Thirty years ago, the dawning of a new decade lent a very distinct excitement—a hope, even a demand—for art that could mark and affirm the validity of the New. This yearning is necessarily twinned with vocal repudiation of the Old, and repeated itself at the end of the 1980s. Had Kurt Cobain survived, I expect the same process would have felled Nirvana at the turn of this century. Here, and truly in every measurable aspect, My Bloody Valentine has cheated fate.