My Bloody Valentine is a shoegaze band formed in 1984 in Dublin, Ireland. The band’s best known lineup is
Kevin Shields (vocals, guitar),
Bilinda Butcher (vocals, guitar),
Debbie Googe (bass) and
Colm O’Ciosoig (drums). Shields and O’Ciosoig are the only original members of the band still in the group. In 1991, the band released their second full length album “Loveless”, later declared one of the finest albums of the 1990s. The band struggled to record a follow up album and split in 1997. The band reunited in 2007 and performed several concerts the following year. The band’s key member is guitarist/singer/composer
Kevin Shields, a reclusive perfectionist and radically inventive guitarist/engineer. The band’s other original member is drummer/studio maven Colm O’Ciosoig; during their heyday MBV also included singer-guitarist Bilinda Butcher and bassist Debbie Googe. Their band shares its name with a low-budget Canadian slasher film.
Though they released a handful of EPs during the mid-1980s, only their two official albums
Isn’t Anything (1988) and
Loveless (1991), are considered representative of their sound: a distinct blend of
noise rock,
ambient, and off-kilter
melodic pop. The songs were written by Shields, except for
Touched, a short instrumental by Colm O’Ciosoig. In 1999
Pitchfork Media declared Loveless to be the greatest album of the 1990s; however in their 2003 revision of the list, it moved down to number two, swapping places with
OK Computer.
Kevin Shields has also been noted by Alan McGee as
”a genius artist. A visionary.”, whilst an
NME review of Loveless declared,
”…however decadent one might find the idea of elevating other human beings to deities, My Bloody Valentine, failings and all, deserve more than your respect.”
After leaving
Creation Records in 1992 and signing with
Island Records, the band fell into a creative black hole. Rumors spread among their fans of albums being recorded and then shelved. Debbie Googe left the band to form
Snowpony; she had not played bass on their recordings since You Made Me Realise. Colm O’Ciosoig eventually left and formed a band with Hope Sandoval, formerly of
Mazzy Star, called
Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions.
Kevin Shields sporadically collaborated with other artists, most notably
Experimental Audio Research,
Curve, and
Primal Scream. He revealed in a fall 2003 National Public Radio interview that Island Records quit financing his
My Bloody Valentine endeavors after he spent half a million pounds of their money. In January 2007,
Kevin Shields quoted to media outlets that MBV would release another album, though dates have not yet been mentioned. He has contributed music to the soundtracks of two Sofia Coppola films to date,
Lost In Translation and
Marie Antoinette.
Influences include
The Velvet Underground,
Sonic Youth,
Cocteau Twins, late-1970s
Wire,
The Jesus & Mary Chain, and independent artists such as the
Pastels.
Kevin Shields has also named
The Beach Boys as a personal influence.
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