ILM's Best Shoegaze / Dream Pop / Post-rock TRACKS poll - RESULTS THREAD

As promised here is the excel spreadsheet: http://www.moteldemoka.com/moka/shoegaze.xlsx

And the top 200 list:

1 My Bloody Valentine - Soon
2 Ride - Dreams Burn Down
3 My Bloody Valentine - You Made Me Realise
4 My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow
5 The Cure - Plainsong
6 Jesus & Mary Chain - Never Understand
7 Ride - Vapour Trail
8 Catherine Wheel - Black Metallic
9 House of Love - Christine
10 My Bloody Valentine - When You Sleep
11 Boo Radleys - Lazarus
12 Cocteau Twins - Pearly Dewdrops Drop
13 My Bloody Valentine - To Here Knows When
14 Ride - Like A Daydream
15 Lush - Sweetness And Light
16 My Bloody Valentine - Feed Me With Your Kiss
17 Verve - Gravity Grave
18 My Bloody Valentine - Sometimes
19 Jesus and Mary Chain - Just Like Honey
20 Stone Roses - I wanna be Adored
21 Chapterhouse - Pearl
22 Slowdive - Allison
23 The Telescopes - You Set My Soul
24 Ride - Leave Them All Behind
25 Teenage Fanclub - Everything Flows
26 The Sundays - Can't Be Sure
27 Swervedriver - Rave Down
28 Adorable - sunshine smile
29 Lush - De-Luxe
30 Cocteau Twins - Carolyn's Fingers
31 Pale Saints - Sight of You
32 Disco Inferno - Love Stepping Out
33 This Mortal Coil - Song To The Siren
34 Curve - coast is clear
35 Slowdive - when the sun hits
36 Mercury Rev - Frittering
37 Ride - Chelsea Girl
38 Disco Inferno - the Long Dance
39 Ride - Seagull
40 Swervedriver - Son Of Mustang Ford
41 Galaxie 500 - Listen, the Snow Is Falling
42 Loop - Black Sun
43 Galaxie 500 - Blue Thunder
44 Curve - Horror Head
45 Slowdive - Catch The Breeze
46 Talk Talk - I Believe in You
47 Curve - 10 Little Girls
48 Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets
49 Blur - Sing
50 Loop - Arc-Lite (Sonar)
51 M83 - Don't Save Us From The Flames
52 Slowdive - morningrise
53 Kitchens Of Distinction - Drive That Fast
54 Spiritualized - Run
55 Bark psychosis - a street scene
56 Cocteau Twins - Heaven Or Las Vegas
57 The Sundays - Here's Where the Story Ends
58 Boo Radleys - Does This Hurt?
59 Teenage Fanclub - Star Sign
60 My Bloody Valentine - Off Your Face
61 Spiritualized - Medication
62 Slowdive - Avalyn I
63 Grouper - Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping
64 Chapterhouse - Breather
65 Ride - Drive Blind
66 A.R. Kane - Lollita
67 House of Love - Destroy the Heart
68 Slowdive - Souvlaki Space Station
69 Disco Inferno - Second Language
70 Ride - Taste
71 Spacemen 3 - Hypnotized
72 The Telescopes - High On Fire
73 Lush - For Love
74 My Bloody Valentine - I Only Said
74 Pale Saints - Throwing Back the Apple
75 Moose - Jack
76 Wire - the 15th
77 Verve - a man called sun
78 M83 - Run Into Flowers
79 Spacemen 3 - Suicide
80 Julee Cruise - Falling
81 Disco Inferno - Summer's Last Sound
82 Glenn Branca - Lesson No.1
83 Slowdive - Slowdive
84 The Chameleons - View From A Hill
85 The Sundays - Skin and Bones
86 My Bloody Valentine - Lose My Breath
86 Swervedriver - Never Lose That Feeling
87 Yo La Tengo - From A Motel 6
88 DNTEL - This Is The Dream Of Evan and Chan
89 My Bloody Valentine - Swallow
90 Lush - Nothing Natural
91 Bardo Pond - Tommy Gun Angel
92 My Bloody Valentine - Loomer
93 Mogwai - mogwai fear satan
94 Cranes - Starblood
95 My Bloody Valentine - Cupid Come
96 Low, Transient Waves & Piano Magic - Sleep at the Bottom
97 Slowdive - 40 Days
98 Moose - Suzanne
99 Mahogany - supervitesse
100 Cocteau Twins - Cherry Coloured Funk
101 Cocteau Twins - Lorelei
102 My Bloody Valentine - You Never Should
103 Siouxsie and the Banshees - Dazzle
104 The Dream Academy - Life in a Northern Town
105 Ulrich schnauss - on my own
106 Moose - Boy
107 Drop Nineteens - Winona
108 Ride - Polar Bear
109 Cocteau Twins - The Spangle Maker
110 The Telescopes - Flying
111 Bowery Electric - Freedom Fighter
112 My Bloody Valentine - Blown A Wish
113 Spacemen 3 - Take Me To The Other Side
114 Blonde Redhead - 23
115 Kitchens of Distinction - Mad as Snow
116 Spectrum - Undo The Taboo
117 Curve - Perish
118 Underground Lovers - i was right
119 Galaxie 500 - Strange
120 Ride - In a different place
121 Ride - Sennen
122 Death in Vegas - Dirge
123 Sonic Youth - Star Power
124 Seefeel - Plainsong
125 Cocteau Twins - Wax and Wane
126 The Cure - End
127 Lush - Scarlet
128 Velocity Girl - My Forgotten Favorite
129 Yo La Tengo - Blue Line Swinger
130 Pale Saints - Half-Life, Remembered
131 Blind Mr. Jones - Dolores
132 Pale Saints - You Tear the World in Two
133 Third eye foundation - sleep
134 Cocteau Twins - Pink Orange Red
135 Lush - Thoughtforms
136 Prolapse - Autocade
137 Ultra Vivid Scene - mercy seat
138 The Sundays - My Finest Hour
139 Cocteau Twins - Violaine
140 Ride - Unfamiliar
141 Sigur Rós - Glósóli
142 The Clean - Point That Thing Somewhere Else
143 Boo radleys - lazy day
144 Cowboy Junkies - Sweet Jane
145 Ride - Grasshopper
146 Stereolab - Super Falling Star
147 Verve - all in the mind
148 Loop - Collision
149 Ride - Decay
150 The Field Mice - Sensitive
151 Velocity Girl - Crazy Town
152 Bark psychosis - absent friend
153 Cranes - Tomorrow's Tears
154 My Bloody Valentine - honey power
155 Spiritualized - if i were with her now
156 The Amps - Breaking the Split-Screen Barrier
157 Skywave - All I Had
158 Boo Radleys - Memory Babe
159 Pale Saints - Time Thief
160 Curve - Faît Accompli
161 My Bloody Valentine - What You Want
162 Smashing Pumpkins - Starla
163 The Dandy Warhols - Nietzsche
164 Cloudland Canyon - White Woman
165 Curve - mission from god
166 Mercury Rev - Meth Of A Rockette's Kick
167 School of seven bells - ILU
168 Piano Magic - Snowfall Soon
169 Revolver - crimson
170 Ride - Nowhere
171 Clinic - Porno
172 Bailter Space - X
173 Jesus and Mary Chain - Happy When It Rains
174 Nightblooms - crystal eyes
175 A.R. Kane - So Far Away
176 My Bloody Valentine - sunny sundae smile
177 Blur - Oily Water
178 Catherine Wheel - Crank
179 Chapterhouse- Falling Down
180 His Name is Alive - love's a fish eye
181 Rollerskate Skinny - Speed to my Side
182 Bark Psychosis - From What is Said to When it is Read
183 Lilys - ginger
184 Medicine - One More
185 Moose - Last Night I Fell Again
186 School of Seven Bells - Half Asleep
187 The Joy Formidable - Whirring
188 This Mortal Coil - Kangaroo
189 XTC - Easter Theater
190 Boo Radleys - I Hang Suspended
191 Boo Radleys - Kaleidoscope
192 Moonshake - gravity
193 Blur - Battle
194 Stereolab - Ping Pong
195 Th' Faith Healers - Love Song
196 Black Tambourine - Black Car
197 Smashing Pumpkins - Bury Me
198 A.R. Kane - Spermwhale Tripover
199 Breathless - Wave After Wave
200 Nice Strong Arm - Cloud Machine

lol Wheal Dream, but maybe The Birthday Party a bit more than The Cramps? Honestly, I think I have listened to that album exactly once, even though I've owned it for almost 20 years.

Thanks Moka!

Nice work Moka. Even though "Lovelee Sweet Darlene" was robbed.

I predict it will also win Johnny Fever's upcoming 'THE 20TH CENTURY'S BEST TRACKS' poll.

oh god I hope not

― secret haven 76 (crüt).

I keed. Beatles or Prince might win that one.

I gave "Soon" a solitary point. Not that I don't love it.

Thanks Moka!

Can I just say..

124. Seefeel - Plainsong >>> 5. The Cure - Plainsong

Maybe not in real life, but for this poll.

The weird thing about 'Seefeel - Plainsong' which you can notice on the excel spreadsheet is that it had more voters than many of the songs in the lower end of the top 50 (6 or 7 voters iirc) yet most of them gave it very low scores, reason it didn't end up placing at all.

So we can give it the most voters - lowest score ratio award.

I enjoyed this poll a lot. Thanks, Moka!

you're all welcome.

Clearly going to have to listen to Dreams Burn Down again to work out what the fuss is about.

(It's an Andy song, right? I tend to prefer the Mark songs or the Loz songs but they didn't attribute the songs on the first album, annoying enough)

Thanks a lot Moka. You brought out my inner crate-digging Anglophile!

I heard an interview with Ride on the radio at time of the reunion where they were asked what their best song was - all said 'Dreams Burn Down' without a moment's hesitation.

Listened to it again, and nope, I don't get it.

It's weird how they were one of those bands where their songwriting attributions totally changed my opinions of them. Like, I remember initially thinking, like, Mark was the prettiest one, so he couldn't possibly be the talented one. Especially when Andy started complaining about how everyone "assumed that because Mark was the one everyone wanted to take pictures of, that he wrote all the songs." So I kind of assumed that Andy must be the better songwriter.

Until they started putting their names on who wrote what and it was like, whoa, uh-uh, no. And then their solo careers, and it became PATENTLY obvious that Mark and Loz >>>>>>>>>> Andy.

(meow, catty etc. I <3 Mark, he is such a sweetie.)

That 'verve in a car' thing I posted upthread - I also found this Ride interview at the same time. It is the most boring thing I think I've ever heard!

I've very hastily gone through the spreadsheet to (hopefully correctly) find the votes by group. Here's the rundown:

20 Catherine Wheel (363)
19 The Cure (393)
18 House of Love (396)
17 Moose (398)
16 Galaxie 500 (408)

15 Chapterhouse (442)
14 Swervedriver (448)
13 The Telescopes (491)
12 (The) Verve (492)
11 The Sundays (498)

Oh, I'll have to save that for when I'm back at work because I'll never get a YouTube to load at this time of night. :-(

The interview that came with The Story Of Creation (was it The Story of Creation, or was it the other Creation sampler? I had a bunch of Ride videos and stuff back in the day... Oh man, the Today Forever video EP aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh Mark Gardener, you evil evil man, how you *warped* me...) was actually really quite cute and funny and rather good.

10 Pale Saints (522)
9 Disco Inferno (543)
8 Jesus & Mary Chain (617)
7 Curve (622)
6 Boo Radleys (808)

5 Lush (829)
4 Cocteau Twins (869)

3 Slowdive (1,151)

2 Ride (2,358)

1 My Bloody Valentine (3,165)

Ok how about a top 100 where only the top song by each unique artist is represented?

Off the top 100 there were 47 unique artists.

I guess that's pretty definitive. I'd never have guessed Slowdive so high before the poll started. In fact I'd never even have guessed them so high until you posted your list.

Would be interesting to run a poll by *band* for the top 20 (though remove the patently non-shoegaze bands like The Cure and The Sundays) and see if the favourite shoegaze *band* showed the same result, if some bands hadn't been stymied by multiple song nominations that split their song votes.

I was thinking of doing an albums poll while this is all still fresh in people's minds. You don't have to worry about split votes so much then as you can pretty much vote for all the albums you want to. I still haven't thought of a fair way of excluding random inappropriate albums from the poll, though.

Would like to help w/ album poll.

Go for it - I think moka got it right and letting the voters decide is the best way.

is that catherine wheel thing at no. 8 a joke? god that's a wet song.

liking 'lazarus' having never heard it before, but the trumpet kind of sours it for me.

No, I think that letting voters decide has shown itself to be a pretty poor way because people vote for stuff that is utterly not canonical because they "like it better" which negates the point of restricting a poll to a genre to start with.

I know. Let's get a list of albums and I'll send them to Sonic Cathedral's Bishop of Shoegaze to get canonical approval of what is and isn't shoegaze. ;-)

But Ismael, Can we really trust the voters to make the decisions that are best for themselves? Perhaps what they really need is a firm guiding hand.

Was never much of a Boo Radleys fan, but I actually like the fact that they brought in lots of non-standard issue instruments. xxp

I will then tactically vote all 800 of my points for Chapterhouse's second album and y'all can go hang if you don't like it. ha hahahhahaha ;-)

Dude, if "letting the voters decide" ends up with the Stone Roses as "a shoegaze band" over a lot of people's objections, then seriously, fuck democracy for defining genres.

though remove the patently non-shoegaze bands like The Cure and The Sundays

stop ignoring the "dream pop" part of the poll!!!!

I dunno, we got one Stone Roses track and one Cure track, and I would quibble with the Eno as well, but that doesn't strike me as too terrible a hit rate. Also, we should remember that it wasn't just a shoegaze poll.

I think Chapterhouse were the only shoegaze band ever to use the "When the Levee Breaks" beat.

Would like to help w/ album poll.

Maybe you could solve this while I sleep: I still haven't thought of a fair way of excluding random inappropriate albums from the poll, though.

Basically, what I'm saying is, fuck this "dream pop" nonsense. Let's have a SHOEGAZE poll where if it ain't SHOE I don't have to look at it! :-P

(I didn't quibble with the Eno because it placed down so low. Had that turned up in the top 20, you can bet I'd have looked intensely askance at it.)

SHOW ME THE SHOE, THE WHOLE SHOE AND NOTHING BUT THE DAMN SHOE!!!

I think Chapterhouse were the only shoegaze band ever to use the "When the Levee Breaks" beat.

Dreams Burn Down?

NBS, I will turn it over in my head tonight while I get drunk with Robert Pollard! Actually, I gotta get going.. It's been real, ILX shoegaze team.

http://www.xxlmag.com/online/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/n-w-a-straight-outta-compton-album-cover.jpg

How about just taking 'shoegazing' literally, then?

Actually, I'm gonna start campaigning now for the inclusion of "Selected Ambient Works 85-92" as a shoegaze album. I mean, it's got the atmospherics, it's got the delay pedal abuse, it's got wispy girly vocals deeply buried under onslaughts of warm noise. It meets more shoegaze criteria than the Sundays!

Poll needed more metal tbh

I guess my sole nomination for XTC didn't really mesh in this poll (like post-rock)

Such a great song though