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Wizard wrote:\
why i don't have a shoegaze band? i don't know. I've always wanted a band to create massive textures with layering melodies/be a pop band at the same time. but also play super slow and drop tuned...

Like Jesu?

PumpkinPieces wrote:It's cool if you don't dig shoegaze but don't shit all over a productive thread.

See, I dunno, if I was asking for suggestions I'd want to hear some variety of opinions on the subject...... there's no reason to get bent out of shape here over a legitimate post........

retinal orbita wrote:

PumpkinPieces wrote:It's cool if you don't dig shoegaze but don't shit all over a productive thread.

See, I dunno, if I was asking for suggestions I'd want to hear some variety of opinions on the subject...... there's no reason to get bent out of shape here over a legitimate post........

I'm not bent out of shape, I just strongly disagree with you. All in all it is just a matter of taste and my opinion is no more right than yours. However, the way you presented your thoughts on shoegaze makes it seem like you're dismissing the majority of shoegaze music because it isn't like or as good as Loveless. Comparing a whole genre to one album is a very limited way to listen to music and is not something I can relate to. If I compared all alternative music I listened to with my favorite album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, I'd think every alternative 90s band was a sub par knock off of the Pumpkins too. But instead I acknowledge that not every shoegaze band wants to be MBV and layer five hundred well orchestrated guitar and vocal tracks and not every alternative band wants to be The Pumpkins and drone E over octave double stops. This helps me enjoy more music rather than comparing bands to find the best one of the bunch and dismissing the rest.

theavondon wrote:
Also, speaking of, I love anything Jade Tree put out. Even the countless Pedro the Lion records.

JOA TIL I DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE

Heyyyyyyyyy....I didn't post in here yet?

Listen to Thrushes, Redwood and Wiz. They've got all the bases covered. Except somehow Alison's Halo haven't been mentioned yet?

Also, gotta plug Hartfield...Asia could give Britain a run for its money.

Wizard wrote:and i believe the term shoegaze was coined due to the pumpkins.

British press criticizing how the bands didn't interact with the audience.

PumpkinPieces wrote:it seem like you're dismissing the majority of shoegaze music because it isn't like or as good as Loveless.

Well, I don't think that's what I was getting at in - most of these bands get an automatic MBV comparison, but 90% of the time it's not accurate, and they're just pop songs with fuzzy guitars and that's the end of the similarities. If that's what shoegaze is, I really don't like it...... You guys remember this band, I think they were called The Daywalkers or some shit like that? Billed as "THE NEXT MBV OMG FOR REAL" every time I read anything about them and really if you clicked off the big muff you'd have another britpop clone..... Same with Asobi Sexu or however you spell it...... billed as "MBV WITH HOT JAPANESE SINGER NO JOKE"...... but in the end same thing....... I don' know why it irks me so much that there are so many bands that churn out lazy pop music and expect to find critical acclaim based on a comparison in sound, but well...... I mean she is pretty hot amirite?

Well, I agree that the MBV Loveless comparison is overused and misleading - I went down THAT path enough times to learn my lesson the hard way. But I did discover some bands I liked based on their own merits (even though they didn't measure up to Loveless) along the way.

But I think this statement gets to the heart of the disagreement here:

retinal orbita wrote:... churn out lazy pop music...

While Asobi Seksu isn't necessarily my favoritest band ever, I don't think that they are necessarily "churning out lazy pop music." They may be making songs that are are the sum of their influences, but you'd be hard pressed to find bands / artists that aren't. It might be out there, but it's probably .0000000000976% (+/- several thousands of a percentage point) of the music that exists at any given time.

If that OHMYGAWDMINDBLOWINGNOONE'SEVERDONETHISBEFORE thing is what you look for in ALL the music you listen to, well hell, you're going to be disappointed a lot of the time. And you'll be wrong a lot of the time too, given that none of us has a magical databank containing all of the music ever made, that we can use to compare any given song / album / artist to every other given song / album / artist.

Now, please don't think that I'm trying to negate the music you listen to and enjoy - you do your proverbial thang, and I hope you get lots of pleasure out of it. But I don't think that it broadly justifies (at least for me) throwing out genres or bands that are influenced by the other music they listen to and love.

Of course, this is made even more interesting by the fact that the music that we're discussing here on ILF as "pop" or "poppy" or "catchy" is probably stuff that most of the population at large wouldn't even recognize as such. We're splitting some pretty small percentages here. Again, not that that necessarily means anything, but it's worth considering when we talk about how "accessible," "popular" or "catchy" these songs / art / what-have-you that we love actually are so to the broader world.

retinal orbita wrote:

PumpkinPieces wrote:it seem like you're dismissing the majority of shoegaze music because it isn't like or as good as Loveless.

Well, I don't think that's what I was getting at in - most of these bands get an automatic MBV comparison, but 90% of the time it's not accurate, and they're just pop songs with fuzzy guitars and that's the end of the similarities. If that's what shoegaze is, I really don't like it...... You guys remember this band, I think they were called The Daywalkers or some shit like that? Billed as "THE NEXT MBV OMG FOR REAL" every time I read anything about them and really if you clicked off the big muff you'd have another britpop clone..... Same with Asobi Sexu or however you spell it...... billed as "MBV WITH HOT JAPANESE SINGER NO JOKE"...... but in the end same thing....... I don' know why it irks me so much that there are so many bands that churn out lazy pop music and expect to find critical acclaim based on a comparison in sound, but well...... I mean she is pretty hot amirite?

I see what you mean. I've never had the MBV comparison thrown at me so I must've misunderstood. Although I'd recommend Swervedriver for non-poppyness. But you might've already taken a look at them since they were mentioned quite a bit in this thread. My bassist lives off the music you're describing and although I can listen to it and hear things I like within it, it doesn't really turn me on unless the lyrics have something interesting to say.

jrmy wrote:While Asobi Seksu isn't necessarily my favoritest band ever, I don't think that they are necessarily "churning out lazy pop music." They may be making songs that are are the sum of their influences, but you'd be hard pressed to find bands / artists that aren't.

Fair enough, it just wasn't for me but that doesn't mean it's lazy. I feel like half the time the description misleads enough that the actual product is kind of a letdown, but that's with any genre. You ever read the description on a Relapse Records title? Unreal. "FOR FANS OF WHITEHOUSE, BORIS, NAPALM DEATH FRANCOIS HARDY AND TANGERINE DREAM" and meanwhile it's the new Dying Fetus album......

retinal orbita wrote:

jrmy wrote:While Asobi Seksu isn't necessarily my favoritest band ever, I don't think that they are necessarily "churning out lazy pop music." They may be making songs that are are the sum of their influences, but you'd be hard pressed to find bands / artists that aren't.

Fair enough, it just wasn't for me but that doesn't mean it's lazy. I feel like half the time the description misleads enough that the actual product is kind of a letdown, but that's with any genre. You ever read the description on a Relapse Records title? Unreal. "FOR FANS OF WHITEHOUSE, BORIS, NAPALM DEATH FRANCOIS HARDY AND TANGERINE DREAM" and meanwhile it's the new Dying Fetus album......

Yeah, I can get behind that sentiment 1,000%. THAT kind of shallow marketing is lazy, because the labels just want to get people to buy the albums, and give reviewers some kind of easy handle to latch on for their reviews. And in fairness to the labels (but not to those tactics), it's pretty tough to get most people to give a shit about music they don't know already.

BTW, I would love to hear the album that accurately measured up to the description "FOR FANS OF WHITEHOUSE, BORIS, NAPALM DEATH, FRANCOIS HARDY AND TANGERINE DREAM."

The worst part of that is when that kind of comparison works.

So, for example, I got turned onto The Birthday Party after they were described to me as "like Oxbow." Tonally, there's a distance, but I can see a lot of similarities that go beyond the lazily vague aural aesthetics that dominate so many recommendations:

retinal orbita wrote:

PumpkinPieces wrote:it seem like you're dismissing the majority of shoegaze music because it isn't like or as good as Loveless.

Same with Asobi Sexu or however you spell it...... billed as "MBV WITH HOT JAPANESE SINGER NO JOKE"...... but in the end same thing....... I don' know why it irks me so much that there are so many bands that churn out lazy pop music and expect to find critical acclaim based on a comparison in sound, but well...... I mean she is pretty hot amirite?

Yeah, fuckin lazy classically trained fucks. Also, pretty sure you're not looking for critical acclaim when you name your band Sportfuck.

Thanks to this thread, I'm now in love with Asobi Seksu. Also, it felt weird getting Citrus, and Portal's Outre at the same time.

Red Sea is the best Asobi Seksu song.
REAL TALK SON

theavondon wrote:Thanks to this thread, I'm now in love with Asobi Seksu. Also, it felt weird getting Citrus, and Portal's Outre at the same time.

Lolz. Would love to see a shoegaze band that had a similar live atmosphere to that of Portal.