My Top 1000 Songs #403: When You Sleep

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

It's hard to imagine anyone who picked up My Bloody Valentine's Loveless back in 1991 not finding themselves deeply transformed. The music is just so disorienting, so otherworldly, yet captivating, that any time you drop it back on the stereo all those weird and woozy feelings from that first spin come rushing back. Or maybe that's just me?

While the single "Soon" was the most immediate track, giving the band's gauzy shoegaze a well-grounded dancefloor beat, "When You Sleep" sounds like the more definitive statement by the band. It's got the phase-shifting, seasick unbalance that made the prior LP, 1988's Isn't Anything, so unique, challenging yet bewitching; but like the rest of Loveless, it's got a beefier drive that helps you find your bearings, something resembling an actual pop hook that helps keep it earthbound, undeniably pretty yet still just a little untethered from reality.

Overwhelming noise, live 2018:

Gotta dig a little unplugged YouTube love; today's kids with good musical taste!

Apparently big in Japan?