The 1980s were a pivotal time in England. Rock and roll had come and gone, and the punk rock wave was in full swing, brought in by bands like The Clash, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, pretty much every band with “The” followed by a noun. The UK punk subculture was born in seedy clubs ventilated with pure cigarette smoke, it spoke with a cockney accent beginning or ending every sentence with “oy,” and it made no apologies for its blatant disrespect of authority. But as all cultural fads do, this rich and unique culture eventually permeated through to the rest of the world and was diluted.
The punk rock attitude, however, never truly died. The same seedy club scene that the now famous punk bands tried to break out of was the stage for the next wave in the alternative rock world. New bands that built off the same loud and blaring sound of punk rock emerged. They brought massive amounts of guitar pedals onto the stage to further customize their sound, and subsequently spent the entire performance turning effects on and off and adjusting parameters. This practice made the bands seem disconnected from the audience, like they were staring down at their shoes to ignore the audience. But it also made their music seem detached and unreal, eliminating the huge emphasis on personality and the individual brought about by the very social punk scene. And so, shoegaze was born.
The bands that defined this genre were groups like My Bloody Valentine, originating from Dublin. Their sound incorporates both catchy, rhythmic elements of pop music and the obnoxious wall of sound from shoegaze. Those signature elements became the defining factor of the London Alt Rock scene during the 90s, and their music was the inspirational factor of many current alternative and indie bands.
As shoegaze music became more international, the commonly used styles and effects techniques became separated from the genre. Grunge and shoegaze had a huge influence on alternative rock, with bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden at the forefront of the stylistic sensation. With the popularization of grunge music, shoegaze had finished its transformation, starting as a small community of niche artists and evolving into an international style of alternative rock.
Shoegaze influence can still be seen today in indie bands like The Silversun Pickups, who sound like a toned down My Bloody Valentine. Other groups like M83, Yppah, and Crystal Castles took the electronic elements of shoegaze and created their own electronic productions. However, the most direct descendant of shoegaze is noise-rock, a genre defined only in that it is atonal and abstract. Bands like Health took just the blaring noise from shoegaze music and managed to create some sort of thing out of it that might be described as music.
To read about My Bloody Valentine’s first album, click here.
