The song 'Sometimes' shows what a brilliant songwriter he was IMO.

Amongst others of course, but Sometimes definitely shows his talents as a songwriter.

Why don't you think he's a very good songwriter? I'd say he was underrated as a songwriter myself...

Well, being the headphone-whore that I am, I don't really see Loveless as a 'song' album. It's a successive bunch of pieces that each melt my mind, based on several different brilliantly-thought out guitar effects. Surely, they weren't the first to use guitar effects to this extent, but to the aptitude and almost bizarre nature of "To Here Knows When"? It's an album brimming with such potential amounts of discovery, in the sense that I could listen to it now and notice just a few more quirks in the soundscape. I find it has a lot of replay value because of something like that.

Albeit, I can pick out individual songs, of course, and I would challenge the songwriter comment. He was a minimalistic kind of songwriter, and he had to intertwine his pop craft into the shoegaze sound, which I'm sure detracts from it a bit aesthetically. But the quality of sound makes the songs' structures almost irrelevant.

i can't agree with this. sounding cool isn't enough for me if there are no interesting melodies. and his songwriting is offensively simplistic. but i can't argue how cool some of the effects sound. ultimately, it is an album that gets one part right and all the rest wrong. so i can never love it.

Well, by 'quality of sound', I don't mean it just sounds 'cool'. It sounds ridiculously original, like absolutely nothing else. The structure isn't simplistic; it's minimalistic, the difference being that the structure is almost never absolutely derivative, yet isn't comprised of too many parts. For example, "I Only Said" has a repeating guitar lick for nearly half of the piece, but during the verses, it's never nearly as redundant. Whatever the chord progression truly is, the instrumentalists never reduce themselves to blatant repetition of those chords in a boring manner. Even in the final 2 or so minutes of the song, where it's just repeating a little guitar lick, by listening intently with high quality headsets/speakers, you will truly hear a lot of sonic difference between each push, making the simplicity seem startlingly original.

I'll admit "Sometimes" is derivative, but it's not unoriginal or simplistic. It's still made up of the original guitar sound, with an infectious chord progression and the trademark vocals.

If you want to listen to lyrics that paint imaginative empires go listen to something else. If you want a hell of an album that is one of the greatest pieces of sound you'll ever experience, listen to Loveless.

your assumptions make me laugh. in general lyrics do very little for me.

that may well be true. but what you need to remember is that this album came out in 1991, back when soundgasms were few and far between to most listeners. that's really what propelled this album to a whole other level. yes there were others doing similar things at the same time and earlier, but none managed to strike a chord with a generation quite the same way this album did. as lame and pretentious as this will sound, you kind of really had to be there.

plus 'Soon' is a glorious track, even though i prefer Medicine's take on that song

YouTube - Aruca by Medicine

I was wondering if anyone would mention Medicine...such a horribly underrated band. Interesting little fact - the singer is Bruce Lee's daughter. I thought that was kind of cool.

Anyway, as far as Loveless goes...you either love it or hate it. People who love soundscapes and atmosphere will usually love it while people who prefer more structured melody and progression will probably hate it. There are better shoegaze albums out there, but this one stands just a little higher than the rest simply because it is a testament to a vision that was not compromised on. No wonder Kevin Shields never looked forward to writing a new album...that guy is too much of a perfectionist.

I listened to the remastered album just last night while going to sleep on my studio phones and let me just say...there is WAYYY more going on in that music than anyone even realizes. I love having to work for the melody and subtleties of the music I listen to. It is so rewarding.

Then why the hell are you complaining about the songwriting?

http://www.totalsoundrecording.com/z...ed%20water.jpg
When I'm not cringing at Paul Simon's voice on this album, I'm being lulled to sleep by the instrumentation.