My Top 1000 Songs #805: Drive It All Over Me

[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.]

After a few EPs of lo-fi indie jangle pop, occasionally augmented by distortion but still somewhat traditional songs indebted to late 60s psych, My Bloody Valentine mastermind Kevin Shields found his muse, relentlessly noisy buzzsaw guitars treated with unpredictable and sometimes disquieting studio effects, ultimately resulting in the astonishing long player Isn't Anything (and, of course, 1991's Loveless). The band's upgraded sound first appeared on You Made Me Realise, one of the era's most striking EPs, released shortly before Isn't Anything. It's fantastic throughout, particularly the title track, but closing track "Drive It All Over Me" is a noteworthy bridge from the band's initial, jangly style into the more enveloping shoegaze for which they're best known. There's a chiming pop song at the heart of the track, Bilinda Butcher's sugary vocals getting a little room to shine, but the churning wall of sound guitars and stop-start rhythm that characterized later work amplifies the number well beyond traditional pop music.

Here's a pretty, partially acoustic cover:

Live cover from terrific San Francisco jangle-pop band The Umbrellas: