Comments on: My Bloody Valentine, Loveless

By: Shaggy kid grows up, listens to his adolescent gut-pit « Hipsters United

Shaggy kid grows up, listens to his adolescent gut-pit « Hipsters United — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:44:20 +0000

[...] July 23, 2008 Posted by jjb in analysis, blogging, my bloody valentine, siamese dream. trackback This is so great, and so central to what (for me) HU is all about, that I am going to blockquote six [...]

By: sandrar

sandrar — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:44:31 +0000

Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. Cheers! Sandra. R.

By: HU asks: How cool is WaPo music blogger David Malitz? « Hipsters United // a blog about the Smashing Pumpkins

Wed, 06 May 2009 21:22:46 +0000

[...] rock-crit world that they are entering. This thesis is similar to that laid out in this post on the blog Thirteen Birds vs. the Record Desk, in which it is argued that musicians signal that [...]

By: Thirteen Birds

Thirteen Birds — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:47:18 +0000

Just a quick quibble, Mr. Ramone — I’m not really talking about “the critics” in my little essay. I’m not sure that I even mention them more than once or twice. If anything, I’m carrying on about “the audience.”

I think that “the critics” get a bad rap because they’re the ones we blame for “inconsistencies” in our musical outlook. But really, the whole Loveless *thing* was something that I got much more from musicians, music nerds, and folks at the community radio station where I deejayed. In many respects, this post is about the way people define their tastes using only the agreed-upon cool records.

As has come up before at the Record Desk, I am 30. That means that I was square in the target audience when alternative was invented. Too young and too midwestern to know about Sonic Youth and Factory Records first hand. So yes, the Pumpkins and all that were a “gateway drug” for me also — a way to bridge the gap between the classic/hard rock I was into in 7th grade and the punk rock and “indie” that I would later be into. Still, it’s records like Siamese Dream and Vitology that were the sound of my highschool parking lot. That could very well be a regional thing, too.

Anyway, no one’s saying you’re a douchebag for liking Loveless. I like it. As freely admitted, I LOVE plenty of *those* records — Marquee Moon, Raw Power, etc. I’m just saying that sometimes we give more credit to the “cool” stuff like MBV while setting aside the now unhip bands.

I mean, how many hipsters will rave about Parsons and the Flying Burrito Bros. while making Grateful Dead jokes — neverminding that American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead sound a lot like the stuff Parsons was doing?

Thanks for your comment. Thanks for your patronage.

By: Paco Ramone

Paco Ramone — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:14:57 +0000

Hmm, looking through my comment it seems as though I’m contradicting my opening statement by saying that I bought Loveless cause the critics told me to, but it wasn’t exactly like that…though i was aware of it’s critical standing (at least in the shoegaze world) it was more of an impulse buy than a premeditated, “I expect this thing to change my life” buy…which probably contributed a lot to the whole “wow where did THIS come from” aspect…ummm maybe your article would prove more sympathetic to me if it changed its tone to how critics “damn with great praise”
(setting unmeetable expectations, saying stupid shit) rather than the whole tired “Loveless is soooo overrated you’re a poser and an asshole for pretending it’s not some elitist commodity designed to inflate your intellectual standing” thing. I mean, I get exactly what you’re talking about, the exact same thing happened to me with Dylan, but some of these critically hyped records come back and bite me in the ass just when I turn my back on them (Portishead’s DUMMY comes to mind) which is always nice…sorry for ramblin’ on…I just genuinely love Loveless and don’t like to be called a douchebag for saying so…

By: Paco Ramone

Paco Ramone — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:56:42 +0000

I definitely agree with your overall point (about first-hand listening love vs. critic-mandated appreciation) but what I most definitely disagree with is this whole “Loveless is overrated” backlash deal. I mean, if you’re going to criticize the record, do so while talking about the music (how there’s almost no bass frequencies in the album, the lack of diversity in songwriting, the shitty drum sound-all this coming from a huge, HUGE fan of the album and Creation-era MBV in general) and not just about how sore you are that hipster-douchebags blather on and on about THIS album specifically and not your beloved Siamese Dream. And christ, I loved the Pumpkins and I always will be mindful of the fact that they were the first band that exposed me to what’s probably my favorite musical sub-genre, that whole shimmering big alternative sensitive guitar thing, but I must say that I remember listening to “Cherub Rock” on headphones and just thinking that there was a whole musical world whence that song came from, one where names like “Sonic Youth” are parlayed on a daily basis, and later on having my initial expectactions met and far, far surpassed by stuff like Loveless. I mean, for me the Pumpkins were more of a gateway into that world than anything else…maybe that was the case for the people you refer to in this article? There’s nothing wrong with a little retrospective reevalution, and I must say that in my personal experience, Loveless is a far more enjoyable, rewarding, mystifying, gorgeous, life-affirming, etc. record than Siamese Dream, and if I don’t play it nearly as often as I did when I was 15-16, it’s probably cause of extreme overexposure (extreme as in “playing only shallow over and over again at full volume on headphones for the first 4 hours after hearing it out of sheer awe and not beacause I so wanted to be considered cool”) in my case, just the way it works out between you and SD; just because I learned about it through all the critical hype doesn’t make it any less great for ME…oh christ now I’M the sore one…

By: Hipsters United // a blog about the Smashing Pumpkins » Blog Archive » Shaggy kid grows up, listens to his adolescent gut-pit

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:34:34 +0000

[...] This is so great, and so central to what (for me) HU is all about, that I am going to blockquote six paragraphs of it right here, unhidden behind a jump. This much is still not quite the whole thing, so do yourself a favor and go read it all on the music blog Thirteen Birds vs. The Record Desk: If you throw a rock at bunch of shaggy kids in American Apparel gear, you’ll likely hit someone whose band *totally* has an ambient My Bloody Valentine thing going on. Of course, this claim is likely complete bullshit – this kid’s band probably sounds like U2 or the Cure. However, My Bloody Valentine is a much more acceptable band to talk about as an influence. They signify a certain kind of cool – cool that is decadent and European and detached from issues of pop and commerce. In short, invoking My Bloody Valentine means that you have the *right* idea of what is cool. Your sensibilities are in order. You are not some kind of “rawk” obsessed meathead. Basically, name dropping My Bloody Valentine proves that you are the sort of person who should be forming a band. [...]