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Ryan Pinkard is a writer, editor, and record collector from Colorado. He is the author of the 33 1/3 book about The National’s Boxer (2022) and an editor on numerous other 33 1/3 titles.
Music writer Pinkard (The National’s Boxer) presents a textured oral history of shoegaze, a style of music that he characterizes by its “noisy, effectsladen guitar, obfuscated vocals, and atmospheric production.” The term shoegaze, originally intended as a critique of shy performers who “stared at their pedals” instead of engaging with audiences, became an artistic badge of honor for bands like Spacemen 3 (“It was all about the sound we were trying to create and not how we were trying to look, ” according to vocalist Pete Kember). The genre gained traction thanks to My Bloody Valentine’s 1988 album Isn’t Anything and reached the height of its popularity in early 1990s Britain, with critics expressing admiration for its “challenging” mix of sweet pop tunes and “sonic assaults.” The rise of Britpop quickly knocked shoegaze out of favor, Pinkard notes, but it has been revived in a music streaming era that has made offbeat, out-of-print records discoverable. Drawing on interviews with members of Chapterhouse, Slowdive, Moose, and Lush, as well as music journalists and editors, Pinkard vividly renders the whiplash of shoegaze’s rapid rise and fall, and the qualities (vulnerability, sensitivity) that fueled its revival. The result is a lively ode to an enigmatic musical genre. -- unknown * Publisher's Weekly *
