The Scene That Celebrates Itself

Shoegaze (originally called shoegazing and sometimes conflated with dream pop) is a subgenre of indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion and effects, feedback, and overwhelming volume.Pete Prown / Harvey P. Newquist: "One faction came to be known as dream-pop or "shoegazers" (for their habit of looking at the ground while playing the guitars on stage). They were musicians who played trancelike, ethereal music that was composed of numerous guitars playing heavy droning chords wrapped in echo effects and phase shifters.", Hal Leonard 1997, It emerged in Ireland and the United Kingdom in the late 1980s among neo-psychedelic groups who usually stood motionless during live performances in a detached, non-confrontational state. The name comes from the heavy use of effects pedals, as the performers were often looking down at their pedals during such concerts.

My Bloody Valentine and their 1991 album ''Loveless'' are widely regarded as defining the genre. A loose label given to the shoegaze bands and other affiliated bands in London in the early 1990s was "the scene that celebrates itself". Most shoegaze artists drew from the template set by My Bloody Valentine on their late 1980s recordings, as well as bands such as The Jesus and Mary Chain and Cocteau Twins.

In the early 1990s, shoegaze was sidelined by American grunge and early Britpop acts, resulting in relatively unknown bands breaking up or reinventing their style altogether. Since the late 2010s, a renewed interest in the genre has been noted, namely among nu gaze and blackgaze bands.

Characteristics

Shoegaze genre combines ethereal, swirling vocals with layers of distorted, bent, or flanged guitars,Patrick Sisson,
Vapour Trails: Revisiting Shoegaze
", XLR8R no. 123, December 2008 creating a wash of sound where no instrument is distinguishable from another. The genre was typically "overwhelmingly loud, with long, droning riffs, waves of distortion, and cascades of feedback. Vocals and melodies disappeared into the walls of guitars." According to ''Pitchfork'', "emotionally, shoegaze turns its focus inward. The extreme noise eliminates the possibility of socializing while the music is playing, leaving each member of the audience alone with their thoughts. It's music for dreaming."

Early UK shoegaze was heavily influenced by American bands such as Dinosaur Jr., Husker Du and Sonic Youth.

Etymology

According to ''Pitchfork'', shoegaze is "a particularly unusual genre in that its name describes neither a sound nor a connection to music history."

In a 2016 article for ''HuffPost'' Andy Ross claimed he coined the term "shoegazing" at a show on 3 September 1991 which featured Chapterhouse, Slowdive and Moose, because the bands' members seemed to be in "a state of trance by the footwear lurking semi-motionless beneath their low-slung guitars". Alternatively, ''The Guinness Who's Who of Indie and New Wave Music'' (1992) claimed that the first use of the name was in a concert review for Moose, published by '' Sounds'', in which the author referenced how singer Russell Yates read lyrics taped to the floor throughout the gig.

According to AllMusic: "The shatteringly loud, droning neo-psychedelia the band performed was dubbed shoegaze by the British press because the band members stared at the floor while they performed". The term was also used by the British music press to describe dream pop bands. Slowdive's Simon Scott found the term relevant:

However, to some, the term was considered a pejorative, especially by a part of the English weekly music press who considered the movement as ineffectual, and it was disliked by many of the groups it purported to describe. Lushs singer Miki Berenyi explained: Ride's Mark Gardener had another take on his group's static presentation: "We didn't want to use the stage as a platform for ego... We presented ourselves as normal people, as a band who wanted their fans to think they could do that too."

History

Origins and precursors

" All I Wanna Do", a song from the Beach Boys' 1970 album ''Sunflower'', was retrospectively viewed as a precursor to shoegaze, and was one of many influences on both the shoegaze and dream pop scenes of the early 1990s.

Post-punk acts Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure were formative influences on shoegaze. Slowdive named themselves after the Siouxsie and the Banshees song of the same name and took inspiration from the group at their beginnings, while their contemporaries Lush were originally called "The Baby Machines", a line from a Siouxsie Sioux lyric. During early and mid 1980s, the English alternative rock and neo-psychedelia scenes produced several bands whose exploration of sounds and textures would impact shoegaze. Those bands included the House of Love, Spacemen 3, and Loop, the latter two of whom were notable influences on shoegazers Ride and Slowdive.

American underground bands Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and Pixies were also cited by various shoegaze bands as touchstones for their respective sounds. Proto-punk band the Velvet Underground also proved very influential for many shoegaze acts.Exclaim! Sound of Confusion article on Shoegaze
. Retrieved 22 September 2008.

According to AllMusic, most bands drew from the music of My Bloody Valentine as a template for the genre, as well as groups such as Cocteau Twins and the Jesus and Mary Chain. British dream pop duo A.R. Kane have also been credited with producing a template for the genre in the late 1980s. My Bloody Valentine's ''Loveless'' is referred to as the genre's defining album .

After garnering some local popularity with their 1987 twee/noise pop single, " Sunny Sundae Smile", My Bloody Valentine started to move their sound more and more into experimentation with noise and complex series of effect pedals—as seen in their 1988 breakthrough: the '' You Made Me Realise'' EP and album '' Isn't Anything''. Michael Azerrad's book ''Our Band Could Be Your Life'' cited an early 1990s Dinosaur Jr. tour of the United Kingdom as a key influence.

Whereas contemporary alternative rock movements of the time period were extremely male-dominated (Britpop, grunge), My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Lush, Cocteau Twins, Pale Saints, Curve and many other popular shoegaze acts had at least one prominent female musician who contributed key vocal elements and/or integral writing components to the music. In the 2014 film '' Beautiful Noise'', Kevin Shields noted that there were as many women as men in the shoegaze community.

The Scene That Celebrates Itself

The Scene That Celebrates Itself was the social and musical scene in the early 1990s within London and the Thames Valley area. The term was coined by ''Melody Maker'' Steve Sutherland in 1990 in a near-contemptuous gesture, focusing on how bands involved in the scene, rather than engaging in traditional rivalries, were often seen at each other's gigs, sometimes playing in each other's bands, and drinking together.

Bands lumped into the 'scene' by the press included several of the bands that were branded with the shoegazing label, such as Chapterhouse, Lush, Moose and other (mainly indie) bands such as Blur (prior to the release of their single " Popscene"), Thousand Yard Stare, See See Rider and Stereolab. A prime example were Moose, who often swapped members with other bands on a given night. Moose's Russell Yates and Stereolab guitarist Tim Gane would often trade places, while "Moose" McKillop often played with See See Rider. Gane and his Stereolab colleague Lætitia Sadier even played on the 1991 session by Moose for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show.Peel Sessions: 16 April 1991 - Moose
", ''Keeping It Peel'', BBC

The bands, producers and journalists of the time would gather in London and their activities would be chronicled in the gossip pages of the music papers ''NME'' and ''Melody Maker''. The most famous club and focal point was Syndrome, which was located on Oxford Street and ran weekly on Wednesday nights. The ''NME'', in particular, embraced the scene, and the unity of the bands was probably advantageous to their careers, because when one band had a successful record, the other bands could share the publicity. The scene was extremely small and revolved around fewer than 20 individuals.

The first stirrings of recognition came when indie writer Steve Lamacq referred to Ride in an ''NME'' review as " the House of Love with chainsaws".

The shoegaze genre label was quite often misapplied. As key bands such as Slowdive, Chapterhouse and Ride emerged from the Thames Valley, Swervedriver found themselves labelled shoegazers on account of their own Thames Valley origins, despite their more pronounced Hüsker Dü-meets- Stooges stylings.Lester, Paul (12 September 1992). "Whatever Happened to Shoegaze?" ''Melody Maker'', p.6. Retrieved 12 April 2007 from Proquest Research Library.

Decline

The coining of the term "The Scene That Celebrates Itself" was in many ways the beginning of the end for the first wave of shoegazers. The bands became perceived by critics as over-privileged, self-indulgent, and middle-class. This perception was in sharp contrast with both the bands who formed the wave of newly commercialized grunge music which was making its way across the Atlantic, as well as those bands who formed the foundation of Britpop, such as Pulp, Oasis

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases