NOMINATIONS THREAD for ILM's Alltime Best Shoegaze / Dream Pop / Post-rock TRACKS poll (nominations end 10/10/10 11:59 PDT)

First time I do this so I might need some help tabulating the results and choosing the score value... Really hope I dont fuck it up. I'm thinking about closing it October 10, giving 15 days to vote and giving results in the following days. I wont be doing an ALBUMS poll - which come to think of it would be probably a more interesting poll in this particular genres - but I'll support as much as possible whoever wants to do it.

The limit of nominations is 30 songs per person and there's no vetoing. The community will decide if its legal with their votes.

PS 1:Should we consider other soundwall parent and child genres like say Chillwave, Nowave, Drone in the poll?

PS 2: Please try to arrange your nominees as 'Artist - song' and by Alphabetical order.

Chapterhouse - Mesmerise

In the meanwhile here are 10 of my 30 nominees:

A.R. Kane - Lollita
Brian Eno - Needle in the Camel's Eye
Cranes - Beautiful Friend
Disco Inferno - Love Stepping Out
Fridge - Long Singing
Glenn Branca - Lesson No.1
Memory Cassette - Milkey Wave Goodbye
Radio Dept. - David
Stone Roses - I wanna be Adored
Sugar Plant - Happy

early 70s Eno glam track = uh waht

The Chameleons - "View From A Hill"
Spacemen 3 - "Suicide"
Skywave - "All I Had"
The Jesus & Mary Chain - "Never Understand"
The Cure - "Plainsong"

will think of more later

early 70s Eno glam track = uh waht

― do you feel me? somebody, feel me (Shakey Mo Collier)

'Here comes the warm jets' has several songs (like say the title track, 'Baby's on fire', 'Needle...') which I think predate the dream-pop movement and pushed forward the wall of sound aesthetic into rock/pop... is it too off?

I've always categorized this album closer to dreampop/shoegaze than glam... but I'll change the nomination later on if it's troublesome.

well you said no one could veto and I don't care really I just don't hear the sonic similarity to shoegazze (which in my book is associated primarily by thick layers of distorted/effected guitars and synth washes) - agree it's pretty out there on the glam scale, but it's not too far off from the early Roxy Music stuff, which is definitely glam canon. don't mind me, I just thought it was odd.

Wow, I never thought this would happen. Good work! Here's ten to start me off:

Blur - Sing
Boo Radleys - Upon 9th & Fairchild
Moose - This River Will Never Run Dry
My Bloody Valentine - Sometimes
Ride - Dreams Burn Down
Ride - Grasshopper
Ride - Like A Daydream
Ride - Unfamiliar
Swervedriver - Son Of Mustang Ford
Teenage Fanclub - Everything Flows

Spacemen 3 - "Suicide"

^^^good one

well you said no one could veto and I don't care really I just don't hear the sonic similarity to shoegazze (which in my book is associated primarily by thick layers of distorted/effected guitars and synth washes) - agree it's pretty out there on the glam scale, but it's not too far off from the early Roxy Music stuff, which is definitely glam canon. don't mind me, I just thought it was odd.

― do you feel me? somebody, feel me (Shakey Mo Collier),

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=draua97qH1Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba7a9pZM6_I&feature=related

Well, you can't deny these songs do have thick layers of distorted guitars and synth washes. I mean, they wouldn't sound out of place at all buried between a more traditional 80's/90's shoegaze mix, but I do understand where you're coming from.

There's no veto but we can of course discuss our nominees to persuade us to choose something else ;)

K, I'm switching:

A.R. Kane - Lollita
Brian Eno - Needle in the Camel's Eye
Cranes - Beautiful Friend
Disco Inferno - Love Stepping Out
Fridge - Long Singing
Glenn Branca - Lesson No.1
Low, Transient Waves & Piano Magic - Sleep at the Bottom
Memory Cassette - Milkey Wave Goodbye
Radio Dept. - David
Stone Roses - I wanna be Adored
Sugar Plant - Happy

Chapterhouse - Breather
Boo Radleys - Lazarus
Loop - Black Sun
Catherine Wheel - Black Metallic
Kitchens of Distinction - Mad as Snow
Cocteau Twins - Carolyn's Fingers

Cloudland Canyon - White Woman

(24 left...)

not sure about including post-rock in the title, that seems like its own poll. and are we allowing some or all of JAMC?

anyway, might as well put dean wareham on the board:

Galaxie 500 - Strange

Lorelei - Stop What You're Doing
Lorelei - Mimesis
M83 - Run Into Flowers
My Bloody Valentine - I Only Said
Velocity Girl - My Forgotten Favorite
Velocity Girl - Crazy Town

My noms are starting to look like mixtapes I made in the early 90s.

AR Kane - Suicide Kiss
My Bloody Valentine - You Made Me Realise
House Of Love - Love In A Car
Loop - Collision
Kitchens Of Distinction - Drive That Fast
Swervedriver - Never Lose That Feeling
Labradford - WR
Spacemen 3 - Ode To Street Hassle
Bailter Space - X
Flying Saucer Attack - The Drowners

oh, just noticed the "no vetoing" bit. ok then.

Jesus and Mary Chain - Just Like Honey
Jesus and Mary Chain - Happy When It Rains

and can't resist:

The Dream Academy - Life in a Northern Town

I want to make sure these are nominated:

Lush - De-Luxe
Cocteau Twins - Violaine
Jesus and Mary Chain - Catchfire

Could The Sundays be included? I always thought there was a bit of a resemblance between Harriet Wheeler's and Elizabeth Fraser's voices.

The Joy Formidable - The Last Drop
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
Red House Painters - Mistress
Red House Painters - Katysong
Spiritualized - Medication

I'm pretty lost as to what's in or out for this poll...anyway:

Talk Talk - The Rainbow
Talk Talk - I Believe in You
Alcest - Printemps Emeraude
Arthur Russell - She's the Star/I Take This Time
Arthur Russell - Let's Go Swimming
Arthur Russell - Calling All Kids
AR Kane - A Love From Outer Space
Faust - C Pluus
Stereolab - Super Falling Star
Fennesz - Circassian
School of Seven Bells - Half Asleep

Hmm I hope I dont double up on anyone with this.

AR Kane - Spermwhale Tripover
Engineers - Let's Just See
Ulrich Schnauss - Clear Day
Lycia - Pray
Bark Psychosis - From What is Said to When it is Read
Disco Inferno - the Long Dance

more later.. dammit work!

I guess it's my own fault for being slow to start this, but I've only mentioned doing it (minues the disgusting post-rock part, whut?!) about 20 times over the last year. Part of me is like "yay, it's finally happening" and part is like "dammit, that's MY idea!"

I'll play along, though.

minues=minus

I dont mind the post rock bit, it means i can include bark psychosis! lol

Im a bit confused as to what universe red house painters are "shoegaze" in but i adore them so Im not complaining.

i'm gonna have to contribute bit by bit

lilys - february fourteenth
lilys - claire hates me
lilys - ginger
swirlies - sarah sitting
swirlies - didn't understand
charmparticles - gold plated shot
slowdive - morningrise
slowdive - she calls
afterglow - fall behind
the mandelbrot set - lush
jupiter sun - violet intertwine
the ropers - you have a light
revolver - crimson
boo radleys - lazy day
bailterspace - x
velocity girl - my forgotten favourite
velocity girl - crazy town
sounds like sunset - frequency
mahogany - supervitesse

more later

Swervedriver - Never Lose That Feeling

Thanking u for nominating this Nick. <3 this song.

woops soz for VG duplicates

& bailterspace (so 14 more to come from me)

underground lovers - i was right
curve - coast is clear
mbv - sunny sundae smile
for against - coalesced
puressence - near distance

Yesss, on the Undies trak

More from me

Slowdive - Crazy for You
Ulrich Schnauss - Nobody's Home

Stone Roses - I wanna be Adored

I really dont see this fitting at all, on a re-read, but I dont know what to protest. I'm confused.

pale saints - language of flowers

asobi seksu - thursday

clearlake - don't let the cold in
hood - hood northern
mogwai - mogwai fear satan
my bloody valentine - honey power
school of seven bells - ILU
serena-maneesh - un-deux
spiritualized - if i were with her now
ulrich schnauss - on your own
verve - all in the mind
verve - a man called sun
verve - feel

Looking forward to the results of this!

ulrich schnauss - on your my own

just to be clear, as I'll be giving it mucho points

arse. Was sure it was that, didn't think to check. I also wouldn't be completely certain that it is the song I think it is, but for you posting loads about it and the words seem to fit together in my head. Haven't listened to his records in a while.

am partially of a mind to nominate every single track off ASIP although miraculously you and Trayce have already covered the two best so I needn't really bother

Louis you know me of all ppl was never gonna leave dear Ulrich out in th cold!

Well let me cap this miniature love-in off with my first nominations:

Ulrich Schnauss - Medusa
Ulrich Schnauss - Stars

The rest...I'll have to have a think about.

Stars yeah :)

Blonde Redhead - 23

five more from me:

Drop Nineteens - Winona
Mazzy Star - Happy
My Bloody Valentine - Soon
Verve - Gravity Grave
Verve - She's A Superstar

I can't believe I'm the only one nominating Ride. I don't want to use up my last fifteen all on them, but be warned.

Also, anyone else coming to view shoegaze and grunge as effectively two wings of the same movement? I keep wanting to consider Sugar for this poll, but they don't belong whereas Swervedriver for some reason do. The obvious signifiers (pretty girls at the front, whining about one's childhood, being from one side of the Atlantic or t'other) don't have much to do with the music I feel.

oh dude, I am nominating some goddamn Ride

Ride - Leave Them All Behind
Ride - Howard Hughes

happy now

Good work my man, that's saved me a slot. (coming soon: a complaint about vote-splitting)

i'm still the only galaxie 500 nom? so brit-centric so far. (ok yes these are more brit than u.s. genres, but not to this extent...)

Galaxie 500 - Listen, the Snow Is Falling
Galaxie 500 - Flowers

also, i always loved this album:

Hex - Diviner

Asobi Seksu - Strawberries
Asteroid No 4 - What A Sorry Way To Go
Boo Radleys - Does This Hurt?
Bowery Electric - Things'll Never Be The Same
Brian Jonestown Massacre - That Girl Suicide
Chapterhouse - Autosleeper
Chapterhouse- Falling Down
Cranes - Starblood
Curve - Horror Head
Dandy Warhols - It's A Fast Driving Rave-Up With The Dandy Warhols Sixteen Minutes
Loop - Collision
Lush - Nothing Natural
Lush - Sunbathing
Lush - Thoughtforms
Mahogany - Supervitesse
Medicine - Aruca
Medicine - Never Click
Moose - Suzanne
Pale Saints - A Deep Sleep For Steven
Pale Saints - A Thousand Stars Burst Open
Ride - Sennen
Ride - Vapour Trail
School of Seven Bells - Connjur
School of Seven Bells - My Cabal
Seefeel - Plainsong
Spiritualized - Run
Telescopes - Everso
Telescopes - High On Fire
Ultra Vivid Scene - Not In Love (Hit By A Truck)
Yo La Tengo - From A Motel 6

masonic booms noms ^

^confirmed

I think whoever collates the results should also do one to find which groups got the most votes, as I think some groups (Ride, Boo Radleys, MBV, etc.) have had so many songs nominated that their votes are going to spread quite thinly.

Btw, I have a video (on VHS from about 20 years ago) of Ride doing a great version of Seagull live on some TV channel or other. I've got DVD-video recorder, so I can transfer it onto a DVD. How would I then go about uploading it into youtube? I'd have to change the format somehow, wouldn't I? I've never uploaded anything to youtube.

Its likely already on youtube, you'd be suprised. Have you checked? A lot of the old Coc's stuff I have on video - their Tube and OGWT appearances - are there.

Yes, it's not on youtube

No idea how you do that. What was the show?

I guess the show was SNUB-TV on BBC2, yeah? About 7pm on Friday evenings, I think. They showed lots of shoegaze stuff in 1990/1. I vividly remember a live Slowdive recording they showed that fixated on a young couple snogging in the crowd.

what exacly is snogging again?

A.C. Marias - One Of Our Girls Has Gone Missing
Rollerskate Skinny - Speed to my Side
Smashing Orange - Any Further, It's All Over
Spoonfed Hybrid - Heaven's Knot
Savage Republic - Walking Backwards
Nice Strong Arm - Cloud Machine
Cowboy Junkies - Sweet Jane
Serena-Maneesh - I Just Want To See Your Face
Bird Nest Roys - Jaffa Boy

Gravenhurst - Hollow Men

french kissing?

Tongues. Forever.

Somebody that doesn't have net dumbness should put up an image of the Valentines Glider EP cover.

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h279/juicyfrt/mbv_glider.jpg

okay i get it

No idea how you do that. What was the show?
------
I guess the show was SNUB-TV on BBC2, yeah? About 7pm on Friday evenings, I think. They showed lots of shoegaze stuff in 1990/1. I vividly remember a live Slowdive recording they showed that fixated on a young couple snogging in the crowd.

No, it wasn't Snub. IIRC they showed a bit of Ride playing Drive Blind on Snub before the EP came out. They definitely showed loads of good stuff on Snub around that time: I bought Lush - Mad Love EP, the first Catherine Wheel EP and the first Moose EP on the strength of what I saw on Snub, and I definitely remember them showing Pale Saints, Bleach, Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, Boo Radleys too (as well as lots of good stuff that doesn't belong in this poll like The Breeders and Teenage Fanclub).

I don't know exactly what the programme was because I didn't actually see it. I bought a home-made video from some advert in Melody Maker (or Sounds or NME) in early 1991 - somebody who had access to satellite channels made compilations of various groups' appearances on all kinds of shows and also made low-quality bootleg recordings of live performances (i.e. standing in the crowd with a concealed camcorder). This includes a gig at ULU in the April 1990 (some of which is on youtube) when Play came out, a gig at the Reading Festival (summer of 1990?), and a gig at the Town & Country club from March 91.

The track I was going to try to upload is a live performance of Seagull done in a TV studio. It wasn't from a gig, they only did that song, but I don't know what the actual programme was that it came from, only that it was on BSB. Anyway, I dug out the video and watched it yesterday but the tracking is hopelessly fucked so it wouldn't be worth trying to upload it even if I could work out how to. Shame, because it's a great performance, really frantic with strings breaking.

Was is something to do with Night Network perhaps, I recall seeing a lot of gaze videos on their indie music show which was called something like Transmissions.

I was checking out the first three Curve singles yesterday and got to thinking about how difficult it was to be into this stuff back in the day. I got into it in June 1991 as I recall, about a month after the second Curve EP - so however much buzz there was around them (and there was a *lot*) I simply could not hear their records. They'd already've dropped out the charts (if they even made it) so no chance of hearing it on normal radio or finding it in my local Our Price, and Mark Goodier wouldn't be playing anything a month old.

I don't recall ever seeing Snub except in passing, so I was more or less totally dependent on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZP6XsenKp4

and they never played the shoegaze stuff! Perfectly understandable I guess when it went out at Saturday lunchtime, but pretty annoying to always get Erasure or someone instead. I had a load of these taped one after the other, basically using the ten-second clips and the music press to pick what I could afford. It's funny how some of the clips got embedded in my brain - I never even heard 'Flying' until relatively recently, but I could've sung that line on demand at any time in the past nineteen years.

Anyway, by the time of the third Curve EP people were bored of them and they didn't seem worth checking out, so I never really did. 'Ten Little Girls' is sensational though - my loss.

Why were Erasure considered Indie? Besides that video, I remember seeing them in a couple of late 80s indie compilations. Doesn't make any sense to me.

Independent label chart innit.

On listening tonight, I think most of my favourite Valentines tracks have been picked already. I shall only add my very, very favourite song of theirs.

My Bloody Valentine - You Never Should

That's the whole of Nowhere (inc bonus tracks) been nominated now

― Ismael Klata, Thursday, 30 September 2010 22:46

Yep. Well its by far the best record of this little mini-genre.

Wasn't sure that you weren't a kelpolaris sock until that last post. :D

Clueless. Sorry?

A banned poster obsessed with My Bloody Valentine.

You Never Should is prob my fave MBV song too. That first guitar break after the chorus is mindblowing.

My Bloody Valentine - When You Sleep

One more for Swervedriver:

Swervedriver - Rave Down

Love the middle instrumental section. Reminds me of Sister-era Sonic Youth.

Don't think this has been done yet:

My Bloody Valentine - Blown A Wish

^I'll be voting for this...

thisv too.

My Bloody Valentine - What You Want

Guys, I'll be on an internet vacation for a few days. I'll come back on Wednesday. Any nominations done after Monday will not be counted. It'd be wicked if someone could continue compiling by alphabet the list upthread after I'm gone, if not I'll do it when I get back.

Thanks.

last two from me:

Cranes - Everywhere
Ride - Twisterella

Bardo Pond - Tommy Gun Angel

Breathless - Over and Over
Breathless - Wave After Wave
Breathless - You Can Call It Yours
Breathless - All That Matters Now
Talk Talk - Time It's Time
This Mortal Coil - Kangaroo

Sigur Ros - Starálfur
Starflyer 59 - You're Mean
M83 - Teen Angst

Death in Vegas - Girls

Pale Saints - Sight of You

^ would be plain wrong to leave it out

Argh, Death In Vegas - Dirge needs a nomination and now I'm all out. I knew this would happen.

Death in Vegas - Dirge

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/1894/yagmdam.jpg

MARRS - Anitina
Flying Saucer Attack - Beach Red Lullaby
Grouper - Cover the Windows and the Walls
Dettinger - Oasis 3
Lush - Scarlet
Windy & Carl - Whisper

House of Love - Christine
House of Love - Destroy the Heart
Jesu - Tired of Me
Disco Inferno - Bleed Clean
Wolfhounds - Vertical Grave

Really looking forward to this poll. To echo what Ismael said upthread, I think we should be allowed to vote for plenty of tunes. Minimum 25, maybe up to 40 (perhaps with the bottom ten equally ranked or something)?

Long Fin Killie - Kismet

auburn lull - stockard drive
auburn lull - axis nearshis name is alive - love's a fish eye
auburn lull - a harbored distance
bleach - dipping
brother kite - never in years
candy claws - sunbeam show
cloudboy - this long underwater
cloudboy - red rubicon
curve - mission from god
epic45 - england fallen over
his name is alive - love's a fish eye
jps experience - block
klima - why does everything have to end
malory - space in your mind
moonshake - gravity
pia fraus - octobergirl'
resplandor - breathe
rocketship - carrie cooksey
secret shine - loveblind
spectacle - withered
spectacle - plum
spoonfed hybrid - heaven's knot
third eye foundation - sleep
volcano playground - we are clashing

whoops, heaven's knot was already nominated, sorry.

swirlies - park the car by the side of the road

Th' Faith Healers - Sparklingly Chime
Th' Faith Healers - Heart Fog

i may be totally off with this, but...

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Dazzle
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Swimming Horses

If Th' Faith Healers can be nominated, then I'd like to squeeze this one in too:
Th' Faith Healers - Love Song

Man, I had this nagging melody my mind was desperate to place, and I finally got it... just after midnight. Oh well.

Prolapse - Autocade

I'm gonna nominate AR Kane- Up

In fact "Up" maybe deserves to win life the entire poll.

― Tim F, Sunday, September 26, 2010 4:39 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

BTW:
VOTING THREAD for ILM's Alltime Best Shoegaze / Dream Pop / Post-rock TRACKS poll