Introduction: Many regard the mid-80s as the nadir of British creativity in popular music. While bands like U2 were slowly starting to develop sounds that would lead to them dominating the airwaves and innovating the basic idea of a rock n’ roll show*, most of Britain’s inventiveness stayed happily on the fringes. Iron Maiden and Judas Priest revolutionized the Heavy Metal sound and image** while The Smiths created a refuge for the overly read, prone-to-cry pop-music fans. It seemed there was no music for the listener who didn’t want to dawn S&M influenced- leather or spend hours in front of the mirror to apply superfluous amounts of mascara. While nobody at the time seemed to notice, there was a vacuum in all of rock music that would be filled by two of the most influential genres of recent popular music- Britpop and Shoegaze. While the names alone should suggest it, Britpop was more focused on creating a mix between American college rock channeled through British music loyalty like David Bowie, whereas Shoegaze was the refuge of art-rock nerds all around the country who found the verse-chorus-verse style of most rock radio to be a tad dated.
*And well on their way to being the most obnoxiously pretentious band in existence. Also, for all of you generally annoyed by the Rocker-by-day-world-problem-solver-at-night archetype Bono has created, I suggest this for a good chuckle.
** I’m just glad I get to put this on the blog:
Better Album: I had owned The Stones Roses’ eponymous debut and MBV’s Loveless for well over a decade merely as an indicator of sophisticated taste for anyone curious enough to search through my CD collection. The albums themselves left me cold. In the case of the Stone Roses, I felt that bands like Oasis did what they did significantly more efficiently while I couldn’t even get through Loveless without needing an aspirin. But the best thing about music is how the listener is half the equation, and I suppose my exposure to bands like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. made me a patient enough of a consumer to give these albums another chance*.
*That, plus the two albums are breathlessly referred to as two of the greatest albums of British history, and I didn’t like the feeling that I couldn’t “get” why.
The first quality that always sticks with me regarding Loveless is its sheer density. The term “swirling guitars” was created as a result of the LP, and hot damn are there some guitars-a-swirling. Almost every song gives the listener the impression of almost being in a kind of thick brush, MBV being a sort of wind that grabs the listener through the space in between leaves of greenery. A first-time listener might think that it is because of poor recording or production values, but the album was infamously expensive to create and the constant feedback is intentional. “When You Sleep” is about as close as the album gets to a traditional rock song structure, but it also embraces enough of the qualities of MBV- the spectral voice, the hammering guitar line that drives the song like an oscillating bus driving through a graveyard- that it escapes the “obvious single” moniker that can plague these sort of albums. The exploding drums of “Come in Alone” mix beautifully with the album’s most crystalline vocal track to produce a bliss rarely seen in music this intentionally obtuse. Like many of the other tracks, “What You Want” matches a tightly wound anxiety that gives the song a personal feel, but the guitar is simply too kick-ass for the track to consider fodder for pussies and introverts. It all ends with “Soon,” a track whose unexpected danceability* seems to enforce rather than undermine its intensity. While it can take an enormous amount of patience and an openness to multiple listens, Loveless is about as good as rock albums get.
*Although it must be noted that I could never see most of my friends listening, much less dancing, to this album.
On the other side of coin is The Stone Roses, an album that sounds almost confusingly straight-forward to be called “The Greatest British Album of All Time” by NME in 2006. It might have something to do with this album having a great involvement in molding what “straight forward” means. While a lot of songs at first give the listener a similar vibe to The Smiths- the quaint British voice, the acoustic-guitar lead attack, etc.- multiple listens elucidate that if The Smiths were a band born out of angst, The Stone Roses were a band created out of “fuck you” arrogance. “She Bangs the Drum” seems like a Byrds’ song with enough slight electronic effects to feel modern. “Waterfall” shows the band’s ability to harmonize as well as show the pop side of John Squire’s masterful guitar playing, but never builds to its natural* conclusion. “Fool’s Gold” was only on the US version of the album, but remains essential to the band’s catalogue, as it takes the shape of a techno-song yet maintains the lyrical ambivalence and striking guitar line that defines the Roses’ best stuff. It all concludes with “I am the Resurrection,” but I get to that song later in this piece [hint: I really like it]. If there is one problem I have with the album, is that its track listing doesn’t really seem to have any sort of point and thus the LP seems to lack a coherence that a Ziggy Stardust or Sgt. Pepper’s had**. It leads to a saggy middle third of the album, which is a shame because those songs are by no means bad, they just work better as individual songs than are parts of a puzzle.
*Natural here meaning “where I think it should go”- not sure Webster’s would agree.
** I acknowledge both of these are concept albums, and that the lack of overall album structure might be playing right into the detached nonchalance that makes the band as a whole so fucking cool.
I find it odd now that I at one point referred to these albums as the most overrated in rock history, as the hype is justified. Not exactly the stuff you give to a girlfriend or little sister you are trying to get into Rock, but both stand as shining examples of their respective genres. Nonetheless, I think Loveless as an album works as a whole better than TSR; it takes the Pink Floyd approach to album-creation and as a result edges out the more song-centric The Stone Roses.
Better Song: While many critics point to MBV’s “You Made Me Realise” as their best song, I’d suggest that the song isn’t really reflective of what the band was all about. Sure, it kicks ass like a revved Thunderbird that is about to switch into first, but there trademark restraint is lacking, and for somebody that has listened to the band’s catalogue pretty extensively, I don’t think it is a good representation of what they were about. Nonetheless, the song’s mix between cynicism and blunt viciousness deserves a listen:
With all that being said, I think “Soon” is the band at its creative height. The lyrics can be largely dismissed, as the sounds de mots were the clear focus. The song mixes the moans of a bland Smiths song with a beat that precursor’s the rise of dance-rock in the latter 20th century. But the parts are pointless to discuss- MBV is at its best when creating layered songs with all the instruments meshing as if the band was dipped in syrup. This song, however, seems to be one of the few where the band was genuinely innovating and producing something exciting but not out of character- after listening to the song enough, one gets the impression that if the band could get their shit together* their next album would be the OK Computer to Loveless’ The Bends. Enough of my chatter though:
*Which, shockingly, a band named My Bloody Valentine has issues doing.
Love or hate Britpop, one can not argue that some of the songs from the era will undoubtedly stand the test of time with the Rolling Stones and Who numbers who so heavily influenced the era. The most famous example of this is Oasis having two number one hits in America with “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova,” a feat that seems pretty incredibly in retrospect. Sure, Coldplay has put out some songs that have tickled the American public’s ear, but to be frank, I wouldn’t consider Coldplay rock, I’d consider them pop.
That being said, no song of the time touches the Stone Roses’ “I am The Resurrection.” While it would be easy to talk about the flawless rhythm section or the prodigious guitar playing of Squire, the star of the song is its attitude. The song is essentially an 8-minute “fuck you” to the person who clearly devastated the lead singer. Throughout the album, this heartbreak gives some of the lighter numbers a density that maybe misplaced, but the recoil of the other ten songs of The Stone Roses lead to the catharsis, bitterness, and nearly overwhelming power of “I am the Resurrection.” It really is on one of those songs that it is pointless to write about- the song is good enough that it explains its relevance far better than I could with a bitter smile on its face:
“I Am The Resurrection” takes this one, pretty easily.
Who Wins? : As with most of these, it is such a conditional thing to declare a victor definitively, but I think perhaps some of these conditions might make it clear what you the reader would like to listen to. My Bloody Valentine is headphone music for the more attentive listener- if you are a fan of Sonic Youth, Radiohead, or more recently Deerhunter, you’d probably like MBV. If, however, you are more of a sing until you are hoarse type of music listener, The Stone Roses are your band*. Regardless, while both bands’ stories were truncated because lets face it, most musicians this talented are for some reason automatically assholes, the little music they did produce took a pathetic British scene and made it relevant once again.
* Although, conveniently, Ian Brown- the lead singer- rarely stretches his voice, so you can annoy the piss out of your thin-walled neighbors for months to come
