OK, here are some suggested essential shoegaze tracks:
I’m cheating by looking it up, but I want to give you a quick answer. And #!1 is “Only Shallow” and #2 is a Ride song. #3 is Cocteau Twins which … I’d put more in the “dream pop” category but there is a blurring of lines between the two genres. #4 is Slowdive. Swervedriver works for me – Jesus and Mary Chain is on there (though I’d put them less shoegaze, more noise pop or something), Lush is on there, Boo Radleys are there. Some I’m not quite as sure about, but work your way down the top 10 songs and that works.
Smashing Pumpkins are NOT a shoegaze band. They have strong elements and have clearly been influenced by them in their work (go to their Wikipedia page and search “shoegaze.” I’m one of the bigger Pumpkins fans here around, at least pre-Machina, so I have some idea what I’m talking about. Plus shoegaze is one of my favorite genres.) And Pixies have nothing to do with shoegaze so far as I can tell…maybe a little on Trompe le Monde, but I’m straining to shoehorn that in.
Oh, also loud. Shoegaze is fucking LOUD. (usually. see the “Holocaust” section of MBV’s “You Made Me Realise”) It’s a wall of sound , guitar fuzz, phasers, flangers, pick scrapes, chorus, etc., that just wraps around you.
But we’re talking best known, not best or purest or most essential. FWIW, I didn’t recognize the names of any of the songs on that list, though I certainly recognized some of the bands.
While this may not be true in England where it was (bizarrely) a major craze in the 1950s, I’d say skiffle is mainly known for a single song - “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor”.
Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O” would have sunk into obscurity except for it being featured in the movie “Beetlejuice”. “Jump In The Line” also wound up in the movie, but that’s not the one you hear at ballparks.
*I see that "Rock Island Line was also a top ten hit for Lonnie Donegan in the U.S., but I don’t remember it.
Yeah, that’s THE skiffle song I know, but I’m not from the US. I think it started a whole skiffle craze in Britain, which went with a blues craze that both ignited the whole British pop explosion/invasion.
I don’t think any of those tracks are remotely as well known as Bitter Sweet Symphony. And the Verve are the quintessential Shoegaze band (possibly second to Spritualized/Spacemen 3). Admittedly Urban Hymns was somewhat their “britpop” period, but thats a bit harsh as they were a big influence on Oasis (the Gallagher brothers were part of the Verve’s posse, prior to Oasis taking off), not the other way round. Its still definitely shoegaze (claiming otherwise is a bit like claiming Dylans post electric stuff is not folk).
They’re not. I just don’t think of “Bittersweet Symphony” as a song that is an example of the genre. To me, that’s closer to Britpop. Maybe The Verve’s other stuff is, but not that track. We may be splitting up our genres a little differently. I also think of Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized (both of whom I like), more towards “space rock,” and Wikipedia agrees. I find dream pop closer allied with shoegaze, but it’s all a continuum. It could just be that I like the dream pop side of shoegaze more. For me, quintessential shoegaze is three bands: Slowdive, Ride, and MBV.
Regardless, the point is more that I can’t think of any song that would exemplify shoegaze that a good portion of people would have heard of, and “Bittersweet Symphony” would not be a good example of the genre.
I concur, but I would add The Jesus And Mary Chain. Though they didn’t do shoegaze exclusively, I think they were the founders of the genre, if unintentionally.
There have been Top 40 hits with a reggae beat but they were few and far between. Going way back to 1969, we have “Israelites” by Desmond Dekker and the Aces. It’s out-and-out reggae with references to the Jamaican Rastafarian movement as it’s basis. It hit #9 in the USA. I’ve always found it to be a fun, funky tune, and it’s probably the biggest single reggae hit.
Yeah but if someone knows only one Reggae song in 2022 it is most like not The Isrealites, it is probably I Shot The Sheriff (or another Bob Marley number) or the theme from COPS
For the US market, I think you are right. I would like to say something by The Pogues, but I suspect I’m Shipping Off to Boston is more well-known than even Fairytale of New York (which I agree is among the best Christmas songs there is.) It’s hard for me to tell, as here in Chicago there’s a reasonable bit of Celtic punk that you can hear around, both home-grown and from without, and it’s hard to know what is known outside my stomping grounds.
