly influential work in alternative music.

Genres

Descriptors: noisy, dreamy, reverb-heavy, wall-of-sound, distorted

Tracklist

  1. only shallow (3:41)
  2. loomer
  3. touched
  4. to here knows when
  5. when you sleep
  6. i only said
  7. come in alone
  8. sometimes (5:19)
  9. blown a wish
  10. what you want
  11. soon

Credits

  • Kevin Shields - vocals, guitar, sampling, production, music by, producer, mixed by, engineer
  • Bilinda Butcher - vocals, guitar, lyrics
  • Colm Ó Cíosóig - drums, sampler, composer, engineer
  • Debbie Googe - bass
  • Nick Robbins - engineer
  • Harold Burgon - engineer
  • Alan Moulder - mixing, engineer, engineer [assistant]
  • Anjali Dutt - engineer
  • Guy Fixsen - engineer
  • Dick Meaney - mixing, engineer
  • Darren Allison - mixing, engineer
  • My Bloody Valentine - design concept [cover idea]
  • Ann Marie Shields - coordinator [coordination]
  • Adrian Bushby - engineer, engineer [assisted by]
  • Andy Wilkinson - engineer, engineer [assistant]
  • Charles Steel - engineer, engineer [assistant]
  • Hugh Price - engineer, engineer [assistant]
  • Ingo Vauk - engineer, engineer [assistant]
  • Nick Addison - engineer, engineer [assistant]
  • Nick Savage - engineer, engineer [assistant]
  • Pascale Giovetto - engineer, engineer [assistant]
  • Tony Falter - engineer, engineer [assistant]
  • Angus Cameron - photography by

More from My Bloody Valentine: full discography