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

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

I've just thought of another potential problem for the albums poll, which came to light when somebody did a 'Nowhere' tracks poll: what version of the album or we talking about? For example, for me (and for the reviewers of the time) there were 8 tracks on Nowhere. People who bought the CD version had three 'bonus' tracks from the Fall EP as well. People who have bought later re-issues have even more tracks on there (I think the Today Forever EP, maybe Ride and Fall as well).

(Fall = Play in that last section)

"Chasing a Bee" didn't even chart. SMH

That must be a thing for all album polls now, though? What with deluxe reissues and all that cal. xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2LhT_X9V6Q

Posting 'Grasshopper' because I'm saddest that it didn't make the top 100 and I wish more people knew it. I accidentally fired up two versions simultaneously there, the double-tracked drums were fierce.

PS there was another b-side of theirs called 'Rolling Thunder #2' which is impossible to find - there appears to be some sort of motorcycle festival of the same name, which unfortunately monopolises the search results. Anyone know where I could hear it?

"Chasing a Bee" didn't even chart get nominated. SMH

― Cunga, Saturday, October 30, 2010 6:27 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

Had it been on the list, I would have given it 50 pts.

Shoegaze albums would be a nightmare because so often early EPs were collected and stuck together into albums for the US release (hence things like Ride's Smile, Lush's Gala - I forget the name of the Slowdive one, I'm fairly sure there was one, though. There's that pre-Isn't Anything MBV EP bonanza thing as well.)

And, like, I think of the Today Forever e.p. as pretty much a mini album in itself so counting that as part of Nowhere would just be nuts.

the Slowdive one

blue day

That's the one. Except all of that is now on the bonus disc for the reissue of Just For A Day now...

Hmmmm. I'm going to sleep on it. Perhaps we could make it an albums and EPs poll, with strict criteria that only the original vinyl version of an album counts and if you want yer bonus EP tracks you've got to nominate / vote for the EP instead / as well.

NBS, yeah, I think including EPs would be absolutely essential to organizing such a poll.

I would've voted the heck out of "Grasshopper," too.

But the E.P. collections were pretty canonical! Despite my general anti-Slowdive stance, I would totally vote for Blue Day as an album but I'm not sure I'd waste my votes on the singles/E.P.s

and omitting Gala as an album would just be wrong!

It's funny, though, how in many ways the E.P. was the natural shoegaze format.

Interesting mix, those results.

I think the one band consistently written out of shoegazing history as such still is Lovesliescrushing, probably because they were on Projekt and there just wasn't much focus on what Scott Cortez and company were doing as a result. And arguably you could say he was one of the first followers in the end. But he was creating some loud as hell, violent and beautiful stuff starting back in the early nineties and for all the MBV jones in evidence they ended up having their own impact:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CkAVwLwSRo

Did 'Jesu' got nominated? They could fit in the metal-shoegaze.

Ok, 'tired of me' did got nominated but noone but not a single vote for it.

Thanks Moka!

I was surprised to see some of my faves finish so high (e.g. "When You Sleep" in the top ten, "Pearly Dewdrops Drops" as the top Cocteaus song, "Allison" as the top Slowdive song.), wasn't at all surprised to see "Soon" at #1.

I'm into that Loveliescrushing song. Thanks, Ned!

Yer welcome. Trust me, there's a lot there to investigate. (Check out Astrobrite as well.)

astrobrite used to open for a lot of shoegazer bands when they would play detroit. well the ones that majesty crush didn't.

Did 'Jesu' got nominated? They could fit in the metal-shoegaze.

Cant remember but I did nominate a Lycia track (and voted for it!) which is closer to gazey goth-metal, and thats a whole subgenre that - I feel - stylistically fits here better than some of the stuff that charted.

I can't be such a stickler for canon than K, though I do understand where she's coming from being in the STCI back in 91. But if we stuck to that pure "shoegaze" we'd be stuck with half a dozen bands and some limp has-been forgotten leftovers. I *like* to think the genre expanded and developed branches, as many do - metal, goth, dreampop, IDM.

Er, what I meant there was, shoegaze developed into those offshoots (gazey metal, IDM gaze such as Schnauss, etc)

Anyone else think it's indicative of how music listening has changed the last few years that we did the trax poll before, and without even planning to do, the album poll?

ILM a few years ago would never have stood for that order, unless you were doing chart pop.

I probably would have nominated & voted in an album poll. Never thought of shoegaze as a singles genre.

Being a genre poll, why arent straight up bands done?

Anyone else think it's indicative of how music listening has changed the last few years that we did the trax poll before, and without even planning to do, the album poll?

ILM a few years ago would never have stood for that order, unless you were doing chart pop.

― Cunga

I'm sorry if I'm out of the norm. I don't really think I'm much younger than most of ILM (I'm 24) but I've always been a singles/songs person (unless were doing classical, of course). I have 30 complete albums at most in my ipod, which are the only ones I'll listen to end to back in physical format as well. I always keep only the 3 or 5 highlights or the songs which I think that better represent the sound from every album and ditch the rest. Probably a sacrilege for most of the posters on this board but I very rarely bump into an artist that can genuinely hold my interest for so long.

Shoegaze-wise not even classic albums like say Loveless or Nowhere have managed to win my heart completely.

But if we stuck to that pure "shoegaze" we'd be stuck with half a dozen bands and some limp has-been forgotten leftovers. I *like* to think the genre expanded and developed branches, as many do - metal, goth, dreampop, IDM.

Hey, I'm totally fine with a genre expanding and developing branches and sprouting new and exciting developments (see: the mutators and the diaspora in my little explanation thing)

What I a *not* fine with is people retroactively grabbing things from a different, EARLIER genre, and redefining it going "oh, this is shoegaze now" on account of superficial resemblances. That, I think is just anachronistic and shows a real flaw in critical thinking.

No it doesn't. It just shows that your understanding at the time, and other people's understanding now, are not the same thing.

OK, fine. I am now going to claim that the American Revolution, even though it happened earlier, and in a different country, is part of the *French* Revolution. No, I'm not saying that the French revolution was inspired by or influenced by the American Revolution, I'm saying that it one and the same thing because hey, shots got fired and a government got changed. And you can't tell me that I'm wrong or criticise that statement, because that is *my* understanding now, and you are just a history nazi, the end.

::flounces off::

I hope that it's obvious that I'm being quite playful and not serious at all about this, but the thing is, I think this begs other questions.

That it comes from this dichotomy of, what *is* genre? Is it just an adjective, a purely descriptive tag that you put on a piece of music like "acoustic" or "female singer"?

Or is the idea of a Genre (especially a genre as small and specific as "shoegaze") something deeper, a signifier of a specific movement, with specific cultural significance relating to a moment in time (and what came after)?

Like, if you were talking about art, there's a difference between saying something is "a landscape painting" (meaning a painting of a pastoral view) or a Hudson River School Painting (meaning that it is specific to a certain group and school of painters with a certain aesthetic and a certain philosophy and cultural meaning, and the people that they went on to inspire.)

I do actually kind of resent being called a "genre nazi" because I'm going with the latter, more academic approach to genre instead of just treating it like an all purpose adjective akin to "blue". It's a different approach, and not necessarily a worse one.

Inviting thoughts for this 'Shoegazing etc.' albums poll - feel free to chip in.

As I said last night, there's a problem with albums like 'Nowhere' in that depending on what format you bought and when, you could consider the album to have 8 tracks, or 11, or even 15:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowhere_(album)
For this reason I think it's best to limit everything to what it consisted of at the time it was released, but also to include EPs in the poll so that those tracks can still be considered. Also, I think that any album / EP listed in the nominations thread should have the agreed tracklisting after it, so that everyone can see what is actually being voted on,

e.g. Ride - Nowhere (Seagull, Kaleidoscope, In A Different Place, Polar Bear, Dreams Burn Down, Decay, Paralysed, Vapour Trail)
Ride - Fall EP (Dreams Burn Down, Taste, Here and Now, Nowhere)

As for whether a particular album/EP really fits into the genre or not, perhaps we could have a panel of experts (!). Maybe Pillbox, Wheal Deal, and somebody else. Something can be excluded only if ALL of them agree that it doesn't belong there.

Is this just getting too complicated?

I know, when my BFF gets back from LA, we'll have her ring up Kevin Shields and ask *him* if he thinks something should be included or not. ;-)

(Actually that's a terrible idea because then we'd end up with Le Volume Corbe number one in the list and no one wants that.)

(Actually ARGH that linked Nowhere wiki article has it listed as shoegaze / spacerock which makes me want to stab a pencil through someone's eye because of the many things that that album is, Spacerock is SOOO not one of them argh blargh kill kill WTFiswrongwithyoupeople OK I better have a lie down now.)