10 Albums to Get You Into Shoegaze Music

10 Albums to Get You Into Shoegaze Music Proto-Shoegaze Classics The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy (1985) Cocteau Twins – Love’s Easy Tears (EP) (1986) Sonic Youth – Sister (1987) Spacemen 3 – The Perfect Prescription (1987) Proto-Shoegaze Classics Pt. 2 A.R. Kane – 69 (1988) My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything (1988) Loop – A Gilded Eternity (1990) Black Tambourine – Throw Aggi Off the Bridge (1992) 1. my bloody valentine – Loveless (1991) Having the absolute privilege of seeing MBV live in Chicago a few years back, my suspicions were confirmed true: my bloody valentine is indeed one of the greatest bands to ever grace the Earth. When "Loveless" released in 1991, it ushered forth a sea change in alternative music music in a way we may never truly see again. It was a singular moment: an enigma of sonic excess and overwhelming auditory bliss. Utilizing reverse reverbs and layers of fuzz and distortion pedals experimentally patched into his signal chain, Kevin Shields spent two years and a fortune bending guitars until they stopped sounding like guitars, gliding the tremolo arm mid-strum so every chord bends and shimmers like heat haze. Bilinda Butcher’s vocals drift somewhere inside the mix, another instrument dissolving into the mass. No record before it sounded like this, and every shoegaze record after existed in its shadow. This is the genre's monolith, the sound of pop music melting at its edges and becoming pure sensation, and it remains, to this day, not only one of my favorite albums of all time, but one of the most important moments in music history. 2. Ride – Going Blank Again (1992) Where their debut hid behind the squall and behind melancholy, here instead Ride threw the curtains open. "Leave Them All Behind" runs eight minutes on an organ drone and cascading guitars, momentum as ecstasy, and the harmonies between Mark Gardener and Andy Bell ring out clear instead of buried. The songs are bright, muscular, unashamed of their hooks. It's proof the genre could face the arena rather than the floor, shoegaze as jubilation instead of retreat. One of the more upbeat and optimistic shoegaze albums, and one of the very best for it. "Leave Them All Behind" is truly one of the greatest songs ever made. 3. Soda Stereo – Dynamo (1992) Latin America's biggest rock band heard what was happening in England and rebuilt it on their own terms. Gustavo Cerati threads samplers and guitar fog through songs that still move with stadium instincts, and "Primavera 0" surges like sunlight breaking through the wall of sound. Released the same year as the scene's peak, it proved shoegaze was never a local dialect. This is the record that made the genre a world language, and Cerati its most graceful translator. Gustavo Cerati is one of the greatest musicians of all time, and this is further proof of his genius to gracefully stride between genre lines effortlessly. 4. Slowdive – Souvlaki (1993) If Loveless is overwhelming, Souvlaki is intimate: the blur slowed down until it aches. "Alison" and "When the Sun Hits" carry real songs inside the haze, and Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell sing to each other across a romance quietly ending in real time. Brian Eno drifts through two tracks like a benediction. Savaged by the British press on release, it has outlived every review to become the genre's most beloved record, the one people from outside of the margins of shoegaze press into each other's hands. 5. Lush – Split (1994) Lush always wrote sharper songs than the fog around them suggested, and Split is where both sides reach full strength. "Desire Lines" stretches toward seven minutes of slow-blooming grandeur while "Hypocrite" snaps with the pop instincts that would carry them into Britpop. Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson's intertwined voices give the wash its human center. It's the genre's most elegant balancing act, dream pop and shoegaze holding each other in perfect symmetry and in tandem with each other. 6. Loveliescrushing – Xuvetyn (1996) No drums, no bass, no songs in any usual sense: Scott Cortez and Melissa Arpin-Duimstra reduced shoegaze to its essence, guitar and voice smeared into pure vapor. Melodies surface for a moment and dissipate onto the horizon before you can catch them. Recorded cheaply and taped inside a cloud, "Xuvetyn" pushed the genre past rock entirely into ambient abstraction. It is perhaps the next logical revolutionary point of the genre beyond "Loveless", but it is far more underrated. This is shoegaze as pure atmosphere, the blur with everything else burned away. 7. Alison's Halo – Eyedazzler 1992-1996 (1997) While the British press was declaring shoegaze dead, this Arizona band was quietly making some of its most gorgeous artifacts, collected here after the fact. Catherine Cooper's voice floats over guitars that chime and smolder in desert light, unhurried and unfashionable. It's simultaneously a record that sounds of its era and one completely out of time. The sound of rain pitter-pattering against the window pain in a fog. Almost nobody heard it at the time. Its afterlife made it a cult touchstone of American shoegaze, proof the genre's greatest records didn't all come stamped with a Creation logo. 8. Walrus – 光のカケラ [Hikari no kakera] (2000) Japan absorbed shoegaze early and refracted it into something of its own, and this scarce, self-released record is one of the scene's buried treasures. The guitars gleam more than they smear, fragments of light true to the title, with melodies that carry a distinctly Japanese pop sweetness through the haze. For years it circulated hand to hand among collectors like a rumor. It stands for the genre's secret international life, thriving far from any spotlight, proof that shoegaze did not belong to any region or scene, but to the world. Shoegaze was becoming a cultural touchstone and being re-absorbed and re-engineered in new, staggering light. 9. Lift to Experience – The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads (2001) Perhaps the best example of post-rock and shoegaze in tandem on this list. A double concept album about the apocalypse arriving in Texas, sung by Josh T. Pearson with the conviction of a desert prophet. The trio builds walls of sound that owe as much to scripture and thunder as to Kevin Shields, guitars surging like weather fronts across the plains. Nothing else in the genre carries this kind of biblical fever. It's shoegaze at its most epic, eclectic, and deranged, and one of the great one-album careers in rock. 10. Parannoul – To See the Next Part of the Dream (2021) Parannoul represents the current and future of shoegaze, showcasing that the genre is still very much alive to those willing to dream where others cannot. Refusing to be confined by limitations, an anonymous Korean student recorded this alone on a laptop, programmed drums blown out and guitars distorting into white light, and uploaded it to Bandcamp expecting nothing. Instead it became a generational touchstone, adolescent despair and euphoria pressed into every clipping peak. The lo-fi seams aren't flaws; they're the point, bedroom limitation turned into scale. It's the record that proved shoegaze's future belongs to anyone with headphones and a hard drive. Obscure Classics from the Golden Age of Shoegaze Curve – Pubic Fruit (1992) (Compilation) Drop Nineteens – Delaware (1992) Pale Saints – In Ribbons (1992) Medicine – The Buried Life (1993) Obscure Classics from the Golden Age of Shoegaze Pt. 2 Lilys – Eccsáme the Photon Band (1995) Swirlies – They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days in the Glittering World of the Salons (1996) Metal-Gaze Jesu – Jesu (2004) The Angelic Process – Weighing Souls With Sand (2007) Have a Nice Life – Deathconsciousness (2008) Deafheaven – Sunbather (2013) Some Other Picks: my bloody valentine – EP's 1988-1991 Slowdive – Just for a Day Ride – Nowhere Majesty Crush – Love 15 Verve – A Storm in Heaven Lush – Gala (Compilation) Swirlies – Blonder Tongue Audio Baton Candy Claws – Ceres & Calypso in the Deep Time Slowdive – I Saw the Sun honeydip – Another Sunny Day Airiel – Winks & Kisses Kairon; IRSE! – Ujubasajuba Nemo – In Stereo Swervedriver – Mezcal Head Ride – Smile (Compilation) Volplane – Volplane 1997-1999 Slowdive – Slowdive (EP) Slowdive – Morningrise (EP) Loveliescrushing – Bloweyelashwish Alvvays – Blue Rev Some Other Picks Pt. 2: Kitchens of Distinction – Strange Free World The Sleepwalk – The Forest of Foss Darya Blind Mr. Jones – Stereo Musicale Chapterhouse – Whirlpool Various Artists – Mikgazer Vol. 1 Catherine Wheel – Chroma Starflyer 59 – Starflyer 59 [Silver] Starflyer 59 – Starflyer 59 [Gold] Flying Saucer Attack – Flying Saucer Attack [Rural Psychedelia] The Sleepwalk – Phantasmagoria Swervedriver – Never Lose That Feeling (EP) Title Fight – Floral Green Various Artists – Still in a Dream: A Story of Shoegaze 1988-1995 Deftones – Diamond Eyes Alcest – Ecailles de lune honeydip – Groovy Indian Summer Coaltar of the Deepers – No Thank You Todos Mis Amigos Estan Tristes – Carne my bloody valentine – m b v Some Other Picks Pt. 3: Deftones – Koi no yokan what is your name? – The Now Now and Never 12 Rods – Bliss Robin Callaway – I Saw an Angel in the Mirror Slowdive – Slowdive Bowery Electric – Beat Coaltar of the Deepers – Sinking Slowly (EP) Catherine Wheel – Ferment Curve – Cherry (EP) Curve – Cuckoo The Boo Radleys – Everything's Alright Forever Kinoko Teikoku – Eureka Lilys – In the Presence of Nothing Loveliescrushing – Glissceule Bulssazo - I In Turn Will Laugh When Disaster Strikes You; I Will Mock When Calamity Overtakes You. (Proverbs 1:26) Ecstasy of St. Theresa – Susurrate Medicine – Shot Forth Self Living Pale Saints – The Comforts of Madness Coaltar of the Deepers – Submerge Jesu – Silver (EP) Some Other Picks Pt. 4: Adorable – Against Perfection My Dead Girlfriend – Hades (The Nine Stages of Change at the Deceased Remains) Parannoul – After the Magic Have a Nice Life – Voids Ride – Fall (EP) Bowery Electric – Bowery Electric Ride – Today Forever (EP) Astrobrite – Pinkshinyultrablast Rollerskate Skinny – Horsedrawn Wishes Sailors With Wax Wings – Sailors With Wax Wings Silversun Pickups – Carnavas Sadness / abriction – That Lasts Forever Flying Saucer Attack – Flying Saucer Attack Slowdive – Souvlaki Demos & Outtakes