Loveless is one of a select few landmark albums in the shoegaze genre. Known for it's lush guitar and ethereal vocals, Loveless stands and perhaps the best album shoegaze album to this day. The idea was to create something focused on sound textures as opposed to traditional instrumentation. Noisy and fuzzy guitar has been molded into something peculiarly catchy, poppy even. Every track is one delicately crafted dreamy gem after another (as to be expected of an album that cost a rumored £250,000 to create). Though released under the band name My Bloody Valentine, Loveless is more so the creation of front-man Kevin Shields. A true perfectionist, Shields aimed to shape the album exactly as he thought of it, leading to great stress for all involved in the recording up until release. On November 4th, 1991 Loveless was released under Creation Records on CD, cassette, and vinyl LP.
Thankfully(?), there exist no form of bonus tracks or altered track-listings. Every known release consists of all 11 tracks and only those tracks. Whatever official release you can obtain is true to the original release, song-wise. Album art and packaging remains consistent for all releases.
The original CD release is easy enough to obtain. Used copies of the original CD can be found going for roughly 10 USD given a decent quality. Newer copies of the standard release go for just as much. Of course, a sealed copy of the original CD will go for much more (around 50 USD). However, an "original" CD would be difficult to differentiate from a later release given how nearly identical every release of this album is.
In 2012, a double CD reissue of the album (shown above) was released under Sony Music. One CD is labeled as "Mastered From Original 1/2 Inch Analogue Tapes" and the other is "Remastered From Original Tape". Both have the same exact track-listing, but have subtle sonic differences. Strangely, the two CD are mislabeled, both referencing the opposite CD. These are still easy to locate, and can be found for about 20 USD.
The cassette release of this album is significantly more difficult to obtain than the CD, but not impossible. There exists no other issue of the cassette other than the original 1991. If you are lucky enough to catch an auction for the cassette release, you can expect it to go for somewhere around 45 USD for a good copy. Not much else can be said about the cassette release other than its rarity.
The vinyl LP release is EXTREMELY sought after, and can go for as much as 200+ USD in online actions. However vinyl copies of the album regularly go for sale online, and can be easily obtained if you are willing to cough up the cash. The original Creation Records vinyl release can be found regularly going for ~150 USD. It is inarguably the best sounding vinyl release of the album. Less sought after, but still fetching a good ~80 USD is the 2003 repress on Plain Recordings. It is a bit less desirable for being sourced from a CD as opposed to the original master tapes. That same year a red colored vinyl edition was released also on Plain Recordings, limited to 1000 copies and numbered. It can be found going for roughly 100 USD. This repress is also sourced from a CD, thus still not as desirable as the original 1991 release.
Sometime in early 2013, some mysterious vinyl copies of Loveless began to emerge in auction sites. These 2013 copies of the album are unofficial, but can be easily differentiated from earlier releases thanks the the obvious "MADE IN EUROPE 2013" text. Those who have obtained copies of the bootleg have claimed that, while it does not match the quality of the original pressing, it sounds much better than the Plain Recordings release and thus has been speculated to be sourced from something other than a CD.
Thankfully for collectors and fans, Kevin Shields has claimed that a vinyl reissue would be created months after the the double CD reissue from 2012. However, it is now the later part of 2013 and no further comments have been made regarding this. We remain hopeful.
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