anastasia wrote

why is it that british indie kids like to take the piss out of old shoegazers?

i once had this discussion with someone and they claimed to be anti-shoegazing because it was a purely middle class phenomenon and that oasis as heroes of the working class rescued fair england from the pretenders with floppy fringes. I suspect it's more to do with the fact that the entire "Shoegazing" scene invented by the music press to follow up on the large sales figures they attained during Madchester, and that lumping together a load of frankly poor bands who sound like My Bloody Valentine and the Cocteau Twins and calling it the next big thing wasn't really going to wash with the kids(tm). That's not necessarily a reflection on the fact that there were certainly some good records made, but then, there are good records made in almost all genres. It has been a source of mystery to me however quite why "shoegazing" seems to have left a lasting impact on the USA. I suppose it just died here since the top bands (Ride, Slowdive, Chapterhouse etc.) were just not even vaguely comparable to the previous year's big thing, in the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays. I would doubt that people would deliberately decide not to be into a genre of music cause of it being a "middle-class phenomenon" however (you can basically rule out the sixties for a start), and in any case shoegazing died a death several years prior to Oasis appearing here, there was a grim patch in between with people like the Frank and Walters on the cover of the NME. Cheers, Keith. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+