"My Bloody Valentine Were A Joke"
Hey have you heard? Shoegaze has "become hip again"! And Guardian's got a big ol' feature on it, identifying Deerhunter and Asobi Seksu among others as the "nu-gazers" responsible for the resurgence -- and asking "why now?"
Worthy topic, sure, but it's the quotes that count, and in speaking with those responsible for the first-wave, they scored a doosy.
It doesn't help that Alan McGee, the man who signed Ride, My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive to Creation, is its most vehement critic. "Bloody nonsense. My Bloody Valentine were my comedy band.
Ride were different - they were a rock band, really, a fantastic rock band - but My Bloody Valentine were a joke, my way of seeing how far I could push hype." Although he said Shields was a genius in the Guardian in 2004, he now says, unconvincingly, that the revival is just people still buying his lies.Alan McGee -- loveless. As if we have to ask. So, we won't. Instead we dedicate this to you, Alan McGee! Thanks for the laughs.
Posted at 6:27 PM in Bigmouths Strike Again
Tags: My Bloody Valentine
how can someone say that without spontaneously combusting afterwards? and yeah Ride were amazing
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obviously they've had a personal falling out. Or maybe MBV lost a ton of his money. They had a way of doing that with people's money...
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has there been a period since the early 90s when a bands HAVEN'T been compared to MBV?
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perhaps curve will reunite. they were only about 12 years ahead of their time, afterall. they could simply rerelease blindfold and start again.
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My Bloody Valentine were really a joke. They don't compare to a real band such as the Arcade Fire.
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Yeah...lets see how many bands Arcade Fire influence in the next few years compared to what MBV did. Don't get me wrong, Arcade Fire are good, but not near the influence or depth or genius of MBV.
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McGee's had some kind of falling out with Kevin Shields, I can only assume.. He has an awfully high opinion of himself, if he thinks his ability to hype is the only reason people took to MBV.. Shields did make some comments recently in an attempt to set the record straight over the percieved expense of 'Loveless' to the label but I didn't percieve any of them as being especially derogatory to Creation Records.
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What the fuck about M83?
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If you are one of McGee's friends on Myspace & saw the 3000 inane bulletins he does nowadays, you'd realize he is a damn joke, a comedy act now (though not a very funny one)
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myname - I agree with your decry...what about M83?!? I think they're one of the more underrated bands in this vein - "nu-gaze" or what-the-hell-ever it's being called today...all I know is, I saw them at Lollapalooza 05 - 2nd act of day one, and they were unbelievable.
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yeah alan mcgee doesn't really help his case against MBV by being a raging drug addict either (at least according to kevin shields, and i'm more apt to believe the guy who made "loveless" than the guy who DIDN'T make "loveless").
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My Bloody Valentine is an amazing band.
I don't know how anyone could actually call them a joke.
And shoegaze is such an amazing and creative genre of music.
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I always liked Klosterman's recap of MBV:
"On the surface, My Bloody Valentine should be underrated, but they’re not; everyone who aggressively cares about alt guitar music considers Loveless to be a modern classic, and everyone who is wont to mention “swirling guitars” during casual conversation always references this specific album. Loveless sold about 200,000 copies. This is the correct number of people on earth who should be invested in the concept of swirling guitars."
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alan mcgee is a poopy-head.
nothing better came out of the 90's.
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if you like mbv you should try out Mob.
http://www.myspace.com/mobnoise
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There was a TV documentary about Creation a few years ago, and McGee swore blind that he had absolutely no ambition to be a rock star himself, he just wanted to put out records made by other people. That would be why about a quarter of Creation's releases were by Biff Bang Pow!, then. If we want to discuss pathetic underachieving comedy bands...
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The Jasmine Minks are pretty good! Think! about it.
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Yeah but the thing is, MBV got all the hype & were represented as the pinnacle of shoegaze. When in fact, to me it was Slowdive that did the best representation of the genre.
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I always thought mbv were kind of a bad fit with the other shoegaze acts. great, yeah, but at least a little removed from the standard 'dream-pop'; noisier, a bit more sinister... at least on loveless. And I'm not sure if something like "soft as snow..." wouldn't fall better under the madchester heading. maybe?
biff bang pow was pretty good, at least what I've heard. Their album titles could make emo-rockers cringe ("Love is Forever"), but they hold a nice spot in my record collection between the go-betweens and razorcuts.
Kitchens of Distinction would also be shoegaze in my mind, or at least tangentially related, and Interpol ripped them off pretty thoroughly, so maybe that would make Interpol the beginning of the newgazers....?
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you nerds are seriously debating about a genre of music named "shoegaze"
ugghhhhhhh
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I can tell you from personal experience that the Charlatans UK album is truly fantastic at 45 rpm.
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McGee is half right. (early) Ride were AMAZING. But so were MBV.
Did anyone see them live? Trust me, you didn't need any drugs
to trip at that hot show.
But Deerhunter and AS nu-gaze? Eh.
The leaders here are A Sunny Day In Glasgow. This is the best
album of 07. So far. Brilliant.
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I'm an M83 fan, but Asobi Seksu is pretty good too, guys.
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Slowdive kind of abandoned the shoegaze thing, though, didn't they? "Pygmalion" was more like avant garde sound pieces. It's tough to believe it was the same band that made "Souvlaki." But if you guys haven't listened to Neil Halstead's solo album, yer missing out.
But M83? Come on. That shit sounds like a Nokia "shoegaze" midi ringtone.
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I always preferred Isn't Anything to Loveless.
And the early Creation EPs are CLASSICS!
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it was completely bizarre to see Alan McGee the soft-spoken music geek in a cardigan turn into AlanMcGee the megomaniacal mogul in a suit in the wake of Oasis. What an ass to say that about MBV. Kevin Shields should smother him with a parka.
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saying that interpol is shoegaze via kitchens of distinctions is like saying a tomato is a fruit via the round shape it shares with an apple. save for the lead singer's voice, i see no connection stylistically between kitchens of distinction and interpol.
there are plenty of wonderful new shoegaze bands out there. airiel, fleeting joys, astrobrite, mahogany, etc.
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starflyer 59
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"Loveless" is great, but "Isn't Anything" was my gateway to MBV and still my favourite.
Caught MBV at Maxwell's back around "Loveless". My buddy and I were sipping beers before the show, and we both glanced just behind us to check out the sound man. Astonished grins covered our faces, and we raised our beers in toast, to the man behind the sound board that night - one J Mascis.
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Airiel is great, even though they sometimes get a little over the top aping the early Ride stuff.
myspace.com/airiel
Apteka is pretty hot as well.
myspace.com/apteka
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Alan McGee tried to hype the last Mogwai record as being better than Loveless. How did that album do? I doubt his power of persuasion is as good as he thinks.
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david: Technically, the tomato IS a fruit.
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I like My Bloody Valentine, but their music sounds so..FLAT.
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"I like My Bloody Valentine, but their music sounds so..FLAT."
headphones.
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So... No mention of The Catherine Wheel in this whole thread. So I thought I'd mention as far as shoegaze albums go, "Chrome" and "Happy Days" are pretty epic.
And MBV: a joke is clearly... a joke.
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Asobi, Deerhunter, and Glasgow could definitely be said to sound like nu-gaze (though hopefully deserving of a better title). The Antlers is a little like that too (or at least do a shoegazey MBV cover) and even the Kevin Drew album's a bit that way too (and alot of BSS for that matter).
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True, Loveless probably cost Alan McGee a shitload of money because of how the process took but didn't he cover his losses tenfold 2-3 years later when he signed Oasis, and then when they signed to Epic?
He probably thinks that Ride is better than MBV because he can understand the lyrics.
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True, Loveless probably cost Alan McGee a shitload of money because of how the long process took but didn't he cover his losses tenfold 2-3 years later when he signed Oasis, and then when they signed to Epic?
He probably thinks that Ride is better than MBV because he can understand their lyrics.
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Good show someone mentioning Curve. They never got the props they deserve. Such amazing output (I can even forgive them for Chinese Burn) yet everybody seems to love their watered down clone Garbage. GUH.
Also, M83 is spectacular, and the thought of them playing shows with the equally spectacular Ulrich Schnauss a few years ago breaks my heart. (because I had to miss the shows)
I'm glad more people are taking notice of the movement. It has had quite an influence on more music than we realize.
Now if only I could get electronic music historians to realize just HOW important Skinny Puppy were...
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The Genre is Shoegazer, not shoegaze. They were the "shy" rockers who would look down and hide in the shadows on stage. There were only a handful of bands that fit that category, but I guess it has an unusual name so through everyone who is alt and loud into it. And am I the only one old enough to see the Ride/Lush tour...my ears bled.
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Within that early MBV, Ride and Curve category, I would add Lush ("Spooky" is an amazing album) and the Pale Saints.
Today, some of the music on the Morr Music label is decent nu-gaze. The Slowdive tribute double-album on the label "Blue Skie'd an Clear" is particularly worthy of mention.
I also like Film School (new cd in Sept. produced by Phil Eck) and Serena Maneesh.
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A Northern Chorus are doing some great music, as are Engineers.. though both may be more on the "dream pop" side of things.
And Mr. McGee is rubbish compared with Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent of 4AD.
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alan mcgee -- wtf???
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Shoegaze is all over the place over the last couple of years...
Besnard Lakes, Jesu, Sunny Day In Glasgow, Silversun Pickups, Clue To Kalo, Broken Social Scene, Blonde Redhead, The ponys, Caribou, Miracle Fortress, Panda Bear, Dead Meadow, Deerhunter, Asobi Seksu, The Field, Radio Dept...
All these artists have taken notes from Loveless...
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none of this would have happened without JAMC.
i think MBV are great, but psychocandy rules...
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No mention of The Twilight Sad Longshanks?
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McGee is the real joke here. How can anyone take someone like that seriously? It's clear he just has some kind of vandetta against Kevin Shields because of the stress caused by Loveless's production - which was more-than-likely due to him and his well publicised drug problems more than the cost of the album itself (which, considering his personality, is almost-certainly sensationalised anyway). The reality of the situation is that he should be grateful; Loveless will go down as one of the defining albums of the '90s. And MBV will still be a major influence in music when Oasis are long, long forgotten...
And yes, I am an MBV fanboy :P
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To the troll above whose name I'm not bothering to look up: yes, we're nerds. I can't think of what to call someone who reads what nerds write only to call them names and misunderstand the nature of genre names. "Shoegaze" is a stupid term, to be sure - but, like names of most genres, it's not one musicians chose. Blame journalists, if you must.
Anyway, pretty amusing to read - yet again - about how the genre was presumed dead and is undergoing a revival: fact is, it's never really gone away, and ever since the late eighties, lots of bands have worked elements of that sound into their style.
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Damn thats crazy stuff, well I love their music anyways. That person who said that Arcade Fire is better must be a kid.
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Damn thats crazy stuff, well I love their music anyways. That person who said that Arcade Fire is better must be a kid.
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"shoegaze. They were the 'shy' rockers who would look down and hide in the shadows on stage."
Strange the number of "shy" people in one scene. What a pose.
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i think there are plenty of kids out there who realize that my bloody valentine are more influential and important than the arcade fire (though the arcade fire is making some good music).
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I think all those bands are great, big fan of Asobi Seksu at the moment!
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MBV = amazing. That and there's rumours of them doing some sort of reunion shows at the Irish Museum of Modern Art for TWO WHOLE WEEKS in ROCKtober. Just as well I live down the road then. Of course, it's most speculation at this point, which leads me to assume it might be just one big JOKE. (I do really hope it's true though - it'd be awesome.)
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When has genre named "Nu-whatever" been good?
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Loveless may have been revolutionary at the time, but it hasn't aged all that well, and, despite its rep as the foundation of a genre that's supposed to sound huge and encompassing, it sounds thin.
The first couple Verve releases don't get the same sort of attention that MBV, Swervedriver, Ride, etc. get when the genre comes up, but compare A Storm in Heaven to Loveless sometime. It pulls off a vaguely similar vibe, but it's held up much better, both song-wise and production-wise. I don't know if MBV are what I'd call a joke, but they're not the best of that bunch, either.
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loveless is the second most overrated record of our time (after ok computer).
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@ Nu-Dave - personally I see no need to call it nu-gaze, or anything similarly stupid. It was shoegaze then, and I call it shoegaze now. Except for those certain shoegaze bands who are embarrassed by the title and insist they're "dream pop" (hell, even members of my own band get shy around the shoegaze name...)
What the article lacked was any mention of Japan as an epicentre of this shoegaze revival. There's a lot of good bands over there at the moment, like My Dead Girlfriend, Texas Pandaa and Jinen. I do really love Asobi Seksu though (and hell, M83 for that matter - since they seem to keep coming up in these comments)
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"nu-" anything is retarded. and it sounds like this guy is retarded as well. ride were a totally average band. i had 'nowhere' back in the day, i kept trying to get into it, decent guitars but it all added up to...blah. nothing really. they were a hyped band. MBV, um, who is this nobody trying to talk sh#t about them? yeah, Kevin Shields was a genius, their music has held up for 20 years now. who puts on a 'ride' album anymore? hehe. ok dude.
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2nd wave of shoegazer...what a joke. 99% of shoegazer bands sucked ass then, and 100% of them suck ass now.
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I'm also waiting for the new Film School album. I saw them perform live last year at a half-filled Crocodile Cafe and was blown away. They were also playing on newly broken-in equipment since someone stole their gear a few days prior.
I'll also throw in Japanese shoegazers Hartfield in this category. They make some of the best songs in the genre right now. Also, Dykehouse's album Midrange was criminally overlooked in 2004.
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benj: the "nobody trying to talk sh#t about them" was Alan McGee, who found MBV and released their records on his label, Creation. (google or wiki much?). Nowhere kicks ass.
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I say we summon the /b/tards to pwn McGee.
And Asobi Seksu rules.
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Boo Radleys, just saying.
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um, david at 12:56 pm, tomatoes are a fruit...
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michael - it was a rhetorical question. as in, who is some businessman to try to discredit the artistic merit of kevin shields? mbv were innovators, which is why they're still talked about and still influencing people. ride doesn't really compare as a band, they just sound dated.
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I disagree. Loveless is fantastic, but I rate Ride's Nowhere and Going Blank Again right up there too. Tracks like Leave Them All Behind, Dreams Burn Down and Unfamiliar are utterly fantastic.
That said, I'm happy to ignore most of Carnival of Light and Tarantula...
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I've always found the name "McGee" to be pretty damn comedic. What a douche.
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loveless sounding flat, yeah yeah, thats everybody's initial reaction. if you cant get past that, why try to talk about it with people who have? the production is what makes that record so singular, even after all these years and other bands, even followers of mbv dont try to replicate that. the 'flat' is unique, its a different way of approaching recorded music.
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listen to Medicine's "Shot Forth Self Living" if you can track down a copy. criminally underrated band. MBV came closer to "breaking" in the U.S. than any of the other shoegaze(r) bands, that's why everyone refers to loveless as a benchmark album. I don't get the comedy band rip though...
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"i know that angels come from time to time"
truly amazing how well some of those albums like nowhere, mezcal head, psychocandy, isnt anything have aged. i beat the hell out of "live light" on cassette through most of '96.
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A tomato is a fruit.
A Northern Chorus?I heard them play in Norfolk this past week. I was bored out of my mind. Under all of the effects was a soul-less and vapid music. The other band that played that night, ILAD, on the other hand was very impressive. I guess they had elements of "nu-gaze" (um, how f'ing pitiful is that for a genre label). This was not a repertoire band, or a revival band like so many of the bands that are hot right now playing disco beats under indie rock hooks, or reviving shoegaze under the guise "nu-gaze". This was a band that sounded to me like it was actually doing something different. Something new. Too many influences to list. Psychedelic in a very modern way. Great harmonies unexpected changes. Good shit. I bought their disc, NATIONAL FLAGS... may be the sleeper of 07.
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p.s. Isn't Anything
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Oasis were the joke that went too far. Kinda strange considering Andy Bell from Ride is their bass player.
But full thumbs up for the dude that mentioned The Pale Saints...(at least the Ian Masters years). Half-life Remembered, Sight of You...brilliance. McGee is just jockeying for attention on the verge of a possible MBV resurgence.
Verve's comeback is pretty exciting as well...I know Urban Hymns was a pop album, but the Verve EP and A Storm in Heaven are classic.
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Ride were great but their lyrics were some of the best ever. At least MBV had the smarts to make theirs almost unintelligible.
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my electronic music teacher played us MBV to show us what could be done with electric guitars. so they will live on forever in college curricula.
personally, I found I haven't gotten anything from listening to an entire MBV song that I haven't gotten from the first 15 seconds... they're pretty static. but maybe all that means is that I should ditch my mp3 compression and earbuds...
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Didnt get to see Ride/Lush tour but got a wonderful one with Slowdive/Catherine Wheel in Atlanta--awesome show!
I still even have my slowdive shirt from that.
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Alan McGee is a pompous ass. MBV took him for every penny he was worth.
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1) Alan Mc Gee constantly contradicts himself for attention. He praised "She Wants Revenge" on his myspace for God's sake. Never trust his opinions, he'll like a band because he gets along with a singer so I imagine you're right he is probably mad at Shields for some reason--or just trying to shock people into appreciating Ride more or something--or just seeking attention by stirring up controversy.
Or maybe, just maybe, he's trying to put an end to this crap Nu-gazer tag before it's too late.
2) McGee's band Biff Bang Pow is like the lost Smiths band of the 80s. At least when you hear a greatest hit comp of them I feel they are almost that good.
3) Look at how many bands come up in a discussion of Shoegaze--people as different as Curve, Slowdive, Catherine Wheel (whose lyrics were often quite loud in the mix), Lush, Swervedriver, Boo Radleys, Mercury Rev, Ride, M83, The Verve, and even the rock band that partially spurned the movement the Jesus and Mary Chain.
The variety in musical style is quite staggering actually and many of these bands added more variety by twisting off into weird realms of pop or acoustic projects. Now I love "Loveless" but it's stupid to think one album trumps such diversity--and I get tired of its default classification as the genre's best album--as if other styles of shoegaze are flawed.
Ride's "Nowhere" is flawless, and "Going Blank Again" has some better songs than almost anything on "Nowhere". Maybe "Loveless" deserves its placement but these bands should just be listned to more and compared less.
4) I'd argue Oasis was a shoegaze band too if only briefly for definitely maybe at least. Noel Gallagher had 100s of songs written when McGee signed them. He hid all his ballads as B-Sides at first and probably hand picked shoegazey songs for their first album to satisfy creation fans until they realized they wouldn't even need the "creation fanbase". Then they probably realized that getting lumped in as just another shoegaze band could end up hurting them when their popularity began taking off, so they cleverly dodged the classification by always talking about the beatles.
Jim Reid from the Chain did the exact same thing by avoiding the "Punk" tag in 1985 interviews siting the velvets as their be all and end all influence. Now you might not like Oasis, but Definitely Maybe sounds a hell of a lot more like Ride and My Bloody Valentine than it sounds like The Beatles.
5) Check out this band from Virginia if you haven't yet, particularly "Clouds". I like them:
http://www.myspace.com/ceremonytheband
6) The "revival" tag will do nothing but hurt these artists like the shoegazing tag did. I imagine if you didn't "get" Loveless, you would not be excited to hunt down an M83 album tagged as "nu-gaze"--which is stupid, because I imagine many people would prefer one band's style over the other.
But you have to call it something, and Shoegaze is as good as anything I suppose. The crux of the problem is that there's little commercial market for this stuff beyond cults of serious music fans, so a band either stays underground (Ceremony, or every band since 1994), changes their style (Black Tambourine, Neil Halstead, Verve) or scores a fluke of success and covers their ass (Oasis).
7) For "shoegaze" bands has anyone noticed how crucial the double vocal harmonies of Ride and Lush are? The term shoegaze just like the album "loveless" overshadows much of the creative product in the genre. Maybe Mc Gee is fighting a good fight here afetr all???
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danny, you should say less.
some good observations, but a lot of stupid drivel.
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Yeah, sorry--I'm hated for blogging quite often.
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Oasis shoegaze? You made some good points Danny, but that's one I just can't agree on. If anything, Ride were trying to be Oasis - as clearly evidenced by the huge change in musical direction from CoL onwards, and then Hurricane #1. Andy Bell later joining Oasis is hardly a surprise. (and ironically, his contributions to Oasis are as shoegazey as Oasis will ever get)
I think the only reason why the term Shoegaze hampers any commercial aspirations, is not the term itself, but because of it's limited use - few people outside the old-school fans know what it means. The number of times I tell people my own band is quite shoegazey, and THEN have to explain what the hell shoegaze is, is rediculous. They're not turned off by the term, they just haven't heard of it.
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give up being "serious" for a minute, go to www.myspace.com/passionboys
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for me, my bloody valentine are unchallenged as purveyors sublime sonic innovation in Pop's recent history.
while i crave those soaring sounds and divine melodies in their absence, other outfits have only approximated their unique and evolving grandeur. they don't kick my heart with the sweet shock of the unheard-of as they're still in the shadow of mbv's template.
mcghee has confirmed his reputation as a farcical fossil by attempting to portray himself as a malcolm maclaren-style svengali. dissing a band whose legacy only grows just underlines his irrelevance.
amazingly, he continues to be listed as the band's 'top friend' by the only myspace page that carries their music. and i concur that his inveterate posting and re-posting of multiple bulletins a day is insufferably vapid - and rank with the desperation of a fading addict.
p.s. blonde redhead - particularly the song 23 - deserves an honourary mention here, too.
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Is Kevin doing something with some guys from broken robots? Something I heard on the grapevine the other week...should be interesting as I thought that project was over.
Alan McGee has smoked too much shit - seems like there's been a fall out, and he's acting like a spoilt school kid. He was loving MBV a couple of years back..
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slowdive and mbv are 2 of my favorite bands.
at one point in 2001 i went through a period of trying replicate the mbv guitar sound. so, i was reading lots fo shields interviews. in one he pretty much directly calls out slowdive and ride as having ripped off his guitar setup. this was the best quote, because he also gave up the secret effect that was heavily used yamaha spx-90 digital reverb. i promptly got one, then found that even with reverse gated reverb, i couldn't get the right volume to make it work right. oh well. anyways. the entire shoegaze scene was totally inbred. for a good read, pick up "the creation records story" by David Cavanaugh. this also kind of connects Danny's view that Oasis could be catagorized as shoegaze. anyways. back to work....
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Isn't it grand how disliking MBV immediately makes one's music taste absolutely awful? How DARE someone dislike them!
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"loveless sounding flat, yeah yeah, thats everybody's initial reaction. if you cant get past that, why try to talk about it with people who have?"
I have an issue here. Having had Loveless recommended to me as one of the "must buy albums of all time" by a person who has shown me many of music's wonders, I really tried to like it.
But it didn't happen.
I understand what it did for rock 'n roll in terms of production and how it propelled shoegaze and blahdiblahbittyblah, but I truly cannot STAND hearing it. It hurts my ears and my soul (and not in that creepy, but good way (like what happens when you listen to Kid A at the age of 13)). And yes, I've tried listening with amazing headphones lying down in dim lighting and all that crap fed to me by hoards of people real and virtual that insist that Loveless is one of THE best albums ever made.
My problem is this: is there really a value to this music if you have to try to like it or "get past" it to such a degree?
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McGee: what an ass! what about Jesus and Mary Chain? or Brian Jonestown Massacre? or Stone Roses? from today's group i really like Working For A Nuclear Free City. McGee is a cunt.
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The reason why shoegaze was/is not really that commerical is more to do with the nature of the sound. Shoegaze is basically a hybrid between dream pop and noise rock and neither genre (especially noise rock) is exactly renowned for being accessible.
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Medicine? that album is terrible, it literally hurts my ear to listen to it. no thanks, i want to preserve my hearing
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susan, i think variegated tastes push everything on - and yr tastes (in disliking them) are not necessarily awful at all.
however, it is not at all "daring" to reverse prior praise for petty political reasons. it is timid, tepid and tame.
middle manage meant - treading daughter.
passe.
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swervedriver was the absolute best.
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Mcgee is a Scottish dick and always has been. Sure, Is he sore about MBV? You bet, he lost what's claimed to be over a million pounds on recording costs. But look what came of it!! The finest album on the label!! This album made 1000's of kids pick up guitars again! It is a and will always remain a masterpiece. Only drawback on Loveless... Shields has never been able to get out of it's shadow and that's a fucking shame!! Cheers to the person who claimed Curve were and still are ahead of their time.
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No mentions of Chapterhouse here sadly...
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