Subscriber Playlist, February 2025: The New New Gaze

This month’s playlist highlights the modern state of shoegaze.

When shoegaze first arrived on the scene in early ’90s Britain, it was initially a term of derision for those musicians who spent their time onstage staring at their effects pedals rather than interacting with the audience like proper rock stars. And then, for a brief time, the British press fell all over themselves praising bands like Slowdive, Ride, and Chapterhouse — only to turn on them when Oasis and Britpop began storming the charts.

(In one infamous review, Melody Maker’s Dave Simpson dismissed Slowdive’s Souvlaki — now considered a shoegaze “classic” — saying that he’d “rather drown choking in a bath full of porridge than ever listen to it again.”)

But Slowdive et al. were to have the last laugh. Time has been quite kind to shoegaze; the genre has proven deeply influential in the realms of post-rock, emo, indie-rock, and even metal. Furthermore, a quick perusal of Bandcamp reveals that the genre is far from dead.