My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything...re-imagined as a Green Day album?

A You, Me and An Album listener has created something extraordinary, and I just had to share it with you. I’m still actually digesting that what I’m about to tell you has even happened.

Just over a year ago, I had a conversation with esteemed producer Tim Friese-Greene, who is best known for producing and performing on Talk Talk’s albums (except for their debut, The Party’s Over). For his episode of You, Me and An Album, Tim chose to discuss My Bloody Valentine’s debut, Isn’t Anything. I wasn’t sure what to expect from our conversation, but one place I didn’t expect it to go was imagining what the album would sound like if it were recorded by a typical American rock band.

The conversation took this turn after Tim explained how Isn’t Anything is a profoundly English and Irish album. Upon hearing Tim’s observations, I brought up one of my reactions to the album — specifically, feeling frustrated that it didn’t sound more like American radio-friendly rock, yet at the same time, appreciating how this album challenged my usual patterns of focusing on guitar hooks and vocal melodies. Then I asked Tim what would make this album sound more “American,” and he replied, ”the guitar sounds would not be quite so brittle, the drums would be louder and would be in their own space a little more, the vocals would be more prominent…bass would probably be fatter.”

I’ve thought back to this conversation from time to time, because on my own, it would have never occurred to me think of Isn’t Anything as an inherently English/Irish album. It also never occurred to me that someone would listen to this episode and take up the task of recording their own version of Isn’t Anything to try to make it sound like it was being performed by a popular American band.

But that’s precisely what Casper Iskov has done. Casper recorded the entirety of Isn’t Anything in the style of Green Day and posted the full album on YouTube. In his notes accompanying the album, Casper wrote “In Al Melchior's podcast series 'You, Me and an Album', Al talks to Tim Friese-Greene about this particular album, and discussing how it would've sounded if it was done by an American band in the 1990's. This made me wonder about the same thing, and I got to work right away.” Casper then details what he had to do in order to achieve the Green Day-like sound.

The results are stunning. I am grateful for the work that Casper has done here. I hope you’ll check out Casper’s version of the album.

If you want to go back to YMAAA Ep. 79 with Tim for the full context of what sparked this creation, the part of the conversation where we ponder what a rockified, Americanized version of Isn’t Anything would sound like starts at 24:27.

I hope you enjoy this, and I’d love to hear your reactions in the comments!