Various write-ups and mentions have occurred for the book now over summer, and a few of them were kind enough to single out my contribution on Loveless, so by means of patting myself on the back:
- Kevin John in the Chicago Reader — “I’m hardly alone in my affection for MBV’s Loveless – by now it’s up there with hoary desert-island discs like Exile on Main Street — but that does nothing to detract from the rapturous ode that Ned Raggett, tireless contributor to the All Music Guide, has written to it.”
- James Porter in Time Out Chicago — “Ned Raggett places My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless within the context of his college radio days, when he discovered the group”
- Jason Killingsworth in Paste — “It’s also interesting to me how often the writers here invoke religious language when discussing their favorite albums. It’s as if the structure of a masterfully crafted record causes the world to make sense in a way that can’t be explained by rational criteria. Ned Raggett on My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless: “What does Loveless mean to me? I can describe it in no other fashion but as it was when I first heard it, the impact it had and what was left in its wake. I am not religious—instead, agnostic at heart—but I have felt the force of what others consider revelation. I do not choose the word lightly.”
Meanwhile, former Mean Street colleague Rian Johnson at punkrockacademy.com has a nice piece up — scroll down to the “On Refraining From Marginally Clever Raymond Chandler Quips” part — that’s worth a read. My thanks to him for the memories and the mention.
