La la la, I'm seeing Voltaire tonight!

I hope you know that you are a bitch. IJS.

Not really, but...fellow travelers? Moody? Ethereal?

Also, oddly, the Moody Blues are fairly respected. Weird, that.

Spooky - Lush

Lush were ace - more goth-pop than shoegazey. Imagine a power pop Cocteau Twins. They came out of the C86 scene (Jo from Huggy Bear was in an early line up) and were always that bit less posh and more sexy than the real shoegazers. I prefer Scar to Spooky

Isn't Anything - MBV

Would be in my top 5 all time albums. The followup, Loveless, gets all the props, because it's a vanishing point for that mode of rock music, but Isn't Anything is an awesome collection of off-kilter noisy pop. Again, not shoegazey themselves - the shoegazing bands were inspired by this album.

Blurred Crusade - The Church

Goth band. Certainly never considered part of the Scene

Nowhere - Ride

Now you're talking. Along with the first Chapterhouse and slowdive albums, and the slightly rockier Swervedriver, Ride were the shoegazing scene. If you listen to it back to back with MBV this sounds weak as fuck, but on its own it's gorgeous. It has a couple of my favourite ever songs on - Vapor Trail and the on I can't be arsed to AMG which begins "she knew she was able to fly/because when she came down/she had dust on her hands from the sky". As Jon implies, the first 2 EPs, when they were rougher and more garagey, are what made their name. Like a Daydream has one of the best intros in rock history.

Ferment - Catherine Wheel

As whover said, Black Metallic is the Catherine Wheel track everyone recalls.

Wake Up - Boo Radleys

Now this isn't shogazey at all - it's just a brilliant, brilliant pop album. they should have been oasis. Giant Steps is also a stunning Boo Radleys album. I've always regretted not seeing them, which was for the absurd reason that my high school band was called Boo Radley and i was narked that they used the same name.

The key point about shoegazing was that they (oh, who am I kidding - we) were the generation between the big dance music waves in the UK. After the madchester thing, a group of posh home counties bands picked up on the variuos 1986-8 guitar rock extremists (dinosaur Jr, Vaselines, Loop, Spaceman 3, Sonic Youth, House of Love and most of all MBV...) and made polite poppy versions of the sound. it only lasted about a year, because Primal Scream came back with the Screamadelica singles and everyone started taking e and pretending they'd always preferred acid house...

Aside from ride, the key bands I remember were slowdive, chapterhouse, swervedriver, 1000 yard stare, Moose, and (although at that time seen as kind of pathetic also-ran hangovers from baggy) Blur.

Oh, and I have to mention Headtime, who went to my high school and were are very own shoegazing band. and were quite good.

swervedriver

Have you seen this? [link] Swervedriver.com is proud to present live compilations of all four albums. Lovingly compiled by members of the forum, these compilations represent the best of the known live bootlegs and radio sessions.

All free downloads!

The Indestructible Beat of Soweto

An excellent album. (Teppy, one of the songs on that African music mix I made for you is from this album.) Yesterday I took my brother out to dinner, and we went CD-shopping afterwards. I was very pleased to find King Sunny Ade: Best of the Classic Years for only $7.50. woo!

(a) the drummer is working very hard during this song, and (b) the melody is carried by the bass. Also, what the hell is Ian Curtis doing with a garage-rock style Voxx guitar?).

Hooky was always the melodic engine of the band. There's a great bit on the fadeout of one of their tracks where he just starts playing keep on keeping on . And that guitar is the Iconic Curtis Guitar.

Supposedly Joy Division pioneered the use of bass carrying the melody. I read that it was because JD shared rehersal space with another band. The only way that the bass player could hear himself play over the sound of the other band was to play way up on the fretboard, and that lead to him playing the melody on bass. This happened during the long period when they never played out, after they called themselves Warsaw.

Supposedly Joy Division pioneered the use of bass carrying the melody.

Hi, I'm Paul McCartney.

Hi Paul.

Maybe I'm not remembering the story right....