Why My Bloody Valentine's MBV Has Come Too Late to Stop the End of the World

So, what the ancient Mayans predicted has finally come to pass, and only five weeks later than expected. At the end of a 5,125 year cycle, or B’ak’tun on the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar, it was said that this phase of human existence would end and a new age would be ushered in by a collision with the planet Nibiru. Which historians now realize was a metaphor for “the unexpected release of an indie rock record.”

My Bloody Valentine were one of a cluster of British/Irish heavy psychedelic rock groups in the mid to late 1980s, taking advantage of advances in FX pedal technology, the wide availability of ecstasy, the rebirth in popularity of LSD and brief relaxation round the laws governing the acceptability of leather trousers, to make significant advances in completely fucked up music. While one of the best, MBV were by no means on their own, sharing stages and fans with Loop, Godflesh, Spacemen 3, the Telescopes, Cathedral, World Domination Enterprises, the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Pastels, the Cocteau Twins, and Primal Scream. Glossing over their truly awful debut album This Is Your Bloody Valentine and a clutch of wishy-washy EPs, the band really hit their stride with the release of their second album Isn’t Anything in 1987, when frontman Kevin Shields managed to successfully make his guitar sound like a melancholy whale being shot out of a cannon and then sighing all the way to heaven.

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