There are people, usually older people, who will tell you that Gish is actually the Pumpkins’ best album, or their only good album, or something like that. I suspect these people are either just old or they are being deliberately contrarian/curmudgeonish, or they are trying to be hipsters (“I liked the Pumpkins before they were …
Tag: Shoegaze
Seamonsters (1991) by The Wedding Present
We all have musical sweet spots, things we like so much that we just eat up anything that fits into those sweet spots. This album, the first I have ever heard by The Wedding Present, hits me in a few of mine. And I left wondering, not for the first time, why it took me …
Nowhere (1990) by Ride
I’ve never gotten shoegaze, it’s just not anything that appeals to me on a fundamental level. Some of this comes from the nature of the genre – pop music drowning in distortion is still pop music – and part of it I’m pretty sure comes from not seeing it live at the time it was …
Heaven or Las Vegas (1990) by Cocteau Twins
The Cocteau Twins, arguably the inventors of dream pop, have an inimitable sound. On their early records I find that sound a little too reminiscent of Siouxsie and the Banshees but, at this stage of their career, I find that comparison basically useless. Bands with such distinct sounds, who I don’t love enough to listen …
Quique (1993) by Seefeel
I don’t know ambient music much beyond the 1970s, aside from a few 1990s albums I’ve encountered due to my podcast. But I do know that the vast majority of ambient music in existence has been created with synthesizers and other electronic instruments, keyboards hooked up to synthesizers and now computers, not rock band equipment. …
Painful (1993) by Yo La Tengo
I have only ever heard one Yo La Tengo album, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, and I suspect it has ruined me for their earlier career (or, perhaps, the entirety of the rest of their career). That record may or may not be their best – I wouldn’t know – but it …
Giant Steps (1993) by The Boo Radleys
As neo-psychedelia goes, this is a pretty diverse and varied record. That’s good because it’s not all that psychedelic comparatively speaking – I’m thinking of Mercury Rev by way of comparison – and often has more in common with britpop.
Mezcal Head (1993) by Swervedriver
The thing I like about Swervedriver is their diversity; they are the rare shoegaze band that doesn’t seem determined to one thing and one thing only. (In fact, their diversity might call into question the shoegaze label.)
Chrome (1993) by Catherine Wheel
When a band is named after a song or an album, and you know that song or album, there’s definitely a bit of expectation even if you don’t know much else about it. Maybe this band is named for the torture device, not the David Byrne album, but yet I still assumed there would be …
Souvlaki (1993) by Slowdive
What do I do with this? It’s a dream pop record on the shoegaze side of dreampop (as opposed to the psychedelic side) released after the peak of shoegaze. Attacked in the press at the time for being too shoegazey when everyone had moved on to britpop, it seems to be now held up as …
The Perfect Prescription (1987) by Spacemen 3
Programmic music is often hard for, whether it’s some Romantic composer trying to conjure up a storm or a picnic, or someone trying to show me what a drug trip is like, I often find the concept unnecessary to my enjoyment of the music.