I remember buying Isn't Anything cos the journalists in Melody Maker at the time told me to. They were very insistent and I quite liked the previous single Strawberry Wine so gave it a go. Any MBV fan will know that the album was a massive departure from that and at first Feed Me With Your Kiss (I always put the B side on first for some reason) was just too much noise for my ears to cope with. Within about a week though I started to really warm to it and within a fortnight it was my favourite album of all time. I can honestly say that during late 88 and 89 I played the whole album nearly every day. Sometime in 1989 my sister met this bloke and we got to talking about music and inevitably I had to bring up Isn't Anything and he agreed that it was amazing adding that it had the most outstanding drumming. I looked at him blankly. I couldn't bluff it; I'd been so carried away with the overall sound that I'd barely noticed the drums. The next day I checked them out and sure enough he weren't wrong. I saw MBV at ULU (I had ticket number 1!) and it was the 2nd best gig I'd ever been to and is still up there in my top 3. I couldn't get enough.

In 1992 I went to the US and met a few Americans who were into MBV and could not believe that none of them had heard of Isn't Anything. Loveless had just been released there and was hugely popular and luckily I had Isn't Anything on tape so was able to introduce people to it.

Back in the UK I went to see MBV again at The Town and Country (now The Forum) and I remember being reasonably dissapointed with the gig. It was never going to match the first and I spoke to a few people at the gig who were of the opinion that they did not have what they had before but were still one of the best bands out there.

Which all brings me to a discussion I had with me pal Travis about 6 months ago. He thinks Loveless is better and I absolutely think Isn't Anything is. He argued that most MBV fans would think the same way and when I had a bit of an internet search and whilst there was not much in it, he did appear to be right.

What do you reckon?
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