An obligatory review of My Bloody Valentine's mbv

If you've paid any attention to the music press over the last four days, you've likely come across the name of one of the most mythologized and celebrated bands of the 90s. After nearly 22 years My Bloody Valentine have finally released their ridiculously anticipated follow-up to 1991's Loveless. Especially since the rise of taste-making sites like Pitchfork (who ranked Loveless as the second best album of the 90s, after OK Computer), MBV's sophomore release has become something of an institution. Listening to someone talk about the first time they heard Loveless inevitably brings up all kinds of nostalgic platitudes; it's basically the musical equivalent of your 11-year-old self's first wet-dream and, for a lot of us, it's an event that's fondly remembered.

By the time I first encountered My Bloody Valentine I'd already developed a boyish love for the liquid swell of guitar effects that I'd come to associate with bands like the Smashing Pumpkins. I later realized this sound was the hallmark of a loosely defined genre called "shoegaze." It made all kinds of sense. I suddenly understood what was so great about Siamese Dream: it successfully ripped off the sound--the perfect blending of androgynous vocals and textured guitar layers--that Kevin Shields had perfected two years earlier. The Smashing Pumpkins used Loveless's sonic innovations for different ends, but Billy Corgan did, after all, seek out Alan Moulder (who had engineered Loveless) to mix the Siamese Dream. At the time, anything connected to that album was pretty revelatory for me and MBV was no exception. Even the record store clerk who helped me find the CD was excited for me: "I'll help you, but only because you're buying Loveless, the best album ever made." Loveless's aesthetic was more significant for my own taste than I could have known. And as a cultural document, it served as a key to understanding what I loved best about music of the early 90s.

20 years later and My Bloody Valentine's new release, mbv, is pretty damn good too. It's the unmistakable work of an incredibly influential band, picking up more or less where their 1991 record left off. Upon first listen, it seemed more song-driven than I was expecting, but as several reviews have pointed out, the nine track album presents its songs in three groups of three. The first triad is composed of songs that extend the grainy guitar swirls of Loveless. mbv's ethereal opener, "She Found Now" unfolds like a sequel to Loveless's "Sometimes," while "Only Tomorrow" follows the same shrill guitar hook into oblivion, nicely leading into lumbering chord progressions of "Who Sees You." The next triad is made up of songs that feature vocals by Belinda Butcher. "New You" is the surprising highlight of this middle block in part because it's the closest mbv gets to conventional song structure: it's instantly catchy and melodic, almost danceable. But, as always, the point isn't to craft a good pop song; it's to push frequencies to their limits.



In the end, it's not the song, but the sound that counts. And that's clearly what's going on in the final set of tracks, which become progressively more disorienting and difficult to digest. "In Another Way" features another gorgeous set of vocals from Butcher but is noticeably more noise-heavy; "Nothing Is" fulfills its nihilistic title as it wordlessly rolls over thudding guitars and an intense, pummelling drum line; and, although Shields returns to vocal duties on "Wonder 2," the album's closing track is the closest MBV have come to sounding like a helicopter base. As it ends, you can almost see them flying out of range and out of view.

There's something both satisfying and confounding about mbv. Perhaps it's because so many of us have stubbornly held onto Loveless's aura that the new album comes across sounding like a timeless artifact: evidence that My Bloody Valentine haven't changed, that the freshest sounds from 20 years ago can still be recovered and reconstituted. But as a friend of mine pointed out, My Bloody Valentine don't freeze time, they distort it beyond recognition. Rather than some recovered aura, it's Kevin Sheilds' ability to play with time and sound that draws the connecting line between Isn't Anything, Loveless, and mbv. Most fans talk about listening to MBV as though its a religious experience, a kind of escape from lived reality. By contrast, I think MBV have managed to produce the opposite: mbv isn't the sound of transcendent departure--it's the sound of immanent arrival.

It's 2012 and I'm going to my first Smashing Pumpkins concert

Tonight I will see the Smashing Pumpkins perform at Rexall Place in Edmonton, AB. They were my favourite band from grade 7 to the beginning of university. Over the last year I've been rediscovering their early material, thanks to a series of excellent reissues that collect rare b-sides, demos, and concert footage. It's the both the best and the worst time to be a loyal Pumpkins fan. While the band's legacy is being repackaged and canonized for a new generation of listeners, Billy Corgan's current version of the band has begun a cross-Canada tour to promote its new album Oceania. He's given some remarkably even-handed interviews lately, but shortly after Oceana's release, Billy had this to say about the whole reunion tour thing, which is decidedly not what he's doing:

There are those bands that are essentially coming back only to make money — playing their old albums, and maybe somewhere in the back of their minds they’re thinking there might be a future. I am not in that business, obviously. I condemn anybody who’s in that business but doesn’t admit [he's] in that business. When Soundgarden came back and they just played their old songs, great. I was a fan of Soundgarden, but call it for what it is. They’re just out there to have one more round at the till; same with Pavement and these other bands.

Soundgarden has just announced an album of new material, and the dudes in Pavement never pretended that they weren't coming back to make money. Never mind that. Billy will always find someone to resent. He's had a rough go of it. When he released his one and only official solo album TheFutureEmbrace back in 2005, he also bought full page ads in the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune, where he revealed his desire to "renew and revive" the Smashing Pumpkins. Unsurprisingly, most of his former bandmates didn't take the bait. Jimmy Chamberlin, his former drummer, was the only ex-Pumpkin to answer the call. The immediate fruits of their lame reunion were displayed with pomp and grandeur on the epically bad Zeitgeist (2007), an album so forgettable that I'm just leave it there. Since then, Jimmy has abandoned ship and the group currently touring as the Smashing Pumpkins is about as far from resembling my favourite band as it's ever been. 

I became a Pumpkins fan during the last years of the 90s, and I was 12 years old when I finally got my hands on a tarnished copy of 1995's Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Unfortunately, I was a few years too late to see the band peak (both in terms of coolness and commercial success). At the time of Melon Collie's release I was in grade 3 and thought that Sting's solo material was about as good as you could get. But I adapted quickly, and by 1998 I was ready for Adore (the album which, for most critics and fans, was the band's biggest misstep and the beginning of the end). Despite the fact that the Pumpkins quickly became my teenage obsession, I never managed to see the band perform live. Pretty tragic, I know. That's kind of how it goes when the closest city to your small town is Winnipeg (not exactly a regular stop for most arena rock tours) and all your friends have either moved on to nu-metal (see Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, etc.) or don't really listen to "secular" rock music in the first place.

So here I am at 26, finally able to see my favourite band in the flesh and, as to be expected, I'm feeling pretty ambivalent about it. Most serious Pumpkins fans who've stuck with the band this long recognize that it hasn't always been the Billy Corgan show. Meanwhile a lot of casual fans and critics consider the band's original lineup -- D'arcy Wretzky, James Iha, and Jimmy Chamberlin -- to be fairly inconsequential. When reviews for the new Smashing Pumpkins album, Oceania, started rolling in, many were quick to point out how similar it sounds to the early Pumpkins. Such critics are, of course, completely wrong. While Oceania is not the heavy mess of guitar sludge that Zeitgeist proved to be, it's still overloaded with gaudy guitar layering and Billy's vocals are still too polished. For some reason, this is all that some critics need to draw a comparison between Oceania and Siamese Dream. Blasphemy, I say! Still, this kind of comparison to the band's glory days is probably what Billy was going for with Oceania (incidentally, it was also what he was going for with Zeitgeist, but we'll do him a favour and forget about it), so I'm glad he's been able to read some positive reviews. 

I'm of the opinion that the original lineup was actually quite unique and had a larger role in the band's sound than Billy has always claimed. Jimmy has often been compared to a gorilla behind a drum kit, but he has jazz training and probably more natural finesse than any of the other major drummers from the alt-rock era. James and D'arcy were also crucial pieces in the Pumpkin puzzle (even though, as Billy famously claimed, they rarely played their own instruments on Pumpkins recordings). D'arcy sang on Gish and Melon Collie and James wrote half a dozen quality songs that mostly appear as b-sides (if they appear at all); but, even if they didn't contribute directly to the music, their presence significantly improved the band's overall aesthetic. They were both unquestionably cool; cool in a way that Billy never could be. I'm also tempted to think that they had some editorial input. Billy may have called the shots -- he may have done it his way from start to finish -- but part of me thinks that their mere presence was enough to force Billy to rethink some of those first impulses. 

Presently, Billy is in complete control of his band, each of its highly skilled members handpicked (most notably, his current drummer won a try-out, despite being only 19 years old at the time) and the latest results aren't great. His guitarist Jeff Schroeder seems like a good fit, but he'll never stare you down like James, and I doubt that he ever really departs from Billy's artistic vision. No surprise, then, that Oceania is a heavily compressed mess of aimless riffing and spiritual platitudes: better than Zeitgeist, but still not as good as the Zwan's Mary Star of the Sea (2003). Billy may be embarrassed about Zwan (his attempt to form a cool indie rock band after the Pumpkins broke up), which had its own clash of egos, despite their initial appearance as a happy family (members included Paz Lenchantin, David Pajo, and Matt Sweeney). Presently, however, any strife on stage or in the studio is pure Billy, and I think his most recent material is all the worse for it. The Pumpkins in 2012 are a homogenous blob.

You can imagine my disappointment when I heard that the setlist for the Oceania tour would be made up of the entire album (this is the only reason I've been listening to Oceania) and would close with five or six classic songs from the band's golden era. Of course, these selections will probably be tracks that I don't much care for -- Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Disarm, XYU, Today, etc.  But I'm trying to keep an open mind and remember that this is probably the closest I will ever come to seeing my old, favourite band live, even if its members look and sound nothing like the band that I spent the better half of my life obsessing over. 

What I won't be expecting is anything from Adore. It polarized fans and drove casual listeners away. By the time Billy tried to advance his band's heavily textured sound on Machina: The Machines of God (2000), most people had stopped caring. But with Adore, the band was heading in the right direction. They were maturing. The claim may not be quite as contentious as I imagine, but I've always considered Adore as part of a near-perfect artistic progression that Billy ended up rejecting part-way through. The album remains consistent with what came before it: it showcases Billy's inward gaze, but this time, we see it at its most precarious and damaged; and unlike Siamese Dream it doesn't fall back on the booming electric guitars or the cheap irony that was everywhere in the early 90s. Aesthetically, it's the band's most cohesive release, with sparse arrangements and even sparser packaging. No colour, no egos. Just a bunch of acoustic/electronic meditations on Sex and Death. 

This is what I won't be expecting to see at Rexall Place tonight. Instead, it's going to be a working through of resentment and delusion (a few days ago, it was announced that Smashing Pumpkins show in Vancouver had been cancelled, probably due to a lack of ticket sales). But I will be there, basking in pale glow of Billy Corgan's newly energized ego, wearing my Smashing Pumpkins tshirt from the Adore era, gritting my teeth and hoping that someone else in the audience notices my hardcore loyalty to the old, fragile ideal of the band as I first knew them: pretentious as hell, but challenging and beautiful.

valentine

On a day dedicated to last-minute gifts and forced romance, Siamese Dream, the 1994 album by my beloved Smashing Pumpkins, does the martyred saint (Valentine) a small degree of justice. Not only does it capture the band (well, its cheif songwriter, anyway) at their best; it's features all the best parts of the early nineties grunge aesthetic (musically, visually, etc.). Siamese Dream surges with antagonism and resentment (after all this is the early nineties), but, like Gish before it and Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness after it, Siamese Dream ends with a schmaltzy doozy of lovesong: "Luna," comes after almost sixty minutes of emotional turmoil, existential uncertainty, and full-on rage.

Immediately following the abrasive, irritating taunt of "Sweet Sweet," (which is, of course, anything but), "Luna" is the opposite: sincere, but certainly not innocent. I'll be the first to admit that Billy Corgan has produced a massive amount unlistenable mush, but "Luna" isn't as naive or deluded as it first comes across. The popular myth surrounding the songwriting and production of Siamese Dream emphasizes Corgan's depression, which is noticeably channelled here. On any other album, a song like this might be considered overly sentimental, but on Siamese Dream it arrives quite unexpectedly--it's appearance is almost graceful--what begins like a tragedy ends as a comedy.

new music / highly anticipated

Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (June 8)
Apart from wonderful new albums from the National, LCD Soundsystem and Frog Eyes, I'm currently enthralled with Toronto-based electro-pop duo Crystal Castles' self-titled sophomore effort. I'm finding it far easier to digest than their debut. With songs like "Baptism," "Empathy" and "Suffocation," it's more melodic and far more listenable than its predecessor (which I didn't much care for). There's still plenty of vocal manipulation from Alice Glass ("Violent Dreams") and the occasional screetch of static ("Doe Deer"), but everything that first piqued my interest in Crystal Castles has been channelled through a poppier medium. "Celestia" is slice of shoe-gazey dreampop (think Ladytron crossed with Slowdive) that's even more successful in its execution than Bradford Cox's recent work with Atlas Sound. Grinding basslines, ecstatic synths and shoegazer tendencies? They've finally won me over.

Here are some other upcoming releases that I'm REALLY looking forward to:

Menomena - Mines (June 27)

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (August 2)

Smashing Pumpkins - Teargarden by Kaleidescope Volume 1: Songs for a Sailor
Ha! Just kidding. Can you believe that album title? I can't help imagining Billy Corgan dressed up in a sailor suit. It'll be Corgan's first release with his new drummer, the 17-year-old replacement for Jimmy Chamberlin. And apparently it was released May 25. I don't think anyone noticed. Perhaps it was the unforgiveable album cover, which looks as though it was ripped out of a kid's colouring book.

love is just a four letter word

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music? (from High Fidelity)

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, another stupid holiday that, like Halloween, made more sense when I was seven than it does now: handing out my cheap, superhero-themed Valentine's cards at school and carefully preparing my own special Valentine's card receptacle like the rest my classmates. I could get behind that.

These days, the obvious thing to do is make a list of my favourite break-up songs. Some are laughable, others are frightening, but all of them share the same heaping spoonful of self-pity.

1. Here - Pavement
"And I'm the only one who laughs / at your jokes when they are so bad / and your jokes are always bad / but they're not as bad as this."

2. Divorce Song - Liz Phair
"I would have stayed in your bed / For the rest of my life / Just to prove I was right / That it's harder to be friends than lovers / And you shouldn't try to mix the two / Cause if you do it and you're still unhappy / Then you know that the problem is you / And its true that I stole your lighter / And its also true that I lost the map / But when you said that I wasn't worth talking to / I had to take your word on that."

3. Nobody's Fault But My Own - Beck
"And on the day you said it's true / Some love holds, some gets used / Tried to tell you I never knew / It could be so sweet / Who could ever be so cruel, / Blame the devil for the things you do / It's such a selfish way to lose / The way you lose these wasted blues / These wasted blues."

4. I Don't Want To Get Over You - Magnetic Fields
"I could listen to my therapist, pretend you don't exist / and not have to dream of what I dream of; I could listen / to all my friends and go out again and pretend it's enough, / or I could make a career of being blue."

5. Rid of Me - PJ Harvey
"You're not rid of me . . . . Till you say don't you wish you never never met her."

6. Pink Triangle - Weezer
"When I think I've found a good old-fashioned girl / Then she put me in my place / If everyone's / a little queer / Can't she be a little straight?"

7. Damage - Yo La Tengo
"The damage is done."

8. Cato As A Pun - Of Montreal
"I can't even pretend that you are my friend / What has happened to you and I / And don't say that I have changed / 'Cause man, of course I have"

9. Get Gone - Fiona Apple
"You got your game, made your shot, and you got away / With a lot, but I'm not turned-on / So put away that meat you're selling."

10. Forever For Her (Is Over For Me) - White Stripes
"I blew it / And if I knew what to do, then I'd do it / But the point that I have, I'll get to it / And forever for her is over for me / Forever, just the word that she said that means never / To be with / another together / And with the weight of a feather it tore into me"

(Honourary Mention) An Ode To No One - Smashing Pumpkins
"I took a virgin mary axe to his sweet baby jane, / lost my innocence to a no good girl, scratch my / face with anvil hands, and coil my tongue around a bumblebee mouth /And I give it all back to you." Alright Billy. I'm sure it all makes sense in your head.

Below: A new video from my favourite album of 2009 (Two Dancers by Wild Beasts) for one of its best tracks, "We Still Got The Taste Dancin' On Our Tongues." This video instantly brings to mind the movie Gladiator - remember Russel Crowe floating over those wheat fields? - and the music video for one of my least favourite gen-x anthems, "Disarm" - remember seeing Billy, James, D'arcy and Jimmy floating over suburbia whist playing their instruments and channeling the angst of a thousand broken teenagers? Of course you do!

all hallows eve (a list of sorts)

It's a pretty safe bet that at most of tonight's Halloween parties people will make a REALLY big deal out of Michael Jackson's Thriller. Ahh...he's back from the dead! I also wouldn't be surprised to hear an ironic shout out to Bobby Pickett's "Monster Mash." I used to hate the song, but now it reminds me of my favourite episode of Freaks and Geeks. And you can expect there to be a lot of folks dressed up like characters from Donnie Darko - especially the combination of a skeleton body suit with a zip up hoody from American Apparel. When I saw it in grade 10, Donnie Darko defined Halloween for me: the music (both the original score and the songs by Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, Tears for Fears, etc.), the eerie suburban setting, the freaky costumes, the whole atmosphere really. So what if the plot about time travel is pretty much incomprehensible and the straight to video sequel looks like absolute garbage. If nothing else, Donnie Darko captured the mood (see Bat for Lashes' video for "What's a Girl to do"), the macabre spirit of 80's for all of us who were 20 years too late.

Here's my list of albums that go bump in the night. In other words, it'd be a grave mistake to spin these records on a sunny afternoon. It's probably a good thing I'm not having a party because, as you can see from this list, it'd be a real downer...














Adore - Smashing Pumpkins (1998)
This dark but unexpected departure for the band was the first without their previous drummer, J.C., and a quickly turned into therapeutic project for Corgan after the loss of his mother. Featuring late Victorian style photography and oodles of over the top gothic costumes, skeletal song structures, flirations with electronica, and barely-there vocals, this subdued departure was also the Pumpkins' last great album.















Random Spirit Lover - Sunset Rubdown (2007)
Everyone seems to have forgotten about this album, now that the critically acclaimed Dragonslayer is out. Personally, I prefer the extended meanderings of Spenser Krug to the tightly wound pop of the band's latest release. This was an album that channelled a host of spirits in carnivalesque celebration.















Disintegration - The Cure (1989)
Seems like an obvious choice, but what's so bad about that? Droning synths and lush orchestration. The Cure have a lot of albums that could be on this list, but Disintegration remains my favourite, probably because I discovered it at the perfect time.















Limbo, Panto - Wild Beasts (2008)
Though this year's Two Dancers is touted as a step forward for the band, I was pretty satisfied with their heavier debut. Songs like "His Grinning Skull" and "She Purred, While I Grrred" can't be replicated - the seedy nihilism of Limbo, Panto is almost intoxicating.















Mezzanine - Massive Attack (1998)
I don't think there's a better rainy day album. It's industrial: slick, lethal ("Inertia Creeps") and all of a sudden so chilled out ("Exchange"). The first time I heard "Teardrop" I kept it on repeat for hours. This album manages to evoke a wide spectrum of moods, while maintaining a stylish core of consumer malaise on the road to perdition.















Ocean Rain - Echo and the Bunnymen (1984)
I must confess, I only really got into this album after seeing Donnie Darko, but since then I've sung its praises. "Killing Moon" and "Thorn of Crowns" are perfectly sinister, full of epic ambition and metaphysical jargon.















Maxinquaye - Tricky (1995)
He sampled "Suffer" by the Smashing Pumpkins (appropriately named "Pumpkin") and hasn't come close to this sort of consistency or execution since this was released in the mid-90s. He named the album after his mother, Maxin Quaye. "Aftermath" is undoubtedly one of coolest tracks ever, managing to sample both Blade Runner and Marvin Gaye. And there's a flute! Tricky gets all the credit, but its really his then-girlfriend Martina Topley-Bird, whose angelic vocals contrast Tricky's grit, that steals the show.