Not everything is shoegaze: An open letter to the music industry
My dearest, the music industry,
Let me start off by saying that I get it. While art continues to change, the means by which we peddle it remain, and that can make marketing an ordeal. Artists are encouraged to think beyond their genre, by both critics and fans, and that can make describing the finished product, an album that jumps in, out and around a variety of different styles of music, a fucking nightmare. However, despite these hardships, I believe in you, and I think it’s worth my pointing out in these times of genrelessness something very important: not everything is shoegaze.
The genre of shoegaze is rooted in effects. The world of guitar pedals and various synths has come a long way since they were initially invented, to the point that now, bands can use a huge concoction of them in a bid to create sounds that barely resemble the instrument they’re coming from.
There is no staple sound that constitutes shoegaze, but you can usually expect thick atmospheres, the kind you could reach out and touch, spread on toast. The sounds usually merge into one another to the point that you can hardly tell who is making what noise. This unique use of effects is where the genre gets its name from, as critics said that the people on stage spent so long staring at their various effects pedals, they may as well be gazing at their shoes.
There’s a term in music called the “wall of sound”, which is a recording technique developed by Phil Spector. This technique is all about recording individual instruments so they all come through at an equal rate. Shoegaze sounds like an actual wall of sound, as a plethora of instruments, effects and playing techniques are hurled through speakers, and all you can do is get swept up in them.
Even vocals aren’t treated the same in the shoegaze genre. While in other genres, words are used in a bid to establish the theme of the song, and whether it’s about love, hate or something more trivial, in shoegaze, they are merely used as another effect. When you listen to a lot of great music within the genre, you might not be able to understand the lyrics, and instead can just make out a sweet vocal tone, which adds to that enveloping atmosphere.
Check out a band like Cocteau Twins; their sound is very much within the shoegaze genre, and their vocals are incredibly hard to understand. However, while you might not be able to pick out the specific words, that’s not what matters. What is important is that you can hear that beautiful, high-pitched vocal tone, completely unravelling on every song and adding another layer to it.
The modern age of music and the essence of shoegaze create a labelling problem. Bands and artists are encouraged quite often to think outside of their genre, and a lot of the modern acts we adore are those who aren’t afraid to blur the lines between various styles of music. It’s great, as it means that when we put on a new album, we really don’t know what to expect; however, it also creates an issue for record labels and PR companies when they are trying to define an act that they are selling to the public.
Effects are going to be used in this genre-bending style because they are used predominantly across all music. There will also likely be an element of atmosphere created, because all good music, no matter how minimalist or maximalist, tends to carry with it some form of atmosphere. This combination means that almost every new band emerging who don’t already have an established genre is pinned somewhat with the shoegaze label, and this isn’t accurate.
I might sound pedantic here, but I do think a distinction should be made. Shoegaze is a genre of music that has an interesting history and has given rise to a number of great bands. It was also the first subgenre to come out of the indie landscape. People should be able to explore new bands within the genre without falling into the trap of stumbling across a band who don’t remotely resemble it, and instead have been lumped into that category because the guitarist uses reverb on a couple of tunes.
We also run the risk of completely nullifying the term if it’s overused. Rock, pop, hip-hop, punk: these are some of the biggest genres in the world and yet the label still carries meaning because it’s used properly. If we keep passing around the genre to anything difficult to categorise, the term shoegaze will become as taken for granted as the grammar in the sentence in which it’s written.
So, to conclude, my dear friends in the music industry, while I can understand where the confusion comes from and appreciate that it must be hard writing band bios in the modern age, not everything you release is shoegaze. Let’s draw a line under this and move on.
Yours truly,
Dale.
