Isn't Anything is the debut studio album by the Irish rock band My Bloody Valentine, released on 21 November 1988 by Creation Records. Its innovative guitar and production techniques consolidated the experimentation of the band's preceding EPs Upon its release, the album received rave critical reviews and reached No. 1 on the UK Independent Albums Chart.
Background
After the band's original vocalist Dave Conway left in 1987, replaced by Bilinda Butcher, the band at first continued in their previous noisy indie-pop style. Kevin Shields then desired to return to the band's avant-garde roots and began to explore the possibilities offered by the studio facilities available after having signed to Creation Records in 1988. The first fruit of this experimentation was the single/EP You Made Me Realise, released in August 1988, with Isn't Anything following later that year.
Most of the album was recorded in a studio in Wales over a period of two weeks, and the band members slept about two hours a night. Butcher described the effect of this: "Often, when we do the vocals, it's 7:30 in the morning: I've usually fallen asleep and have to be woken up to sing. Maybe that's why it's languorous. I'm usually trying to remember what I've been dreaming about when I'm singing." avant-rock, dream pop, noise pop, album; Qs Stuart Maconie wrote that the album "was the first full-length expression of this remarkable new sound: gossamer vocals and insinuating melodies glimpsed through sheets of blurred, opaque noise." Melody Maker described its sound as "swoon-songs, oblivious, languorous vocals and out-of-focus guitars which are like being taken to the brink of consciousness and held there."
Taylor Parkes of The Quietus described the album as "livid, lurid and lucid," and called it "the shattering racket of the moment, an audio snapshot of the overwhelmed senses, a noise like nothing you've ever heard, but everything you've ever felt." In his book Alternative Rock, Dave Thompson described the album's sound as "dry ice-piercingly intense guitar drones and hefty nods to miasmic hardcore soup, oozing a contrary trance-spun drone. Noise becomes beauty as feedback is layered over vocals over feedback ad infinitum." Anthony Carew of About.com described its style as "atonal, desconstructed, free-noise guitar playing" and noted that it had an "ethereal, spectral quality that radically reconfigured the predominant paradigms of rock'n'roll."
"Several Girls Galore" has been described as "a cubist take on the Jesus and Mary Chain." A limited edition of the first 5,000 vinyl copies included a bonus seven-inch single featuring two instrumental tracks, both titled "Instrumental". The B-side track featured a Public Enemy drum loop from "Security of the First World." Isn't Anythings lead single "Feed Me with Your Kiss" was released in October 1988, backed with three outtakes from the album's recording sessions: "I Believe", "Emptiness Inside" and "I Need No Trust". "Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside)" was also released as a promotional single in the United States in December 1988. Neither of the album's retail singles charted.
The album was reissued on CD by Warner Bros. Records in 1993 and 2001 and by Creation in 1996. An additional remaster by Shields at Metropolis Studios in London was released on 4 May 2012.
Reception and legacy
Upon its release, Isn't Anything received acclaim from critics. "If Isn't Anything had been made by Americans", wrote NME reviewer Jack Barron, "My Bloody Valentine would be greeted as the new messiahs of dreamrock guitar."
Isn't Anything is regarded by many as among the greatest albums of the 1980s. The album has been included in The Guardians list of 1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die and ranked at #16 in their Alternative Top 100 Albums list. The album was also ranked #24 in The Irish Times list of Top 40 Irish Albums of All Time, selected by Pitchfork staff as #22 on their "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s" list and listed at #92 on Slant Magazines list of Best Albums of the 1980s. Uncut writer David Stubbs has called Isn't Anything "one of the most important, influential British rock albums of the eighties." In 2016, Pitchfork selected the album as the fourth-best shoegaze album of all time. In 2025, Radio X included the album in its list of "The 25 best indie debut albums of the 1980s".
Track listing
Personnel
All personnel credits adapted from Isn't Anythings liner notes.
;My Bloody Valentine
- Kevin Shields – guitar, vocals
- Bilinda Butcher – guitar, vocals
- Colm Ó Cíosóig – drums
- Deb Googe – bass
;Technical personnel
- My Bloody Valentine – production
- Dave Anderson – engineering
- Steve Nunn – engineering
- Alex Russell – engineering
- Joe Dilworth – photography
Chart positions
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
! scope="col"| Chart (1988)
! scope="col"| Peak<br>position
|-
! scope="row"| UK Independent Chart
| 1
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
! scope="col"| Chart (2012)
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
! scope="row"| Irish Albums Chart
| 49
|-
! scope="row"| Japanese Oricon Albums Chart
| 29
|-
! scope="row"| South Korean Albums Chart
| 70
|-
! scope="row"| UK Albums Chart
| 61
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|-
! scope="col"| Chart (2021)
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Swedish Physical Albums (Sverigetopplistan)
| 2
|-
! scope="row"| UK Albums (OCC)