The Silver Sun Pickups

This weekend was filled with various types of alcohol, that all seemed to come together in my stomach. Rather then me get sick all over the house, I was left with what I would call a proper hang over. I try as best as I can to keep everything within reason when it comes to drinking, but sometimes I can underestimate just exactly how many gin & tonics are too many. The next morning I am left feeling the burn of the night prior and in the need of some good hangover music. Flipping through the collection I stopped on My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. I had heard the album countless times and thought it would curve the growing cramps in my stomach. Also I figured for the sake of want-to-be-journalism, I would try my hand at an album review in post inebriated state.

I retired to the “Thinking Couch” and took a listen. In the early 90’s the only thing you could hear on the radio was Grunge, or some variation there in. The Indie scene was very far removed from the mainstream, but this gem seemed to shine bright in a sea of cookie-cutter bands at the time. Loveless starts out with the track “Only Shallow” which in the beginning sounds more like the intro for a Melvin’s song then what you would expect from an Indie act. The song soon almost does a back flip into a fuzzy haze of guitar overdubbing, while Billinda Butcher’s sleepy vocals wrap the song into a triumphant starting track. The album walks along into a sonic experience that Billy Corgan only wish he could have thought of. The Track “To Here Knows When” is sampled against an orchestra which makes it seem other worldly, and a cut from a Stanley Kubrick movie, but doesn’t break the seal of annoying or trippy by any means.

The midway point of the album came with the song “Sometimes”. The album up to that point is a build up and really lets everything go with the track. Under the wall of sound is a nicely arranged pop song that without the fog would stand by itself, but with the addition of the layer makes it swirl together very nicely. The last track “Soon” comes in at just under 7 minutes and really strikes a final blow in what is an already incredible album. The song sounds as if it’s 10 years ahead of it’s time and would fit in well with everything in the late 90’s, when the industry mixed pop and rock with electronica. If this reference goes way over your head you only need to look as far as U2’s 1997 release POP to get it. Overall the album is a masterpiece, and can be listened to from cover to cover as well as track to track and still have a lasting impact on the listener. It is a Greek tragedy that this album went almost completely unnoticed by the masses, but it served to inspire what we would come to know as Alternative rock. True the album is not a cure all for a hangover, but listening to an amazing album and putting a spring in my step is a good start.