Shoegazing Part Two

The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Velvet Underground was often cited as a major influence, as the band had been on the C86 movement before it. Many of the bands eschewed the punk era altogether, although punk-era bands such as The Cramps, Pere Ubu and The Birthday Party proved influential in some cases, especially with the forerunners of the genre. However, artists such as The Jesus and Mary Chain and especially the Cocteau Twins and Spacemen 3 (and later Spiritualized) gave birth to the genre directly rather than through oblique influences.

Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life traces shoegazing to a Dinosaur Jr tour of the United Kingdom. While not generally classified as a shoegazing band, Dinosaur Jr did share a tendency to blend poppy melody with loud guitars. Early Boo Radleys tracks were firmly modelled on the first two Dinosaur albums. The first stirrings of recognition came when indie writer Steve Lamacq referred to Ride in a review for the NME as "The House of Love with chainsaws". In the US the music is sometimes now referred to as "dream pop".

The genre label was quite often misapplied. Key bands such as Ride, Chapterhouse and Slowdive emerged from the Thames Valley and as such Swervedriver found themselves labelled 'shoegazers' on account of their own (coincidental) Thames Valley origins - despite their more pronounced Hüsker Dü stylings. Curve were once described as "the exact point where shoegazer meets goth" and the genre did overlap with others to some extent. It was certainly the case that bands such as Blur, on occasion, adopted elements of shoegazing ('She's So High' for instance) on a purely commercial basis. The careers of Thousand Yard Stare and Revolver were caught up in a general backlash which affected the scene.

In spite of this, bands like Chapterhouse, Ride and Slowdive ("the My Bloody Valentine Creation can afford" went one wry review) did leave behind several albums that on reflection have stood the test of time as indicative of 90s British indie.