Huess presents Early 90s Shoegaze/Indie spotify playlist

The Scene that Celebrates Itself had been unfashionable for a long time.  And you can see why in some ways.  The vocals were mostly weedy and nasal, sound at a lot of gigs was either too loud or swamped in feedback and it was unconvincingly sandwiched between Britpop and Baggy.  This list isn’t necessarily intended to convert you to this style of music – a number of the bands on here are far from being favourites of mine and there are some fairly obvious tracks which you couldn’t call shoegazing.  But it always seemed to me that Indie music in the early 90s was travelling in a similar direction and this collection of tunes share some aesthetics as well as poor stage posture.

Some highlights include Vapour Trail by Ride (in some ways the quintessential shoegazers), Into the Ether from Secret Shine (the rest of the album is not great) and Machine Gun by Slowdive (in all the other ways a band could be quintessential shoegazers).  It’s not all from the UK though – Americans were doing similar things at the same time with a bit more polish (as in to rub, shine or buff up – nothing to do with sausage).  Yo La Tengo and Red House Painters come over all Twin Peaks sinister and the Nightblooms prove that even the Dutch could have a go.  I’ve chucked in some pre-popscene Blur and Verve as a nod to why the scene dissolved to nothing.

Listen to the playlist

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