Still In a Dream: a story of Shoegaze 1988-1995
5CDs of your finest swirly pop for £33.99. Not out ’til the end of Jan, so too late for Crimbo, but that’s my birthday sorted.
Attention Shoegazers
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Wow, lots of stuff there I’d completely forgotten about, songs that I never bought but had recorded on VHS from the Chart Show’s Indie top 20. Might need to invest in this too…
Christmas sorted. 🙂 Excellent news.
Oh not Christmas, must read properly.
February over here for about $55. Very tempted
Some interesting stuff, but I wouldn’t describe the stuff I actually like – House of Love, Dr Phones, Ultra Vivid Scene, Kitchens, etc as Shoegaze
Dr Phones ?! Phibes.
Too many bands I’ve never heard of and no White Hills or Black Angels. Shabby.
Ah, my specialist subject.
Shoegaze doesn’t really exist as a genre, it was an NME/Melody Maker shorthand to slag off any band that used loads of FX pedals and went a bit swirly in the early 90s and usually meant as a criticism by journalists obsessed with The Appalling Wonderstuff, The Manics and desperate for Britpop to come along – but like that other music paper invention ‘Krautrock’ – over time it’s become recognised as a ‘thing’ – which is a sort of strain of heavily psychedelic guitar music which was somewhat influenced by ambient and acid house in terms of creating a massive soundscape within a rock band format – later it sort of got adopted by US bands who adored Slowdive, Ride and MBV and didn’t read the NME or MM.
Good mix of stuff, I’ve got a lot of it already of course but as a comp it’s a pretty interesting selection – I suspect some of the choices were restricted by what could be licensed – which presumably explains why there is no My Bloody Valentine and some not-quite-definitive choices from bigger acts but pleased to see some lesser celebrated bands like Medicine, Swirlies, Bark Psychosis, Ecstasy of St Theresa, Seefeel and LovesLiesCrushing (who took Shoegaze as far as it could possibly go and then kept going).
I don’t know what Bark Psychosis are doing there. I thought they were like The Blue Nile on an off day without the songs or the singer.