Say you’re in a band and you have a pile of guitar pedals at your feet. You might stare at them while you play. Perhaps your stare is so intense it’s more of a gaze. A gaze in the direction of your shoes. Now you understand the term shoegaze.
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When the scene came to prominence in the 1990s, it had the volume, distortion, and ethos of punk. Many songs were melancholic but also dreamy at the same time. The friction between harsh and soft was disorienting. Giving listeners a sense of floating. In space, ladies and gentlemen.
If you like dream pop but don’t know a crucial part of its history, here are three shoegaze classics you must know.
“Just Like Honey” by The Jesus And Mary Chain
The Jesus And Mary Chain’s debut Psychocandy, helped pioneer shoegaze by blending raw textures with the sugary melodies of The Shangri-Las. They employed a wall of noise and minimalist beats to stand apart from the prevailing electronic pop music of the early 1980s. The band smeared its tracks with fuzz, which made an instrument of harsh edges, hazy mixes, and psychedelia. Jim and William Reid rejected the cultural trends around them. And Psychocandy set the blueprint for what lay ahead.
“Only Shallow” by My Bloody Valentine
No band defined shoegaze like My Bloody Valentine. And Loveless became the Sgt. Pepper’s or Pet Sounds of the genre. Guitarist Kevin Shields guided MBV through arduous tracking sessions, a multitude of studios, engineers, and an outrageous budget to capture a masterpiece. When it finally arrived in 1991, it sounded unlike anything at the time. Shields’s perfectionism drained Creation Records, but his obsession also resulted in a landmark and deeply influential recording. The Jesus And Mary Chain, American noise rock, and 1960s pop influenced My Bloody Valentine. And then Loveless shaped future records by Radiohead and The Smashing Pumpkins.
“Cherry-Coloured Funk” by Cocteau Twins
It’s hard to distinguish Elizabeth Fraser’s lyrics, which give Cocteau Twins’ Heaven Or Las Vegas surreal feelings of wonder. Like exploring a new land and discovering an unheard language. Robin Guthrie’s sparkling guitars and Simon Raymonde’s bass and wobbly synthesizers resonate otherworldly, bouncing against Fraser’s voice. She might be singing from another dimension, the past, the future, anywhere but here. “Cherry-Coloured Funk” created the dream pop standard. And you can still hear echoes of it in Beach House. The ambiguity adds mystery and intrigue. With cloudy chords in a kind of shoegaze that emphasizes beauty over the harsh edges of noise.
Photo by Steve Gullick / Courtesy of Force Field PR
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