Shoegazing
|
|
Shoegazing is a style of music that emerged in the British Isles in the late 1980s. The defining opener of the genre is said to be Isn't Anything by My Bloody Valentine, released in 1988 (see 1988 in music). The last album by My Bloody Valentine, Loveless, released in 1991 is often considered the peak of Shoegazing music.
Shoegazing is characterized by the use of distortion and the fuzzbox, droning riffs and a Spectorish wall of sound from the noisy guitars. Vocals are typically subdued in volume and tone, but underneath the layers of guitars was often a strong sense of melody. While the genres which influenced shoegazing often used drum machines, shoegazing more often featured live drumming. Shoegazing drummers such as Chris Cooper of Pale Saints and the late Chris Acland of the now split-up Lush often displayed complex drumming.
The name was coined by the New Musical Express, playfully noting the tendency of the bands' guitarists to stare at their feet (or their effects pedals), seemingly deep in concentration, while playing. Melody Maker preferred the more staid term The Scene That Celebrates Itself (referring to the bands' habits of attending each others gigs, often in Camden).
As with C86 before it, the Velvet Underground proved to be a major influence, with many of the bands eschewing the punk era altogether, though bands like The Cramps, Pere Ubu and The Birthday Party proved influential in some cases, especially with the forerunners of the genre. However, in the main, artists like The Jesus & Mary Chain and especially Cocteau Twins and Spacemen 3 (whose leader, Jason Pierce, aka Jay Spaceman, later formed shoegazer band 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 shoegazing, Dinosaur Jr did share a tendency to blend poppy melody with loud guitars.
The first stirrings of recognition came when indie scribe Steve Lamacq referred to Ride in a review for the NME as "The House of Love with chainsaws". The music is sometimes now referred to as a category of dream pop (though this term is mainly restricted to the US).
The genre as a label was quite often mis-applied. Swervedriver found themselves labelled 'shoegazers' on account of their Thames Valley (where key bands such as Ride, Chapterhouse and Slowdive hailed) origins, despite their more profound 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 like Blur, on occasion, chanced their arm with shoegazer-esque tunes ('She's So High' for instance) on a purely commercial basis. The careers of Thousand Yard Stare and Revolver were over before anyone had even noticed they'd begun, on account of the eventual backlash that befell the scene.
Slowdive eventually became the Alternative country leaning Mojave 3 while other protagonists in the genre either gave up the ghost or moved in other directions, such as Andy Bell of Ride who later joined Oasis after his own Britpop project Hurricane #1 faltered. A number have found solace in post-rock.
In recent years a number of bands such as Bethany Curve have continued the shoegazing trend, and NME has recently pointed out the shoegazing influence in a number of up and coming bands, which it has called "new-gazing".
<timeline> TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy ImageSize = width:850 height:350 PlotArea = width:800 height:300 bottom:20 left:20
Colors =
id:canvas value:rgb(0.97,0.97,0.97) id:grid1 value:rgb(0.86,0.86,0.86) id:grid2 value:gray(0.8) id:bars value:rgb(0.96,0.96,0.6)
BackgroundColors = canvas:canvas
Period = from:1983 till:2004 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:1983 gridcolor:grid1
BarData=
barset:Bands
LineData =
at:1985 color:grid2 layer:back at:1991 color:grid2 layer:back
PlotData=
- set defaults
width:25 fontsize:L textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,-4) color:bars
barset:Bands
at:1985 text:"1985: Psychocandy of JAMC" from:1984 till:1994 text:"My Bloody Valentine" at:1991 text:"1991: Loveless of MBV" from:1986 till:1991 text:"Galaxie 500" from:1987 till:1994 text:"Chapterhouse" from:1988 till:1996 text:"Ride" from:1988 till:1998 text:"Lush" from:1988 till:1999 text:"The Boo Radleys" from:1989 till:1999 text:"The Verve" from:1989 till:1995 text:"Slowdive" from:1992 till:1997 text:"Spiritualized"
</timeline>
See also
External links
- Audioscrobbler group (http://www.audioscrobbler.com/group/shoegazing)
- A concise summary of the genre (http://www.3ammagazine.com/musicarchives/2003/jan/shoegazing.html)
| Alternative rock |
| Britpop - College rock - Dream pop - Gothic rock - Grunge - Indie - Jam band - Madchester - New Wave - Twee |
| Bands - History |