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My Bloody Valentine

Music

A Second-by-Second Guide to My Bloody Valentine's 'm b v'

By Tom Hawking on

If you’ve not been under the proverbial rock and/or on an almighty all-consuming bender for the last few days, you may have heard that My Bloody Valentine released an album over the weekend. The rather uninspiringly titled m b v is the band’s first album since 1991′s epochal Loveless, and as such, it’s had the music world going batshit, so much so that the band’s website crashed under the weight of people trying to download the record. It’s also led to an almighty scramble to get reviews published — but rather than trying to punch out a “definitive” review on the strength of two hasty listens and much cursing of MBV’s servers, we thought we’d settle for doing pretty much exactly what actual fans are doing: hitting “play” for the first time and marveling at the fact that we’re listening to a new My Bloody Valentine album in 2013. OK, so, here we go… … Read More

Music

Where to Start With Shoegaze: 10 Essential Albums

By Tom Hawking on

If you’re like us, you’re probably pretty darn excited about the news that a new My Bloody Valentine album might be out by the end of the week — after all, we’ve been waiting for new material from the shoegaze luminaries since 1991. To celebrate the possibility that the wait might finally be over, we thought we’d take a look back at shoegaze in all its reverb-laden, hypnotic glory. We’ve flipped lovingly through our record collection to pick ten essential examples of the genre, both old and new, encompassing both the 4AD/Creation-centric glory days of the early 1990s and the nu-gaze revival that started a few years back and continues to this day. But this list is just an introduction, so let us know what you’d add. … Read More

Music

The 15 Best Musical Reissues of 2012

By Tom Hawking on

For some reason, the end-of-year listomania is starting early this year — the Guardian has begun its best-of-2012 list already, and we’re sure others will soon be following suit. In the spirit of getting onto getting onto such things ahead of time, then, we thought we’d commence our own end-of-year listing this week with a look at the best of reissues of 2012. In any case, it seems an appropriate time to be looking at reissues, because this month sees the (re-)release of Massive Attack’s classic 1991 debut Blue Lines, an album which we’re very excited to be able to get on nice heavy vinyl. So her are our picks of other reissues we hope you were laying your hands on during 2012. As ever, we’d be interested to hear your additions in the comments section. … Read More

Music

Whoa: New My Bloody Valentine Album Due Out This Year

By Judy Berman on

OK, what? Kevin Shields has been promising us a new My Bloody Valentine album since reuniting the band back in 2007. (Well, technically, he has in fact been teasing a new MBV release since the mid-’90s.) So, while we usually take each morsel of news with a grain of salt, it’s November 7, 2012 and… Read More

Music

10 Bands Whose Shows We Dare You to Sit Through

By Tom Hawking on

With a relative minimum of fanfare, resurgent post-rock overlords Godspeed You! Black Emperor have snuck out an album this week — ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! is their fourth studio album and their first since 2002′s Yanqui U.X.O. We’ve always been big fans of the band, and we’ve jumped at every opportunity to see them live since they got back together in 2010 — their epic shows are the stuff of legend, frequently stretching past two hours and always very, very loud. But we do appreciate that their shows aren’t for everyone, and that even if they are for you, you kinda have to be in the mood for them. In this spirit, then, we celebrate (and/or gently poke fun at) a selection of bands whose shows are something of an endurance test, either in a good way or just in a rather tiresome one. As ever, let us know if we’ve missed anyone. … Read More

Music

10 Rock Albums That Were Impossible to Follow Up

By Matthew Bower on

It’s a familiar experience. There’s that one mind-blowingly great album you just can’t get enough of, an album of epic proportion. Then one day you learn that this beloved artist will be releasing a new album. A sense of dread-tinged anticipation overcomes you. Any potential trace of hopefulness that it just might live up to your expectations is overshadowed by the bleak probability of impending disappointment. It’s not that all follow ups to great albums are necessarily bad, it’s just that there’s a certain discomfort in knowing that we’re going to have to move on and adapt. That’s the way music works; sometimes for the better, and sometimes not. We’ve put together a list of ten earthshaking rock albums that were impossible to follow up, often resulting in a derailment, a reinvention, or a fade-away. … Read More

Music

No Hope, No Harm: 10 of Rock’s Saddest Final Albums

By Emily Temple on

Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the release of Strangeways, Here We Come, the fourth and final studio album by The Smiths, which brought us gems like “Girlfriend in a Coma,” “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish,” “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” and “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before.” It’s also, in case you haven’t listened to The Smiths lately, irrepressibly sad, in the best of ways. To celebrate the anniversary of this great album’s release, and to mourn the fact that it marked the end of such a short and wonderful career, we’ve collected a few of of the saddest final albums in rock history. Have a listen after the jump, and let us know which we’ve missed in the comments. … Read More

Music

10 Recent Reissues You Need to Hear

By Tom Hawking on

We’ve been quietly beside ourselves chez Flavorpill of late awaiting The Lost Tapes, the collection of hitherto undiscovered and/or unreleased Can tracks that’s due out this week. It’s the crowning glory of a six-month period that’s been pretty great for reissues/remasters/compilations, so we thought that with the midpoint of the year nigh, it’d be a good time to go ahead and share the other old/new material that has floated our collective boat in the past several months. As ever, we’re open to suggestions as to what we might have missed, so let us know what’s been on your shopping list. … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. Are you as surprised as we are to hear that Jennifer Lopez — who is apparently contemplating leaving American Idol — topped Forbes’ annual list of the most powerful celebrities? There’s no way that she’s more powerful than Oprah. [via Gawker]

2. Larry David may be joining forces with Superbad… Read More

Music

New My Bloody Valentine Album Seems to Actually Be Happening

By Judy Berman on

We know, we know — we feel like we’re punking ourselves just by committing that headline to Internet posterity. Kevin Shields is always talking about a new My Bloody Valentine album, and yet a new My Bloody Valentine album hasn’t appeared on record store shelves since Loveless, over two decades ago. But NME… Read More