When I think late-80s-early-90s, this is the music I think of and love. My Bloody Valentine, Lush, Swervedriver, Ride, Mazzy Star, Curve, Charlatans, Catherine Wheel . . . a lot of one- and two-hit wonders, but some really good stuff. I hadn’t listened to a lot of those bands in a while, but recently I’ve been really getting back into them. There are a couple of really good stations on Internet radio, too, particularly on Live365.com, that play good shoegazer/dreampop stuff. Any other fans out there?
Like you wouldn’t believe!! I have every album and single released by Slowdive, Catherine Wheel, Kev Shields era MBV, and tons of other realy great shoegaze CDs. I cannot get enough of the stuff! Message me and we can talk if you want.
I quite enjoyed Lush (oh, Miki Berenyi, you’re SO fine) and Ride. I just downloaded my favorite Catherine Wheel song, “Crank,” for a mix CD that I burned. I have My Bloody Valentine’s big “hit” – i.e., I saw the video on MTV, like, twice or something – on another mix CD. The Charlatans had a couple of good songs, but I always thought of them as a major disappointment. No rock band since the Doors shoved a fat organ sound to the front line like the Charlatans, and I really thought they could do something special. But they didn’t get much farther than “The Only One I Know” – and now their keyboard ace is dead, so I think their opportunity has been missed.
You’ve just named my favourite genre of music!
Snooooopy, The Charlatans are still going strong, and having minor hits. They must have had going on for a dozen albums now, including a greatest hits compilation.
I still have a soft spot for Ride, despite some of the worst lyrics ever written. Nothing quite beats ‘Today’ or ‘Cool Your Boots’. Anyone else ever get The Verve’s first album (‘A Storm In Heaven’) which is quite shoegaze-y?
MBV weren’t shoegazers. They’re the Velvet Underground of shoegazers. Lush, Ride, Moose, Slowdive, and Chapterhouse were the original bands to be tarred with that NME brush or rather pen. Curve were championed at the time as a refreshing contrast to shoegazing, because… well, because Toni Halliday was sexy and Lush refusing to play the sexy girl card confused music journalists into hostility. The Charlatans got lumped in with Madchester, not shoegazing. Mazzy Star are the last flower of the Paisley Underground.
-fh
Hey, my tent is a big one, hazel-rah. 
You’re right. It’s far more important that you all seek out and buy the latest Moose album, Highball Me! which is epic and beautiful. You can’t go wrong with the Sing Sing album either, which has Emma Anderson from Lush in it.
-fh
Hey, nice link. The two CD releases by my old band, the Palindromes, were on Twee Kitten’s own label. 
Oooooh, Miki Berenyi. You got that right, Snooooopy.
I really liked Lush’s album Split a lot.
Wowee, you were in the Palindromes? I have your “A Car, A Man, A Maraca” EP! Scott Tweekitten is top of the pops!
-fh
Yep, I was the bass player/backup singer in the Palindromes. Those are my, er, dulcet harmonies at the end of “Blue Lucky Charm” (along with Rob, our drummer).
Can’t consider myself a huge shoegazer fan… but some of it really works for me. Anyone who doesn’t like MBV’s Loveless needs to have their head examined. I also had that Ride album Nowhere when it first came out, but truth be told I don’t think I’ve thought about that band in 10+ years. I do remember liking that album quite a bit, though. And if Mazzy Star counts here, sign me up.
mmm, Hope Sandoval…drool…
weren’t Swervedriver also considered shoegazer at the time? I still listen to them a lot - cool stuff.
While I agree that MBV were very influential in the field, to suggest that they were (and until their decade-long hiatus is over the past tense must be used… dammit) the godfather of the genre ignores the Jesus & Mary Chain, who were the first (that I can think of off hand) to obviously “appropriate” the VU sound. Also, the Cocteau Twins also bear mention, and they started out in, what, 1982? But MBV did put it all together in its most identifiable form with Loveless.
**
I seem to recall (it might be from an interview with Toni Halliday, but honestly I can’t recall the specific source) that Curve also got criticism because Toni was a veteran session singer for 80s top 40 acts before she started with Curve. She wasn’t alternative enough, being the argument. Whatever. [plug] And if anybody doesn’t have the Gift CD Curve put out last year you are missing out on a damn fine CD [/plug].
PS - Emma Anderson was the true hottie in Lush, not that hideously-tressed Miki.
Man… i have been enjoying a shoegazer nostalgia kick lately. I was 13-16 during the early nineties and shoegazer/4AD stuff was very formative for me.
I think the kick started when i picked up the new (overhyped, to be sure, but reeeeeally reaally good) Doves album, the Last Broadcast. I’m sure most of you have it by now, but any classic shoegazer fans who have missed it wold be doing themselves a huge service to pick it up. Its amazing.
Cocteau Twins, as mentioned about, were definitely proto-shoegazer, as were the JaMC. I loved the Twins, and I think i’ve seen JaMC live mroe than I’ve seen any other band. I’m not obsessed or anything, in fact I only REALLY like a couple of thier albums, but i just kept getting opportunities to see them.
Did i miss it, or did nobody mention Slowdive, yet? The one band, who at thier best, actually out-Cocteau’ed the Cocteau Twins. (I’m thinking of Souvlaki).
Actually saw the Cocteaus live twice. I saw the last show of the Heaven or Las Vegas tour… IN A SHOWROOM IN LAS VEGAS!!! I was like 13 years old, deeply depressed over typical 13 year old social crap, and that moment still ranks as one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.
Friends and i had an ongoing whos better: Ride or Catherine Wheel? debate for years. Only this year deciding it was in fact the Catherine Wheel.
Not so much shoegazer, but artsy sensitve 4AD rock of a different color, anybody remember Unrest? Perfect Teeth and Imperial f.f.r.r. were a couple of amazing records.
Speaking of MBV, the rumour is that Kevin Shields (who essientially was MBV) has recorded and trashed entire albums since Loveless, and is sort of paralyzed by the expectaions heaped on him since the amazing success of Loveless. If yo ulook around on line, searching both Kevin Shields and MBV, you can find a couple of tracks recordedn by him in the past 10 years, and they’re all rpetty interesting. He obviously was as impressed with Aphex Twin as the rest of us, as there is a HUGE Richard James influence in much of the work. I’ve been waiting a long time, but haven’t completely given up hope that Kevin will release something again and set up all back on track :).
Man… i could talk shoegazer for days. though admittedly i’ve always sorta hated the term itself. Like “grunge” or “electronica”, they all sorta make my skin crawl…
CJ
Apparently, I was completely out of the music loop in the early 90s. What is “shoegazer”?
Oh, and don’t hate me, but I recognize maybe two of the bands mentioned in this thread so far. And only by reference, not by having actually heard anything by them.
jayjay (but I’m only 31!)
Well, outside of college radio it got zero airplay in the US so it’s not surprising you haven’t heard of it. Other names for it include dreampop, ethereal and bliss rock but some of these terms overlap with shoegazing more than being just another name for the same thing. A.R. Kane is dreampop but he ain’t shoegazing.
Anyway, shoegazing was originally a (derogatory) term coined by British music journalists to describe a group of bands that were playing around London in the late 80’s/early 90’s. These bands, roughly, were Lush, Ride, Moose, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Swervedriver and Revolver. In all honesty they didn’t sound that much alike (which becomes painfully evident when you compare their later material) but the British music press has a habit of doing this.
The name comes from how they supposedly looked when they played live… not the most technically accomplished players, they would spend the whole show hunched over their guitars staring downwards, face totally obscured by scraggly hair. Defenders might say they cared more about how they sounded than how they looked, critics just said they lacked charisma or showmanship. I believe they were also called “the scene that celebrates itself” as many of the bands were friends with one another.
In the following years the name began to describe an actual sound. As people have noted above, take parts of MBV, Jesus and Mary Chain, the Cocteau Twins and many others. Think feedback, heavily processed guitars, vocals low in the mix and a tendency for songs to be longer rather than shorter and slower rather than faster. There’s hundreds of self-professed shoegazer bands now, I couldn’t name the best of today because I haven’t kept up… I know Mira are nice. Check out the shoegazing category on MP3.com.
In the end it doesn’t really matter which band is what but it certainly helped me find more music I liked and it’s fun to squabble about genres a bit while you’re waiting for new albums to come out.
Here’s a short list if you want to check it out:
My Bloody Valentine’s “Isn’t Anything” or “Loveless”
Slowdive’s “Just For a Day”
Ride’s “Nowhere” or “Smile”
Lush’s “Gala”
Pale Saints “In Ribbons” or “Comforts of Madness”
Verve’s “A Storm in Heaven”
…and Emma is cuter than Miki (writes better lyrics too) but they’re both very nice!
-fh
Shoegazer? Style of music? I’m hip, I think.
[Chameleons U.K.] Look around, look around | All around you | Walls are tumbling down | Stop staring at the ground [/Chameleons U.K.]