From someone who was ‘there’ at the time of the original 80s and 90s shoegaze bands, this is a pretty accurate summary, and I’m glad you mentioned lesser-known bands such as Moose, Curve and Pale Saints. The Asian shoegaze scene isn’t something I know much about, so thank-you for that. I don’t know if you know a band from England called ‘Seefeel’? On their album ‘Quique’, they fused elements of shoegaze with dub, techno, minimalism and industrial sounds. This was quite ‘ahead of its time’, because it came out in the early 1990s. You can find it easily on You Tube.
My Bloody Valentine and my band The Nightshade Project became friends when we toured together briefly in the U.S. - I now own the bass guitar played in the video ‘Only Shallow’, and Belinda now owns the bass guitar Tamara played in our video ‘Only Nothing’.
I first saw Lush and RIDE together in 1991 and will be at Miki Berenyi's NYC book talk tmw. This is one of the best Shoegaze overviews that I've ever watched. Thank you. RUBUR is a mainland Chinese band that I like, btw. Great job.
I guess you can say I'm an old school Shoegaze fan. My first club show was Lush and Ride in Palo Alto, California when I was 15 years old. I can close my eyes and still see Miki Berenyi walk up on stage. As the millennium turned, I was resigned to the fact that my beloved Shoegaze was destined to be forgotten, tossed into the dustbin of music history. But, I was so pleased to see the resurgence occur as all of these NuGaze groups sprouted up. I would even go on to see Lush, Ride, MBV, and Slowdive live again on their very popular reunion tours. This was a very well-informed video, and I'm glad that it came up on my feed. Great job!
Man, what a great time to be alive, late 80's, early 90's Shoegaze, Dreampop, but also Death and Black Metal, what a wonderful catalogue selection of music.
A very well researched and presented video. You touched on all the main groups and many of the lesser known influences and early exponents like the underrated A.R. Kane. Although usually mentioned in shoegaze histories, you could argue the sonically magnificent Smashing Pumpkins album 'Siamese Dream' ticks all the boxes when it comes to the shoegaze sound and is a major album of the genre. A band that rarely gets mentioned is the Pacific Northwest post-hardcore band Unwound whose final album 'Leaves turn inside you' from 2001 has enough crunchy guitars and layered textures to qualify as a pretty decent shoegaze effort. Anyway great video Stella.
Thank you! I just listened to the Unwound album you mentioned, it sounds bit dry to me to be considered as shoegaze, but I can see where you come from!
Was hoping you would do a big shoegaze video like this, you make great content and have such a relaxing voice! You deserve lots more subscribers and views :) A few more bands you didn't mention that I would like to recommend you: Blind Mr. Jones, Pacific UV and Tribes of the City. And you probably know Coaltar of the Deepers, lots of shoe gaze elements to some of their stuff!
You introduce me to so much music that was made during my lifetime but I never heard. Kind of ironic with you being so much younger. Thanks for another cool and informative video. You always make me smile when you smile.
As an old crank, I have had the good fortune to see many of these bands back in their heyday (for example, a triple bill of Buffalo Tom, Mercury Rev and MBV… this would have been around ‘92?) and the comprehensive nature of your video brought me right back there. As usual, well done, you! What has become my signature, have you heard of a band called Soundpool? They very much follow the Sunny Day in Glasgow model. They are quite good. There is another band named Asobi Seksu - they are from Brooklyn, of course. They have elements of shoegaze, but also a bit jangle pop and owe no small debt to Shonen Knife. The last band, yet again from Brooklyn, is one that sort of defies categorization: A Place to Bury Strangers. Have you heard of them? They are all over the map. I am a very big fan. Anyway, I will check another video soon and leave a comment.
You get it. I wasn't ready for this video to be SO good! And thank you for mentioning The Chameleons and Sarah Records, they hardly ever get mentioned by other videos on shoegaze!
Hi Stella, another great video! It’s like you reached deep into my brain with a spoon and dug out a whole bunch of memories from the 90s. Love how you found the roots of the genre. So glad you mentioned Medicine too, who are amazing and quite underrated, especially their debut, Shot Forth Self Living! Brad Laner is a super nice guy-I met him when they played Maxwell’s in Hoboken. He showed me how he got that incredible distortion sound on his guitar. And the Wire tribute album Whore, wow. Someone mentioned Seefeel, (p.s. you’ll find a job someday) you could also add M83 to this subgenre. I am just about the biggest Ulrich Schnauss fan ever. So I’ll end this rambling post with a note that both Ride and Slowdive released fantastic “comeback” albums in 2017. Slowdive’s 2017 self-titled is like a time travel jump from 1995 to 2017 that proves the timelessness of this genre. P.S. My ears are still ringing from seeing MBV play in the 90s.
As an older generation, I had never heard of Shoegaze till we got Urban Hymns by the Verve, which is certainly not shoegaze, but it eventually led me back to "A Storm in Heaven" .
Great video. This was my scene and I saw a lot of those bands back in the day. Good to see that younger people are getting into it. Really appreciate the time you took to properly research and present such a detailed overview. Subscribed.
I absolutely love the shoe gazing scene. Got into them through Jesus and Mary Chain, Lush and My Bloody Valentine. Love the Boo Radleys and Spiritualized as well. But I appreciate you bringing out the early influences upon these bands. It all makes perfect sense. Great review !!
The volume ingredient is spot on. After seeing Ride at The Palace in Melbourne in about '92, my hearing was damaged for a week, but the "high" it created, made it worth it.
Another great video Stella. One can tell you really put the time and effort into it. Props for mentioning A.R. Kane (I love them) and Ulrich Schnauss (Gone Forever is one of my all-time favorites) and Loop (have you heard Main?) And I also love Vapour Trail and the MBV Wire cover. Shoegaze remains one of my favorite genres, and to see it’s ascendence in recent years has been interesting. One of my plans for this year is to spend time delving into specifically Asian shoegaze, I feel like I’ve been missing out! A couple of personal things-I once played a MBV tribute show in Seattle with thirteen other bands, we played Somewhere and No More Sorry. And Andy my band-mate and I hung out with Pete Kember at one of his shows once, he played Hall of Mirrors by Kraftwerk and it was mesmerizing. Again, stellar job Stella.
I feel like shoegaze is humid, inward, and slightly insular, which actually interwines quite well with east-asia (and UK too). Yes I know Main but not quite familiar, another project of Robert Hampson I rem? Cool of you to have tributed to MBV as well as hanging out with Pete - I bet it was precious memory!
@@StellasEncounter I meant Sometimes (not Somewhere) in the above comment, and Main is Robert Hampson doing very abstracted guitar/dub ambience. Hanging out with Pete was/is a precious memory.
Stoked to see you bring up bands like Swervedriver, and also take the Wall of Sound into account! I always think of that when I think shoegaze. I never knew about Don’t Cramp My Style by My Bloody Valentine so that was cool to learn! Great video.
Nice overview. I remember the Kitchens Of Distinction being an important part of the development of that blissed out Shoegaze sound. Their first two albums are fantastic. History has kind of forgotten about them which is a shame.
Great job Stella, i found your video extremely accurate i have loved all these bands since way before i new the term Shoegaze ,i had all these bands on CD, it was probably 2010 when i first heard term shoegaze ,, i do believe the term Shoegaze came from journalists at Sounds Magazine in 1990 referring to Moose singer Russel Yates,, not NME..thanks for a great video.
I'm staring at my bare feet, but i loved your video. I really appreciated your deep dive into the early influences, through classic phases, contemporary offshoots of the genre and Asian iterations. Thanks for an informative video.
Hello. Wonderful video 👏🏼🎸. I’d recommend you the album “Dynamo” (1993) by the argentinian band Soda Stereo. They were by far the biggest and most popular latinamerican rock pop band by the beginning of the nineties, and in their musical quest they suddenly released a shoegaze record, the only one in their discography. Turns out their vocalist/guitarist and main composer was apparently listening a lot of shoegaze at the time of composition of the album. Many people was confused at the time, but the album passed the test of time. I love that record👌🏼🎸
Thanks a ton; just stumbled into your channel yesterday and spent a few hours with your videos and musical missives. I'm a big time 'gaze fan who came to the game super late, so was awesome to grab some new bands to add to my listening lists. Currently wandering through your Asian 'gaze suggests. Thank you for taking the time to share your insights on music.
I met Kevin shields before he was the singer around the time of another record by my bloody Valentine ep.A tiny old 60s club called Basins in the brutalist shopping center in Portsmouth.Virtually everyone left after the support band 😳they were all friends of the band I guess.My friend Matt and I got talking to Kevin,he bought us a drink and took us backstage,where we shared our deep obsession with the Marychain.Kevin showed me his tuning at the time and how to play were so beautiful 😎.When we headed out there was I think one guy at the bar 🤦♂️ they basically played just for us it was a beautiful night,will treasure it.Years later Kevin was trying to get into a sold out marychain gig in Brixton and saw us in the queue,I gave him my ticket and we went in together then I pretended I needed to go outside and bought the ticket with me 😆🥳 could have met Jim and William as Kevin knew them but I just couldn’t bring myself too as I had shaved my head 😆 they didn’t look too impressed when they looked over 😆
He invited us to sleep over at his squat that had flooded,they were sleeping in hammocks apparently,but I didn’t want to take his money for the train the next day 🤦♂️what am I like 😆
Excellent video, Stella. I was lucky to see My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Lush and the Pale Saints live. This just brought back some happy memories. As I am in Asia now, I will check out the scene here…I didn’t know it existed 😁😂
Another relic from the late 80s/90s - pretty good history. Always funny to watch the kids "eulogising" just what was happening as a follow on from before as if it came out of nowhere, so very refreshing to have someone acknowledging the massive post-punk roots of shoegaze. Post-punk... where all the best music stems from.
THIS VIDEO IS JUST SO PERFECT so well done and well explained, with all the delicacy with the history of the style leaving it so complete and well detailed, it's really a great documentary about the genre . . . *controversial opinions*: Cocteau Twins is the Shoegaze great primal act and Deftones is a valid crossover act between Alternative Metal and Shoegaze
I have not listened to a lot of shoegaze sadly, but there's one band playing a dream pop and shoegaze blend that I really love (and I don't think you mentioned it): Asobi Seksu. They're an American band, but the singer is Japanese and sing some songs in English and some in Japanese. They were hand picked by Slowdive to open for them in 2014, but the band was actually only active between 2001 and 2013. I highly recommend the songs: Trails (2011), Stay (2002) and It's Too Late (2002). Hope you'll like those!
solid video again, great recognition of blackgaze. before i pressed play, i thought it would be criminal to neglect the fusion style. surprising there was no mention of A Place to Bury Strangers, one of the more better and more well-known groups whose sound embraces shoegaze and noise rock ala The Jesus and Mary Chain.
🇧🇷 Vídeo muito bom Stella parabéns!!! I recommend a Brazilian Shoegaze band called GORDURATRANS. This group is recent on the national scene but is very promising. I hope you enjoy!!
Great video! I always saw No Man's Land by Syd Barrett (recorded in 1969) to be a precursor to shoegaze, love that you featured Brian Eno's Here Come The Warm Jets here! I heard it a couple days ago and thought it was one of the most ahead of its time albums I had ever heard - Les Rallizes Denudes are another band that pioneered the genre in the 60s-70s
@@StellasEncounter Yesss I think you would love them, they are very intense noise rock from Japan, underneath all the feedback were very beautiful melodies and songs, the singer always drenched everything in echo and reverb just like the shoegaze of the 90s
Awesome video Stella! I've been meaning to put together a playlist of Shoegaze groups I'm not to familiar with from early on and this video helped me get some new artists on there! Also the Asian Shoegaze scene is phenomenal. One of my favourite bands in the scene is For Tracy Hyde. Their music is very cinematic & sweet (The vocals help with that haha).Others I like are 17 years old & berlin wall, Lemon's Chair & Plasic girl in closet. Also since you mentioned the Asian Shoegaze channel it's sad but he deleted all the videos form his channel like a few days ago... Sad cause the channel has a ton of incredible albums.
Thanks for your comment! Some of the bands you mentioned I didn't really know, cool info! Oops the asian shoegaze channel's videos got deleted exactly a few days ago? Any reason? I'm bit upset about this as it has so many albums!! Good luck with your playlist btw! :)
@@StellasEncounter Oops I'm sorry it took me so long to respond to this haha. I forgot 🙃 I believe he quit the channel because he didn't want to do the channel anymore & I think some uploads had issues with copyrights/Some artists not wanting the album up on TH-cam. But there are loads of Asian Shoegaze content on YT thankfully. But He'll be missed because his channel got me into so many amazing bands (My Dead Girlfriend & Yuragi to name a few) One thing I loved about this video was that you mentioned alot of smaller, more obscure artists!
This was interesting! For whatever reason I'm not as drawn to shoegaze as I am post-rock or post-punk. I think the closest I'll go is Smashing Pumpkins. But it's an interesting side of must to learn about! If you want a bit of a deep cut recommendation there's a newer band called 2:54. I'd maybe call them alternative with shoegaze elements. I'm obsessed with their first album.
Great job! really enjoyed your video, pretty much covered everything, I was a teenager when shoegaze was happening and have always loved the genre since, as like you I can see you love the genre too, I would like to draw your attention to these early songs before shoegaze I think it is early shoegaze- MX-80 Sound-Obsessive Devotion and also an early Japanese band Les Rallize Denudes-Fallin in Love With You. Please check them out have a listen, let me know what you think, would you agree ? Keep up the good work.
Thank you very much for your comment! I listened to both two songs and like them a lot. Great songs! I can see how they are precursors of shoegaze, especially Les Rallize Denudes (just from these two songs anyways).
I also would have added the album "Dynamo" by Soda Stereo which was influentiated by mbv's loveless and was one of the big exponents of shoegaze in the hispanic countries. I loved your video btw
One band that should've been mentored on that first wave was the Vedlt. They played shows with many of those early shoegaze bands and were apart of the innovation of that genre. They collaborated with Cocteau twins as well as AR Kane. I did an interview with them recently . If you like, check it out
Very solid overview! A few shoegaze bands I recommend: Chasms (The Mirage is a fantastic album), Crocodiles (Summer of Hate is very catchy), Dalek (rap and shoegaze, Absense is a solid album). I also have a soft spot for Magnetic Fields' Distortion.
Another great video. You found some MBV EP's and compilations I never heard of. The downfall can be attributed to a lot of things. Lush of course turned to Britpop then had the death of their drummer. MBV and some other band I think dealt with a great deal of depression and substance abuse. I tried to find an Alternative Press article that was really good from the late 90's but I can't find it online. It goes into the details of the demise. Kevin Smith spent most of the money from Loveless on a studio and of course took 20 years to release a record. Very cool you mention Ulrich Schnaus - I had not thought of him as shoegaze. And of course great mention of Pale Saints who you know is one of my all-time favorite bands. I also like how you provide some resources to Chinese shoegaze. One interesting thing I find about shoegaze from talking to British people my age is apparently shoegaze was probably more popular in the US. I figured it would be so in Britain but not really the case.
MBV being so slow/patient when releasing music is also what make them great partially. I'm not sure if Shoegaze were more popular in the US. I guess a lot of British were listening to Britpop, drum&bass, jungle, trip-hop, and other nascent music styles which divided the listeners.
@@StellasEncounter Of course I don't have any hard data that shoe gaze was more popular, but just what I gathered from talking to people. Still shoegaze not a genre that stuck. It seemed shoegaze was mostly vanished by the early 00's.
A band I like which mix shoegaze with elements of electronica / trip hop is Bowery Electric. The song Freedom Fighter is a good example of what they do.
I remember shoegaze starting, I went to the JAMC Psychocandy album launch and loved this type of stuff. Shoegaze was looked on as a joke by some in the music press, called Shoegaze because the band's spent most of their time looking down, at their shoes.
My discovery into Shoegaze maybe was backwards, I started with Black Metal and then discovered bands like Alcest and Sylvaine and then discovering Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine and Love Spirals Downwards and the like. Blackgaze is still probably my go to genre for when I don't know what to listen to.
Slowdive's live performance of Golden Hair with that blue haired girl in the crowd, overwhelmed with emotion, shows how Slowdive has reconquered the stage and are very relevant into the 21th century.
Someone once qualified Jesus and Mary Chain as "accidental shoegaze", and to this day I think it's very accurate. They had a very unique sound, lots of anger, and amazing originality in both lyrics and music.
Nǐ hǎo Stella - another stellar video. Very interesting for me, as I tuned out of music after The Smiths broke up in '87, not getting excited again until I saw Pearl Jam on a late night BBC show. I like a few songs, but this music is not my cup of tea ! Many times I've listened to 'Loveless' but I really don't get it. Thanks for the Asian band recommendations - I'll check them out now. Greetings from your neighbour, Viet Nam.
@@urlgoon Hello, thanks for the comment. I live in Asia now, so miss all the big UK gigs. I did see The Pixies back in the day (with Throwing Muses), and Pearl Jam at Hyde Park (maybe 10 years ago). They were a bit disappointing, played too many medium-paced song, not really suitable for large, open-air venues. All the best :)
I have a long to-do list. I would like to do a series on 'those people that have had an outsized influence including Albini/Eno'. It will require a good deal of work to give it justice. It is in my mind, thank you for your suggestion and taking the time to comment. Have a great day!
Some of my favorite modern shoegaze comes from the South Korean musician Parannoul. Definitely recommend to anyone into shoegaze or trying to get into shoegaze.
@StellasEncounter Somerset is a county in South-west England and your accent was a close resemblance of it,which is a compliment as I spent many a happy summer at Glastonbury festival!!!🌠
Name your fav Shoegaze bands here! 😁😁😁
Slowdive !!!!!
Lush
Tokyo shoegazer untuk saat ini
Cocteau Twins, and The Pixies.
Lush
The Veldt
Star Flyer 59
A.R Kane
Fold zandura
My bloody valentines. Cool
I LOVE Gen-Z re-discovering the whole Shoegaze/Dream Pop scene. Believe me, it was an AMAZING time for music‼️
From someone who was ‘there’ at the time of the original 80s and 90s shoegaze bands, this is a pretty accurate summary, and I’m glad you mentioned lesser-known bands such as Moose, Curve and Pale Saints. The Asian shoegaze scene isn’t something I know much about, so thank-you for that. I don’t know if you know a band from England called ‘Seefeel’? On their album ‘Quique’, they fused elements of shoegaze with dub, techno, minimalism and industrial sounds. This was quite ‘ahead of its time’, because it came out in the early 1990s. You can find it easily on You Tube.
Thank you! Yes I've heard of them, not very familiar though...
The Birthday party and Pale Saints just don't seem to get credit for being so dreamy and delicious. Love them, still!!
@@pluise true
That Seefeel album is a masterpiece 👌
Listened to Seefeel 'Quique' today, like it a lot! Like shoegaze meets Aphex Twin! Thanks :)
My Bloody Valentine and my band The Nightshade Project became friends when we toured together briefly in the U.S. - I now own the bass guitar played in the video ‘Only Shallow’, and Belinda now owns the bass guitar Tamara played in our video ‘Only Nothing’.
wow, nice to meet you there! Glad you came by!😄
Slowdive releasing Slowdive years later was awesome such a great comeback album
Spot on adding Spacemen 3 and Loop to this discussion, absolute must haves
both good bands too!
I first saw Lush and RIDE together in 1991 and will be at Miki Berenyi's NYC book talk tmw. This is one of the best Shoegaze overviews that I've ever watched. Thank you. RUBUR is a mainland Chinese band that I like, btw. Great job.
thank you! Glad you enjoyed it! :) And yes RUBUR!!! Hahaha
I guess you can say I'm an old school Shoegaze fan. My first club show was Lush and Ride in Palo Alto, California when I was 15 years old. I can close my eyes and still see Miki Berenyi walk up on stage. As the millennium turned, I was resigned to the fact that my beloved Shoegaze was destined to be forgotten, tossed into the dustbin of music history. But, I was so pleased to see the resurgence occur as all of these NuGaze groups sprouted up. I would even go on to see Lush, Ride, MBV, and Slowdive live again on their very popular reunion tours. This was a very well-informed video, and I'm glad that it came up on my feed. Great job!
Thanks for sharing your anecdotal story :) I do believe shoegaze deserves to stand the test of time! Glad you enjoyed it!
Man, what a great time to be alive, late 80's, early 90's Shoegaze, Dreampop, but also Death and Black Metal, what a wonderful catalogue selection of music.
Lush is legendary but underrated as well imo
Lush is the best , especially live.
A very well researched and presented video. You touched on all the main groups and many of the lesser known influences and early exponents like the underrated A.R. Kane. Although usually mentioned in shoegaze histories, you could argue the sonically magnificent Smashing Pumpkins album 'Siamese Dream' ticks all the boxes when it comes to the shoegaze sound and is a major album of the genre. A band that rarely gets mentioned is the Pacific Northwest post-hardcore band Unwound whose final album 'Leaves turn inside you' from 2001 has enough crunchy guitars and layered textures to qualify as a pretty decent shoegaze effort. Anyway great video Stella.
Thank you! I just listened to the Unwound album you mentioned, it sounds bit dry to me to be considered as shoegaze, but I can see where you come from!
Was hoping you would do a big shoegaze video like this, you make great content and have such a relaxing voice! You deserve lots more subscribers and views :) A few more bands you didn't mention that I would like to recommend you: Blind Mr. Jones, Pacific UV and Tribes of the City. And you probably know Coaltar of the Deepers, lots of shoe gaze elements to some of their stuff!
Haha thank you! I didn't know about your recs and gave them a listen, all good finds - esp Pacific UV - thanks again :)
You should check out the Taiwanese band Fuguko (河豚子)! They're one of my favorite shoegaze acts at the moment
You introduce me to so much music that was made during my lifetime but I never heard. Kind of ironic with you being so much younger. Thanks for another cool and informative video. You always make me smile when you smile.
@ artomatt I feel ya! I didn't discover Lush until 2005...ten years after the fact! I was forty-something.
My god. So many great songs and bands in this mini-documentary. So glad I experienced it as it happened.
Liked and subscribed! Well done, and a nice overview of shoegaze. 🎸
Thanks for the sub!
As an old crank, I have had the good fortune to see many of these bands back in their heyday (for example, a triple bill of Buffalo Tom, Mercury Rev and MBV… this would have been around ‘92?) and the comprehensive nature of your video brought me right back there. As usual, well done, you!
What has become my signature, have you heard of a band called Soundpool? They very much follow the Sunny Day in Glasgow model. They are quite good. There is another band named Asobi Seksu - they are from Brooklyn, of course. They have elements of shoegaze, but also a bit jangle pop and owe no small debt to Shonen Knife. The last band, yet again from Brooklyn, is one that sort of defies categorization: A Place to Bury Strangers. Have you heard of them? They are all over the map. I am a very big fan.
Anyway, I will check another video soon and leave a comment.
Thanks for your comment and support! Yeah I've heard of some of these, not Soundpool though, thanks for letting me know! :)
You had my respect for including Curve and Flying Saucer attack, they are my favorite!
Very awesome that you talked about MBVs early history. People tend to ignore it, but the first song by MBV my dad showed me was Tiger In My Tank
The Things I Miss is in my top five for MBV. It's so sweet!
Brilliant video!
The late 80’s and early 90’s were good times to a teenager from north west England.
I loved this music
You get it. I wasn't ready for this video to be SO good! And thank you for mentioning The Chameleons and Sarah Records, they hardly ever get mentioned by other videos on shoegaze!
You deliver a very entertaining music genre educational experience. I could listen and look for hours straight! Awesome work Stella!
I'm glad you are exploring my channel. Thanks for the kind words and positive feedback, it's well received.
I love your mini-documentaries and your upbeat attitude.
Great overview! I've been re-descovering shoegaze and dreampop lately, so this video fits right in. Keep up the good job!
Thanks, will do!
Hi Stella, another great video! It’s like you reached deep into my brain with a spoon and dug out a whole bunch of memories from the 90s. Love how you found the roots of the genre. So glad you mentioned Medicine too, who are amazing and quite underrated, especially their debut, Shot Forth Self Living! Brad Laner is a super nice guy-I met him when they played Maxwell’s in Hoboken. He showed me how he got that incredible distortion sound on his guitar. And the Wire tribute album Whore, wow. Someone mentioned Seefeel, (p.s. you’ll find a job someday) you could also add M83 to this subgenre. I am just about the biggest Ulrich Schnauss fan ever. So I’ll end this rambling post with a note that both Ride and Slowdive released fantastic “comeback” albums in 2017. Slowdive’s 2017 self-titled is like a time travel jump from 1995 to 2017 that proves the timelessness of this genre. P.S. My ears are still ringing from seeing MBV play in the 90s.
Thank you very much for the kind words, they're appreciated.
Thank you also for the suggestions.
Have a great rest of the weekend!
As an older generation, I had never heard of Shoegaze till we got Urban Hymns by the Verve, which is certainly not shoegaze, but it eventually led me back to "A Storm in Heaven" .
If you haven’t already, check out A Northern Soul. I think that is even better than Heaven.
@@Jabberwok28 Ashcroft is more out front on this one, not mixed as a sound effect. So the Shoegaze is being left behind.
Thank you for this intro to a genre I've always been so near to, but never understood!
You're very welcome, and I'm very glad you've found it.
Have a great weekend, and Happy Halloween.
Great video. This was my scene and I saw a lot of those bands back in the day. Good to see that younger people are getting into it. Really appreciate the time you took to properly research and present such a detailed overview. Subscribed.
This was such an enjoyable summary of a time I remember very dearly. Great retrospective
Glad you enjoyed it!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I was searching for some shoegaze music playlists & stumbled upon this video. Love the history explanation & hopefully to see more in future :)
Glad you enjoyed it!
I absolutely love the shoe gazing scene. Got into them through Jesus and Mary Chain, Lush and My Bloody Valentine. Love the Boo Radleys and Spiritualized as well. But I appreciate you bringing out the early influences upon these bands. It all makes perfect sense. Great review !!
Thanks for making this video. You did an awesome job!
Thank you!
The volume ingredient is spot on. After seeing Ride at The Palace in Melbourne in about '92, my hearing was damaged for a week, but the "high" it created, made it worth it.
Would love to see Ride in the 90s! I saw them a few years ago didn't find the volume to be too loud. I guess they play live differently now.
Slowdive's "Star Roving" started to flow in my ears immediately after this clip 🤟
Another great video Stella. One can tell you really put the time and effort into it. Props for mentioning A.R. Kane (I love them) and Ulrich Schnauss (Gone Forever is one of my all-time favorites) and Loop (have you heard Main?) And I also love Vapour Trail and the MBV Wire cover. Shoegaze remains one of my favorite genres, and to see it’s ascendence in recent years has been interesting. One of my plans for this year is to spend time delving into specifically Asian shoegaze, I feel like I’ve been missing out!
A couple of personal things-I once played a MBV tribute show in Seattle with thirteen other bands, we played Somewhere and No More Sorry. And Andy my band-mate and I hung out with Pete Kember at one of his shows once, he played Hall of Mirrors by Kraftwerk and it was mesmerizing. Again, stellar job Stella.
I feel like shoegaze is humid, inward, and slightly insular, which actually interwines quite well with east-asia (and UK too). Yes I know Main but not quite familiar, another project of Robert Hampson I rem? Cool of you to have tributed to MBV as well as hanging out with Pete - I bet it was precious memory!
@@StellasEncounter I meant Sometimes (not Somewhere) in the above comment, and Main is Robert Hampson doing very abstracted guitar/dub ambience. Hanging out with Pete was/is a precious memory.
@@davidtollefson8411 if you meet him again, tell him some rando on TH-cam advised him to write a book!
I laughed so hard when you started singing Vapour Trail.
Haha cheers!
This was an impressive video! I was really impressed at how you included many obscure early bands and took the story through to the present day!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Hey there. I'm new here and have been loving all of your Brief History-s. Not just the content, but your presentation. Subscribed! Thanks
Thanks and welcome!! :)
thank you so much for this. All of my favorite bands as a kid, and some new to me.
Stoked to see you bring up bands like Swervedriver, and also take the Wall of Sound into account! I always think of that when I think shoegaze. I never knew about Don’t Cramp My Style by My Bloody Valentine so that was cool to learn! Great video.
Nice overview. I remember the Kitchens Of Distinction being an important part of the development of that blissed out Shoegaze sound. Their first two albums are fantastic. History has kind of forgotten about them which is a shame.
Good shout on them, didn't recognize the name, playing "Drive That Fast" feels like I've heard this song many times....
@@StellasEncounter Its such a beautiful song. They are worth checking out.
How did I not know about your channel before? Brilliant…
Great video!! I always felt dinosaur jr early albums should be mentioned more in the early shoegaze conversation
Great job Stella, i found your video extremely accurate i have loved all these bands since way before i new the term Shoegaze ,i had all these bands on CD, it was probably 2010 when i first heard term shoegaze ,, i do believe the term Shoegaze came from journalists at Sounds Magazine in 1990 referring to Moose singer Russel Yates,, not NME..thanks for a great video.
Thank you!! Glad you enjoyed it :)
Another one of my favourite genres that you covered with great detail. Good work! Thanks for the information, great research!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Awesome video! Thanks for opening my eyes to some new sounds :))
Excellent video. You're very good at this. I love your voice.
Thank you.
Thank you too!
I love your enthusiasm, Stella. I look forward to hearing your takes on different music genres and phenomenon.
Thanks for your support, I appreciate it!
I'm staring at my bare feet, but i loved your video. I really appreciated your deep dive into the early influences, through classic phases, contemporary offshoots of the genre and Asian iterations. Thanks for an informative video.
Thank you and glad you liked it! And hahaha @ staring at feet!
why am i just finding your channel!!
Hello. Wonderful video 👏🏼🎸. I’d recommend you the album “Dynamo” (1993) by the argentinian band Soda Stereo. They were by far the biggest and most popular latinamerican rock pop band by the beginning of the nineties, and in their musical quest they suddenly released a shoegaze record, the only one in their discography. Turns out their vocalist/guitarist and main composer was apparently listening a lot of shoegaze at the time of composition of the album. Many people was confused at the time, but the album passed the test of time. I love that record👌🏼🎸
Fantastic video Stella! I'm from that early era and still learned quite a bit. btw, Ride 'Nowhere' will always be my favorite shoegaze album. ❤
Awesome! Thank you!
Thanks a ton; just stumbled into your channel yesterday and spent a few hours with your videos and musical missives. I'm a big time 'gaze fan who came to the game super late, so was awesome to grab some new bands to add to my listening lists. Currently wandering through your Asian 'gaze suggests. Thank you for taking the time to share your insights on music.
Oh my - R.E.M. video! Could talk about them all day
Welcome! Glad you enjoyed the videos and got something from them as well. Thanks for watching :)
best band ever!
Great video, great work keep it up Stella!
Thank you! Will do!
I met Kevin shields before he was the singer around the time of another record by my bloody Valentine ep.A tiny old 60s club called Basins in the brutalist shopping center in Portsmouth.Virtually everyone left after the support band 😳they were all friends of the band I guess.My friend Matt and I got talking to Kevin,he bought us a drink and took us backstage,where we shared our deep obsession with the Marychain.Kevin showed me his tuning at the time and how to play were so beautiful 😎.When we headed out there was I think one guy at the bar 🤦♂️ they basically played just for us it was a beautiful night,will treasure it.Years later Kevin was trying to get into a sold out marychain gig in Brixton and saw us in the queue,I gave him my ticket and we went in together then I pretended I needed to go outside and bought the ticket with me 😆🥳 could have met Jim and William as Kevin knew them but I just couldn’t bring myself too as I had shaved my head 😆 they didn’t look too impressed when they looked over 😆
He invited us to sleep over at his squat that had flooded,they were sleeping in hammocks apparently,but I didn’t want to take his money for the train the next day 🤦♂️what am I like 😆
Belinda was hauntingly beautiful.
@briared Path
what a story!
thank you for sharing. I really don't know how to reply beyond, lol, wut!
Have a great weekend
Excellent video, Stella. I was lucky to see My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Lush and the Pale Saints live. This just brought back some happy memories. As I am in Asia now, I will check out the scene here…I didn’t know it existed 😁😂
Glad it introduced you some newer stuff. And lucky you to have seen them back in the days!
Great video! Just about my favourite genre, and you capture the essence of the feelings evoked so well. So cheerfully presented, too.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Another relic from the late 80s/90s - pretty good history.
Always funny to watch the kids "eulogising" just what was happening as a follow on from before as if it came out of nowhere, so very refreshing to have someone acknowledging the massive post-punk roots of shoegaze.
Post-punk... where all the best music stems from.
That was great!
I know and love about 90% of these bands.
I don't know how I found this, but, thank you.
Everything you said is true.
I won't assume everything I said/say is true, but thanks for giving me credits for that!
I feel like ive been missing out big time having only just found this channel
I'm glad you've found my little bit of the internet too!
THIS VIDEO IS JUST SO PERFECT
so well done and well explained, with all the delicacy with the history of the style leaving it so complete and well detailed, it's really a great documentary about the genre
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*controversial opinions*:
Cocteau Twins is the Shoegaze great primal act
and Deftones is a valid crossover act between Alternative Metal and Shoegaze
Thank you am glad you liked it! You're right, deftones is up there as a crossover band of shoegaze!
Acá en Argentina tuvimos a "Asalto al Parque Zoológico". Bandon! Y su disco "Noise Sweet Noise"
god bless my youtube recommendations, great stuff!!
I have not listened to a lot of shoegaze sadly, but there's one band playing a dream pop and shoegaze blend that I really love (and I don't think you mentioned it): Asobi Seksu. They're an American band, but the singer is Japanese and sing some songs in English and some in Japanese. They were hand picked by Slowdive to open for them in 2014, but the band was actually only active between 2001 and 2013.
I highly recommend the songs: Trails (2011), Stay (2002) and It's Too Late (2002). Hope you'll like those!
Yes I know the band Wasobi Seksu, and they're good, good shout!
solid video again, great recognition of blackgaze. before i pressed play, i thought it would be criminal to neglect the fusion style. surprising there was no mention of A Place to Bury Strangers, one of the more better and more well-known groups whose sound embraces shoegaze and noise rock ala The Jesus and Mary Chain.
I forgot why I didn't include a place to bury strangers.....good shout! Thanks for watching! :)
Ohh... and dont forget "Swirlies" !!!
🇧🇷 Vídeo muito bom Stella parabéns!!! I recommend a Brazilian Shoegaze band called GORDURATRANS. This group is recent on the national scene but is very promising. I hope you enjoy!!
Great video! I always saw No Man's Land by Syd Barrett (recorded in 1969) to be a precursor to shoegaze, love that you featured Brian Eno's Here Come The Warm Jets here! I heard it a couple days ago and thought it was one of the most ahead of its time albums I had ever heard - Les Rallizes Denudes are another band that pioneered the genre in the 60s-70s
Thank you! Another comment mentioned Les Rallizes Denudes too. They seem very interesting and need to check them out!
@@StellasEncounter Yesss I think you would love them, they are very intense noise rock from Japan, underneath all the feedback were very beautiful melodies and songs, the singer always drenched everything in echo and reverb just like the shoegaze of the 90s
@@StellasEncounter Also sorry I meant No Man's Land by Syd Barrett!
@@kelechi_77 I listened to one of their famous albums this morning....amazing band and thanks so much for letting me know about them! :)
Great vid. Love the shoegaze content. thank you for sharing 😍🥰😍
Thank you so much 🤗
Great comprehensive overview 🙌🥳
Very kind of you!
Thank you for taking the time to reply.
Have a great weekend!
Thanks for making a video on this!
Awesome video Stella! I've been meaning to put together a playlist of Shoegaze groups I'm not to familiar with from early on and this video helped me get some new artists on there! Also the Asian Shoegaze scene is phenomenal. One of my favourite bands in the scene is For Tracy Hyde. Their music is very cinematic & sweet (The vocals help with that haha).Others I like are 17 years old & berlin wall, Lemon's Chair & Plasic girl in closet. Also since you mentioned the Asian Shoegaze channel it's sad but he deleted all the videos form his channel like a few days ago... Sad cause the channel has a ton of incredible albums.
Thanks for your comment! Some of the bands you mentioned I didn't really know, cool info! Oops the asian shoegaze channel's videos got deleted exactly a few days ago? Any reason? I'm bit upset about this as it has so many albums!! Good luck with your playlist btw! :)
@@StellasEncounter Oops I'm sorry it took me so long to respond to this haha. I forgot 🙃
I believe he quit the channel because he didn't want to do the channel anymore & I think some uploads had issues with copyrights/Some artists not wanting the album up on TH-cam. But there are loads of Asian Shoegaze content on YT thankfully. But He'll be missed because his channel got me into so many amazing bands (My Dead Girlfriend & Yuragi to name a few) One thing I loved about this video was that you mentioned alot of smaller, more obscure artists!
Brilliant description of the shoegaze genre
This was interesting! For whatever reason I'm not as drawn to shoegaze as I am post-rock or post-punk. I think the closest I'll go is Smashing Pumpkins. But it's an interesting side of must to learn about!
If you want a bit of a deep cut recommendation there's a newer band called 2:54. I'd maybe call them alternative with shoegaze elements. I'm obsessed with their first album.
Thanks for all this good info, and thanks to commenters for more good info.
Great job! really enjoyed your video, pretty much covered everything, I was a teenager when shoegaze was happening and have always loved the genre since, as like you I can see you love the genre too, I would like to draw your attention to these early songs before shoegaze I think it is early shoegaze-
MX-80 Sound-Obsessive Devotion and also an early Japanese band Les Rallize Denudes-Fallin in Love With You.
Please check them out have a listen, let me know what you think, would you agree ?
Keep up the good work.
Thank you very much for your comment! I listened to both two songs and like them a lot. Great songs! I can see how they are precursors of shoegaze, especially Les Rallize Denudes (just from these two songs anyways).
Pretty interesting video! HUM is another great band that uses shoegaze elements in a few of their songs. I'd recommend them as a band in general
Hum definitely uses shoegaze in their songs and they make it work perfectly.
I also would have added the album "Dynamo" by Soda Stereo which was influentiated by mbv's loveless and was one of the big exponents of shoegaze in the hispanic countries. I loved your video btw
I like Soda Stereo!! And thanks for your comment and support!!
Shoegaze and Dreampop forever ❤
One band that should've been mentored on that first wave was the Vedlt. They played shows with many of those early shoegaze bands and were apart of the innovation of that genre. They collaborated with Cocteau twins as well as AR Kane. I did an interview with them recently . If you like, check it out
I've been listening to Vapour Trail and I Wanna Destroy You alot since watching this. Two new songs to obsess over. Thanks for the tip! 🙇🙇🙇
am glad!!!
Very solid overview! A few shoegaze bands I recommend: Chasms (The Mirage is a fantastic album), Crocodiles (Summer of Hate is very catchy), Dalek (rap and shoegaze, Absense is a solid album). I also have a soft spot for Magnetic Fields' Distortion.
Very very cool suggestions. Thanks for take the time to share them.
Have a great day!
Another great video. You found some MBV EP's and compilations I never heard of. The downfall can be attributed to a lot of things. Lush of course turned to Britpop then had the death of their drummer. MBV and some other band I think dealt with a great deal of depression and substance abuse. I tried to find an Alternative Press article that was really good from the late 90's but I can't find it online. It goes into the details of the demise. Kevin Smith spent most of the money from Loveless on a studio and of course took 20 years to release a record. Very cool you mention Ulrich Schnaus - I had not thought of him as shoegaze. And of course great mention of Pale Saints who you know is one of my all-time favorite bands. I also like how you provide some resources to Chinese shoegaze. One interesting thing I find about shoegaze from talking to British people my age is apparently shoegaze was probably more popular in the US. I figured it would be so in Britain but not really the case.
MBV being so slow/patient when releasing music is also what make them great partially. I'm not sure if Shoegaze were more popular in the US. I guess a lot of British were listening to Britpop, drum&bass, jungle, trip-hop, and other nascent music styles which divided the listeners.
@@StellasEncounter Of course I don't have any hard data that shoe gaze was more popular, but just what I gathered from talking to people. Still shoegaze not a genre that stuck. It seemed shoegaze was mostly vanished by the early 00's.
A band I like which mix shoegaze with elements of electronica / trip hop is Bowery Electric. The song Freedom Fighter is a good example of what they do.
I remember shoegaze starting, I went to the JAMC Psychocandy album launch and loved this type of stuff. Shoegaze was looked on as a joke by some in the music press, called Shoegaze because the band's spent most of their time looking down, at their shoes.
In the UK it was called indie.
Btw, all members of the Marychain went to the same school as me!
thank you so much for this ❤❤❤
you're an angel!!!
My discovery into Shoegaze maybe was backwards, I started with Black Metal and then discovered bands like Alcest and Sylvaine and then discovering Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine and Love Spirals Downwards and the like. Blackgaze is still probably my go to genre for when I don't know what to listen to.
As long as you enjoy the journey, I'm not sure the path is important.
Thanks for taking the time to reply!
Have a great day!
Slowdive's live performance of Golden Hair with that blue haired girl in the crowd, overwhelmed with emotion, shows how Slowdive has reconquered the stage and are very relevant into the 21th century.
Yes! Dinosaur Jr.! That's my local hometown band. AND Sonic Youth also lived in the town over. I'm such a Shoegaze nerd. Great round up. 🤘
Ahh cool, have you met J Mascis outside of a show? Long live Dinosaurs!!! /S
@@StellasEncounter He would come into the record store where I worked but I never talked to him (too shy!)
@@ChongqingPeter Aww hahaha!
Good work, thank you, Stella!
Glad you liked it!
I forgot to add that I came across the Pete Kember Pitchfork article a couple of months ago and was delighted by his writing.
Ikr! even though english isn't my native language, good eng writing is always delightful. You write well too, as far as I can tell. :)
@@StellasEncounter your English is very good, with a British/English accent? I can’t tell.
@@davidtollefson8411 mix of trans-pacific/general-tso/imported cockney!
Yesterday I saw Yuragi live in Taipei and it's been insane! Trying to get into shoegaze now
welcome aboard!!
Very cool video, I really liked it :)
Another cool shoegaze artist from Asia is Parannoul. I love how he mixes shoegaze with emo
Someone once qualified Jesus and Mary Chain as "accidental shoegaze", and to this day I think it's very accurate. They had a very unique sound, lots of anger, and amazing originality in both lyrics and music.
Very interesting documentary, there is so much independent music out there,hard to keep up with.👍
Nǐ hǎo Stella - another stellar video. Very interesting for me, as I tuned out of music after The Smiths broke up in '87, not getting excited again until I saw Pearl Jam on a late night BBC show. I like a few songs, but this music is not my cup of tea ! Many times I've listened to 'Loveless' but I really don't get it. Thanks for the Asian band recommendations - I'll check them out now. Greetings from your neighbour, Viet Nam.
Xin chào, I can understand how shoegaze is not everyone's cup of tea, haha!
Thanks to you I've listened to Pocari Sweet & My Dead Girlfriend, so maybe I'll find my cup of tea !
@@urlgoon Hello, thanks for the comment. I live in Asia now, so miss all the big UK gigs. I did see The Pixies back in the day (with Throwing Muses), and Pearl Jam at Hyde Park (maybe 10 years ago). They were a bit disappointing, played too many medium-paced song, not really suitable for large, open-air venues. All the best :)
Brian Eno had a part in the production of a classic prog album by Genesis "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway"
I have a long to-do list. I would like to do a series on 'those people that have had an outsized influence including Albini/Eno'. It will require a good deal of work to give it justice. It is in my mind, thank you for your suggestion and taking the time to comment. Have a great day!
Some of my favorite modern shoegaze comes from the South Korean musician Parannoul. Definitely recommend to anyone into shoegaze or trying to get into shoegaze.
Another awesome content!!!! ♥♥♥ really enjoyed watching it!
Glad you enjoyed it
You've nearly nailed that Somerzzett accent!!!❤❤😊
somerzzett?
@StellasEncounter Somerset is a county in South-west England and your accent was a close resemblance of it,which is a compliment as I spent many a happy summer at Glastonbury festival!!!🌠
hahahaha that's interesting, would like to check out glastonbury sometime myself!!!