Song for Sunday

My Bloody Valentine – Sometimes

It is twenty years this month since Loveless was released and I would still say it is probably my favourite album ever. Certainly one of my essential Desert Island Discs. Twenty years ago I was living in Durham and although I don't think I actually got a copy until sometime in 1992 (probably prompted by the review in Select magazine) I do remember being told to switch it off many times by friends and neighbours not convinced of its genius. The stories about the album are legendary (how it almost bankrupted Alan McGee's Creation Records and if it hadn't been for Oasis it probably would have gone under) and the band never made another album despite signing for Island Records for a large sum of money.

The only time I got to see them play live was the legendary Rollercoaster tour a few months later with Dinosaur Jr, Blur and The Jesus and Mary Chain at the Glasgow SECC. Blur were just about to take off and most of the cool kids were there for them. The Jesus and Mary Chain were slightly over the hill and the less said about Dinosaur Jr the better. I am sure that not everyone would agree, but basically My Bloody Valentine ripped them all to shreds. They were second or third on the bill and it was like standing behind one of Concorde's engines when the pilot opens up the afterburners. To this day it the loudest concert (loudest anything!) I have been to and it was a thrilling, petrifying, bowel churning, glorious forty-five minutes (twenty of which they spent playing the same chord). Most people thought it was the ideal time to risk the SECC's bar, I thought it was awesome.

The anniversary seems to have gone by pretty much unnoticed, apart from a nice article by Scott McDonald here. But that's okay, give it another twenty years and I am sure everyone else will finally be convinced of its greatness.

Band/artist of the week: Mogwai
Song of the week: Portishead – It's a Fire