Overview

What the hell is shoegaze? A scene? A movement? A sound? Back in the Nineties, many would have said the so-called genre was entirely fabricated. The term itself, an offensive piss-take given by the notoriously catty and scene-obsessed British music press, was plainly rejected by the absurdly small collection of bands to which it supposedly applied. Today shoegaze is undeniable. As a descriptor and as a source of influence, it is used in more ways and by more bands than anyone could have dreamed of 30 years ago. Between those periods of invention and ubiquity, the term, along with the bands it first described, all but disappeared off the face of the earth. In this ambitious oral history of a genre that has eluded definition for three decades, Ryan Pinkard unearths the first wave of shoegaze, following the core bands, their sounds, their influence, and their journeys in and out of obscurity. His analysis is woven through dozens of original interviews with artists, label heads, and critics. What he discovers is the unlikely odyssey of this esoteric, experimental music form, which nearly became a mainstream entity, only to be viciously killed off, forgotten, and rediscovered by a new generation that regards it as one of the most influential alternative music events since the Velvet Underground.

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Music writer Pinkard (The National’s Boxer) presents a textured oral history of shoegaze, a style of music that he characterizes by its “noisy, effectsladen guitar, obfuscated vocals, and atmospheric production.” The term shoegaze, originally intended as a critique of shy performers who “stared at their pedals” instead of engaging with audiences, became an artistic badge of honor for bands like Spacemen 3 (“It was all about the sound we were trying to create and not how we were trying to look, ” according to vocalist Pete Kember). The genre gained traction thanks to My Bloody Valentine’s 1988 album Isn’t Anything and reached the height of its popularity in early 1990s Britain, with critics expressing admiration for its “challenging” mix of sweet pop tunes and “sonic assaults.” The rise of Britpop quickly knocked shoegaze out of favor, Pinkard notes, but it has been revived in a music streaming era that has made offbeat, out-of-print records discoverable. Drawing on interviews with members of Chapterhouse, Slowdive, Moose, and Lush, as well as music journalists and editors, Pinkard vividly renders the whiplash of shoegaze’s rapid rise and fall, and the qualities (vulnerability, sensitivity) that fueled its revival. The result is a lively ode to an enigmatic musical genre. -- unknown * Publisher's Weekly *

Author Information

Ryan Pinkard is a writer, editor, and record collector from Colorado. He is the author of the 33 1/3 book about The National’s Boxer (2022) and an editor on numerous other 33 1/3 titles.

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