Shoegazing
Shoegazing (or
shoegaze as it is also called) is a style of
alternative rock that emerged in southern
England in the late 1980s.
Isn't Anything by
My Bloody Valentine, released in 1988 (see
1988 in music) is said to have defined the sound, although this is increasingly disputed by those artists associated with the genre who claimed a closer identification with the more hypnotic, rhythm based bands like
Loop.
Shoegazing is characterised by a self-deprecating, introspective, non-confrontational feel. Generally employed are distortion and the
fuzzbox, droning
riffs and a
Phil Spector-esque wall of sound from the noisy guitars. Another way to describe the guitar effects would be "lead-guitarlessness", typically with two distorted rhythm guitars interweaving together and giving an exceptionally amorphous sound. Although lead guitar riffs were often present, they were not the central focus of most shoegazing songs.
Vocals typically are subdued in volume and tone, but underneath the layers of guitars is often a strong sense of
melody. While the genres which influenced shoegazing often used drum machines, shoegazing more often features live drumming.
Chapterhouse utilised both samples and live drumming, while drummers such as Chris Cooper of
Pale Saints and the late
Chris Acland of
Lush often displayed complex drum patterns.
The name was originally thought to be coined by the
New Musical Express, noting the tendency of the bands' guitarists to stare at their feet (or their
effects pedals), seemingly deep in concentration, while playing. In
2006 it was also claimed that the name was invented as a term of mockery by Andy Ross, founder of
Food Records, for members of his staff who attended gigs of emerging shoegazing acts such as Lush and Moose [
1]. Many of the band members were young, inexperienced & shy. The subdued vocals were not just subdued for effect, but due partly to a lack of confidence in the singers. Some fans will argue another story, that shoegazing music was originally made with the intention of being listened to while taking
heroin, and that the name refers to a passage from the book
Naked Lunch. Indeed,
Spacemen 3 had a record called
Taking Drugs (To Make Music To Take Drugs To), but they were pre-shoegazing, so even if they had been inspired by
Naked Lunch, neither they, nor their fans or critics, discerned the link to shoegazing.
Melody Maker preferred the more staid term
The Scene That Celebrates Itself, referring to the habit which the bands had of attending gigs of other shoegazing bands, often in
Camden. The key record labels associated with the genre were
Creation Records (My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive) and
4AD Records (Lush).
The
Velvet Underground was often cited as a major influence on the genre, as it had been on the earlier
C86 movement. Many of the bands eschewed the
punk era altogether, although punk-era bands such as
The Cramps,
Pere Ubu and
The Birthday Party proved influential in some cases, especially with the forerunners of the genre. However, artists such as
The Jesus and Mary Chain and especially the
Cocteau Twins and
Spacemen 3 (and later
Spiritualized) gave birth to the genre directly rather than through oblique influences.
Michael Azerrad's
Our Band Could Be Your Life traces shoegazing to a
Dinosaur Jr tour of the United Kingdom. While not generally classified as a shoegazing band, Dinosaur Jr did share a tendency to blend
poppy melody with loud guitars. Early
Boo Radleys tracks were firmly modelled on the first two Dinosaur albums.
The first stirrings of recognition came when indie writer
Steve Lamacq referred to
Ride in a review for the
NME as "
The House of Love with chainsaws". In the
U.S. the music is sometimes now referred to as "
dream pop".
The genre label was quite often misapplied. Key bands such as Ride,
Chapterhouse and
Slowdive emerged from the Thames Valley and as such
Swervedriver found themselves labelled 'shoegazers' on account of their own (coincidental)
Thames Valley origins - despite their more pronounced
Hüsker Dü stylings.
Curve were once described as "the exact point where shoegazer meets goth" and the genre did overlap with others to some extent. It was certainly the case that bands such as
Blur, on occasion, adopted elements of shoegazing ('She's So High' for instance) on a purely commercial basis. The careers of
Thousand Yard Stare and
Revolver were caught up in a general backlash which affected the scene. In spite of this, bands like
Chapterhouse, Ride and Slowdive ("the My Bloody Valentine Creation can afford" went one wry review) did leave behind several albums that on reflection have stood the test of time as indicative of 90s British indie.
Slowdive eventually became the
alt.country-leaning
Mojave 3, while other shoegazing bands either split, or moved in other directions. Mark Gardener and Loz Colbert of Ride, for example, released an album as
The Animalhouse. In 2006, Gardener's first solo album, "These Beautiful Ghosts" was released in North America. Andy Bell of
Ride later joined
Oasis after his own
Britpop project
Hurricane #1 faltered. Several former members of shoegazing bands later moved towards
post-rock and even
trip hop.
After the initial first wave of bands whose careers petered out in the early 1990s, or moved in different directions, a number of bands such as
Bethany Curve and
Brian Jonestown Massacre were able to take inspiration from these groups and pursue new audiences. In recent years the
NME has recently pointed out the shoegazing influence in a number of up and coming bands, which it has called "nu-gazing". Bands of this nature include
Televise,
Alcian Blue,
A Place To Bury Strangers,
Air Formation,
Scarling.,
Autolux,
Mean Red Spiders,
Airiel,
Amusement Parks on Fire,
Skywave,
The Sky Drops The Radio Dept,
Mahogany,
Readymade,
Morella's Forest, Highspire,
Joy Zipper,
M83,
Ulrich Schnauss,
Oppressed by the Line,
Starflyer 59,
Stella Luna, Heroes of Switzerland, Experimental Aircraft and Engineers, and most recently
Serena Maneesh and
Asobi Seksu. The genre is very strong within its own ranks, much alluding to the ideal "the scene that celebrates itself." Clubs such as
Club AC30 and
Club Violaine, along with the support of such labels as
The Gaia Project,
Elephant Stone Records and
Bella Union are supporting more and more dream-pop and shoegaze bands. There are many holdouts of devoted players and listeners on both sides of the Atlantic, and a strong following in South America.
The first two albums by
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are influenced by shoegazing.
There is another thread of shoegazer-influenced music, that maintains the emphasis of texture (through the use of
guitar effects pedals and
digital signal processing) but departs, to some degree, from the rock structures and full band instrumentation of shoegazer music. Also, there are little to no vocal elements. This "post-shoegaze" glitch and experimental electronic music has achieved some critical praise, especially the more recent releases by
Fennesz and
Tim Hecker. The duo
Belong released an album in
2006 that also falls into this category. Also aspects of
Flying Saucer Attack,
Main,
lovesliescrushing, and
The Third Eye Foundation, explored this territory as well in the mid 90's.
Often using the digital studio of a computer, these artists focus a lot of attention on creating space and atmosphere. The
Max/MSP software program is one tool that allows for guitar signals to be processed for the creation of music that is characterized as much by its textural aspects as its melodies, if not more so. The outcome tends to be compositions ranging from
ambient stretches of
droning tones, distorted walls of sound, and
reverb-laden atmospherics. What separates this from other strands of
glitch or
noise compositions and places it in the realm of shoegaze are the inclusion of melodies that call to mind
pop and
rock music.
The genre, though derided to some extent by the music press at the time, has left something of a legacy, as the new crop of bands demonstrates. The last album by
My Bloody Valentine,
Loveless, released in
1991 is critically acclaimed to be the landmark album of shoegazing, with Ride's first album
Nowhere seen as a close contender.
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*
List of shoegazing musicians*
Dream pop*
The oldest (1997) shoegazing fan site on the net*
All Music Guide entry for shoegaze*
Links and discussion forum*
Interesting article on genre
