What Is Shoegaze? (TRAPPO Investigates...)
This week on the show that talks about stuff on purpose, we try to get to the bottom of this whole "shoegaze" thing. What is it exactly? What was it? What does it mean to be "shoegaze"? If you know, then this episode might not be for you. If you don't know, then join us on this fascinating journey as we try to figure out what the hell "shoegaze" is. That's pretty much all we're doing this time around. We've heard the term "shoegaze" ten thousand times, but we've never really put a whole lot of thought into what that term really means until recently. So we decided to have a little conversation about that. Tune in, dear listener, and be amazed to hear a pair of dilettantes say the word shoegaze" over five hundred times in 33 minutes! It's gonna be a lot of fun, and you can listen below, or find us on Apple, Google, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Spotify, Anchor and Amazon, so choose your own adventure and join us as TRAPPO investigates the "shoegaze" phenomenon...
Join the conversation! Sound off below and tell us that we're big stupid idiots because we've been almost completely oblivious to the whole "shoegaze" scene for most of our lives! That's fair enough. You can also tell us what "shoegaze" means to you. Or you could always just tell us whatever you want, even if it has nothing to do with "shoegaze". We're always looking for new topics to discuss here on the show, and we love hearing from you, so it you've got something to say, feel free to share it below. And if you're feeling more verbose, you can always shoot us a lengthy email, which is always greatly appreciated here. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram for the complete TRAPPO experience. We're working on a few other social media platforms, but right now it's pretty much just Instagram, so join us there and check out the recent series of posts that celebrate the winners of the 2022 TRAPPO Music Awards if that's your thing. And if you haven't already, please listen to the 2022 TRAPPO Music Awards, because we're pretty proud of the episode and think it's worth your time.
Thanks for listening!
I think I understand what this episode was trying to do. I get a bit of a history lesson and a bunch of clips from some cool music, some stuff I’m not familiar with, so I’ll probably check it out. I just think it needed to be more structured. Shoegaze is not some amorphous thing that nobody can figure out. It’s a pretty straightforward genre. A lot of stuff took inspiration from shoegaze, but that doesn’t mean that it IS shoegaze. You guys get bogged down too much and end up losing the plot before it’s over, but at least you acknowledge that. You’re on the right track here, but you need to tighten things up and do a little more research next time you investigate something. It’ll make for a better end product.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you keep putting shoegaze in quotes? It’s annoying.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been listening to a podcast about Pam Grier and she really has led a very interesting life. I haven’t really seen most of her movies, and I only started listening to this podcast because I’ve been following it since it started and it changes its topic every season. Last season it was all about Lucille Ball, another person I knew I almost nothing about, and by the time it was through I couldn’t believe how interested I was in learning so much about somebody I basically wasn’t familiar with at all. After finishing this season on Pam Grier, I’m going to try to get into some of her movies. I know of the big ones like Coffy and Jackie Brown, but I still haven’t seen any of them yet. Have you gentlemen seen a lot of Pam Grier’s movies? What do you think are her best movies? And have you ever found yourselves in a situation like mine where you listen to a podcast or maybe watch a documentary on a subject you may not be very interested in at first, but by the time it’s over you feel like learning as much as you can, like maybe you’re gonna become obsessed with how glass bottles are manufactured or whatever? I don’t really have any opinions on shoegaze, so this is what I want to know.
ReplyDeleteI want to be pam greer’s toilet seat
DeleteGostaria de saber o que vocês amigos acham da música do School Of Seven Bells. Você mencionou a música deles aqui em seu episódio, mas nunca disse se achava que eles eram bons ou não. Pessoalmente, acho que seu terceiro álbum, "Ghostory", é o melhor, apesar de sua cantora e membro fundadora Claudia Deheza ter deixado a banda alguns anos antes. Eu gostaria que a banda ainda estivesse por aí, porque sua música é maravilhosa e afirma a vida. Quais são seus pensamentos, TRAPPO?
ReplyDeleteI think you TRAPS did okay. Shoegaze has just slowly evolved into many different things since its inception, and "shoegaze" was never really intended to be a thing to begin with. It's just something that slowly developed over time, an amorphous and multi-faceted entity that was never just one thing at one moment, but a broad definition was applied to this shifting UR-Genre that might have ended up doing more harm than good in the grand scheme of things, because ever since there have been scores of music lovers and critics alike eager to apply the "shoegaze" label to all sorts of sounds that may only be tangentially related to the progenitors of the genre, at best. It's a fascinating world we're living in, a world where everything supposedly needs to be labeled and clearly defined and filed away, but that's not how it really works. I think you said it best at the end of the episode: SHOEGAZE IS, and that's all it ever needs to be. What is Shoegaze? Yes. That's the only definition we really need, friends.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to cut back on all this superhero media. It’s gotten ridiculous, hasn’t it? I know superheroes are firmly established and they’re not going anywhere, and I’m okay with that. I just think the oversaturation of superheroes in our pop culture is going too far. Everywhere you turn it’s an endless parade of capes and spandex. Even the “subversive” takes on the genre, like The Boys or Brightburn, feel uninspired. These movies are pushing smaller budgeted movies out of cinemas, strangling the market for anything that isn’t a blockbuster $200 million dollar spectacle. The theatrical experience is dying, and superhero movies are part of the problem. What’s TRAPPO’s take on the glut of superhero stories in pop culture? Is it too late to save the moviegoing experience of yesteryear?
ReplyDeleteRemember when you used to be able to smoke in shopping malls? Now it’s like if you want to smoke a cigarette at the mall, you have to go stand in a cordoned-off corner of the parking lot at least fifty feet from any doors so you don’t inconvenience all the wimps who don’t smoke. What happened to this country? We used to make things. Now everybody just whines about trivial crap because superhero movies are ruining the sacred cinema. Cry me a river. People want to see superhero movies. Big deal. I’m sorry your depressing tragic romance where the leading lady is dying of colon cancer and just wants to ride a rollercoaster with her fiancé at Coney Island before she dies isn’t tearing up the box office because people would rather see an Avengers movie. Get a grip.
DeleteWhat the hell are you talking about? There’s no reason for this hostility. I’m looking at trends in box office and seeing some troubling data. Smaller movies are increasingly being pushed out of theatrical releases and dumped on streaming services because blockbuster movies that cost astronomical amounts of money are crowding them out. If your movie doesn’t have a 200 million dollar budget and some shiny objects to distract people for two hours, studios might pass. An era has ended, and what’s coming next doesn’t look promising. Challenging movies are disappearing from multiplexes because all the screens are playing this expensive trash. If you don’t see any problems with that and you’d prefer to just lash out at complete strangers on the internet for sharing their perfectly valid opinions while talking pointlessly about how you miss being able to smoke at the damn mall, then you’re out of your mind.
DeleteYou don’t know what’s it’s like to smoke in a mall. It felt so freeing, like you were king of all you surveyed. You could walk around, window shopping and chatting and puffing away, and there were ashtrays EVERYWHERE. You couldn’t miss the damn things. They were built into benches and trash cans, patiently waiting for you to stub out your butts. It was a simpler time. We didn’t have to worry about box office returns and whether or not we were eating enough quinoa or whatever the new hot superfood is. Magic fucking berries that make lemons taste like chocolate truffles. Who cares about this crap?
DeleteYou’re so preoccupied with crap poop that doesn’t make a difference. Have you been in a movie theater lately? The moviegoing experience of yesteryear is looooong gone, my friend, and I got news for you: it ain’t coming back. You’re assaulted with endless commercials as soon as you sit down, and you’re lucky if your movie starts twenty minutes after the lights go down because the cineplexes are jamming ads for a dozen different new cars and candy bars and soft drinks and fucking cryptocurrency down our collective throats.
People yakking endlessly while the movie is playing, looking at their cellphones and just generally being distracting. Maybe they’re even eating some nachos and crunching loudly for a good twenty minutes while you’re trying to concentrate on the movie. Blown speakers in the sound systems. Dim projection on worn screens. Uncomfortable seats that creak and squeak loudly every time you try to adjust your position a little bit. Sticky floors.
It’s a shit show. Who wants to preserve that experience? I tried to watch “Tar” in a theater last fall, and between the obnoxious Audience and the bad technical presentation, I couldn’t get into the movie. And that’s one of those elusive mid-budget movies that supposedly doesn’t exist anymore. I watched “Tar” at home on Peacock last week by myself in my living room and I loved it. Watching this movie at home in a controlled environment was so much better than trying to force myself to enjoy this mythical “theatrical experience” you’re fantasizing about.
Call me an old man yelling at clouds, but you sound the same way to me. “We gotta stop this plague of Hollywood pursuing popular trends that bring in audiences that’s been going on since the dawn of cinema!” Go burn it all down, Cecil B. Demented. I’ll be at home watching good movies while putting my feet up in my comfy recliner without a care in the world.
Maybe I’m butting in on a conversation, but this is a public blog so here I am, not minding my own business.
DeleteI can see and really agree with both your points of view to a degree (except for the smoking in malls thing, which makes no sense to me. Do you really want that back? Is that the hill you want to die on?), but to just point to a particular movie genre and blame its popularity for helping to destroy the experience of going to the movies is ludicrous. Anonymous really summed it up with his last point. Hollywood has been doing this forever. The only difference is that there’s more at stake here than there used to be in some ways. Studios are throwing 200 to 300 million dollars behind ONE movie, and with marketing costs and the cut theaters take from the gross, these movies need to earn at least 700 million dollars to break even anymore. These are staggering numbers here, and it’s definitely out of control.
But these things are cyclical. At least they have been in the past. When the studio system all but collapsed at the end of the 1950’s, we got a two-decade influx of some of the most interesting, nuanced and challenging movies of all time. “New Hollywood” obviously didn’t last forever, and the blockbuster system that movies like “Star Wars” and “Jaws” helped create has just been growing ever since. Eventually this wave will crest and recede, and who knows what will be created in its wake?
We’re already seeing glimpses of what may be coming on the independent fringes of the industry. But the theatrical experience as we know it has already changed dramatically and cineplexes are chasing profits wherever they can. AMC is already starting a program where they charge more for seats that have a better sight line in their auditoriums. This is obscene, but it’s only the beginning.
I hate going to the movies anymore. COVID basically destroyed any real desire I have to sit in a room full of strangers with questionable hygiene and breathe their recycled air for a few hours. I hate to say it, but I’m with Anonymous here. Let me watch a good movie at home without all the bullshit.
But I still can’t get behind the smoking in malls nostalgia. That’s just insane.
I hope the smoking in the stuff is a dumb joke, because if not that’s just really pointless and sad. I appreciate you weighing in, Jeter, because like you said this is a public blog. I understand your point of view here, and unfortunately I have to agree. Anonymous did raise some good arguments and although I don’t appreciate his delivery all that much, he makes some sense. And so do you. The theatrical experience mostly sucks these days and I just want it to improve. Unfortunately we don’t all live in towns that have an Alamo Drafthouse or a solid rep theater, so our only choices are the big multiplex with their dubious quality control.
ReplyDeleteSuperhero movies are only a symptom, and if the MCU disappeared from movie theaters tomorrow nothing would really improve. Maybe when the current system finally crashes and burns something better will rise from those ashes, but in the meantime we’re trapped with big multiplex theaters with fewer options.
I used to love going to the movies. I was at my local theater almost every week. Now I only go out when I NEED to see a movie before it hits streaming or physical media, which is becoming increasingly rare for me. And the pandemic has just made me more paranoid about everything. I just don’t see this situation improving any time soon, and that breaks my heart.
I had to look up that AMC news because I honestly couldn’t believe it, but it’s somehow true. What a horror story. We’re starting to separate seating in movie theaters based on economic class? Stuff like this never ends well. Where are we headed as a society?
Maybe Anonymous is right and I just need to invest in a better TV and real surround sound for my home theater. I just hate the idea of truly turning my back on going out to see a movie, but it’s not even fun for me anymore. So I really don’t have much of a choice. This sucks.
I never enjoyed seeing movies in a theater all that much in the past, especially if the movie was popular. I felt like we were all cattle crowded in a dark room waiting to be slaughtered. With all these mass shootings happening I can’t help but worry if some psycho might just waltz in and start shooting. It doesn’t seem so irrational anymore. It’s hard to enjoy a movie when you’re surrounded by a bunch of inconsiderate assholes constantly making noise and playing around on their phones while the fear of being murdered by a crazy person with a gun is always present in the back of my mind. Plus it’s so stupid expensive just to see a movie anymore. I give up. It’s not worth the hassle or the stress.
DeleteWhere’s the draw? Why does sitting in a dark room with a bunch of strangers staring at a big screen still hold so much appeal for so many people? I can live without all that, thanks. Movies hit streaming a lot faster these days, anyway, so just stick it out for a month or so and you’re good. Unless you don’t want to wait, and in that case we all know there are some less than reputable methods of catching the latest blockbusters at home. But I’m not saying that’s okay.
I don’t want to try to talk other people out of going out to see a movie, but I just don’t see the appeal anymore. Just stay home and save some money and stop worrying so much.
And just for the record, I just thought it was neat to be able to smoke cigarettes while shopping at the mall. It really did seem to represent a kind of freedom that I can’t really describe to people too young to remember. You could just light up near the food court and have a conversation with friends about whatever’s on your mind before buying slacks at Montgomery Ward’s and nobody would bat an eye, because they were probably smoking, too.
I’m not saying smoking should come back in style, because we’re really better off as a society without all that, and I quit smoking nearly twenty years ago, but it was a different time. I guess I was trying out a cranky old man routine, like what Andy Rooney used to do on 60 minutes, but I doubt people even remember that guy.
When did I get old? I feel like my bones are made out of chalk. My only point I tried to make was that going out to see a movie was being ruined long before Robert Downey Jr. said “I am Iron Man”, and I don’t know if there is any saving it. And this AMC tiered pricing scheme sounds like another mail in the coffin. Sorry to be such a downer but I’m probably gonna be dead soon because I’m so goddamn old so I’m not too hung up on being as tactful as I used to be.
I say let the whole system self-destruct and dance on its grave.
I used to love going to movie theaters. It felt like magic. My parents would take me all the time when I was a kid, and as I got a little older they’d trust me to sit through more R-rated movies with them, and I always thought that was so cool. I was ten years old when I saw “Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas” with my parents and I couldn’t believe that movie was real. A lot of it went over my head that first time, but the way the movie was put together, it felt like a candy-colored carnival ride through hell.
DeleteI guess a lot of my love for the theater is tied into this nostalgia, and there’s really nothing I can do about that. I’m probably just trying to recapture a kind of magic that’s basically impossible to do, but I just wish that going to the movies still meant something to people. So many different factors have cheapened the experience, except of course for the actual costs, which have skyrocketed since I was a kid.
I hate seeing something that means so much to me die a little every year. And this blockbuster sickness is just strangling the industry. I wish I could stop caring. The whole situation just sucks.
I’m too young to remember the smoking in malls thing, and it does sound a little too weird to really wrap my head around. But I know smoking used to be allowed on airplanes, and that’s just insane. I do know who Andy Rooney was, so I think I understand what you were trying to do.
Things just keep on changing, and I guess there’s nothing any of us can do about it. Maybe I should get into musical theatre. There’s a pretty healthy number of local productions where I live, and the ticket prices seem reasonable. I’m sure the audiences are at least more respectful.
I hope this conversation hadn’t helped to kill your passion for the cinema. It certainly wasn’t my intention, I can tell you that. I just have my own issues with going to the movies and have found that I’m much more comfortable just being at home in a controlled environment. I’ll have friends over sometimes and we’ll just kick back and enjoy a movie a few times a month.
DeleteWe just watched M3GAN on demand over the weekend and had a great time, and we didn’t have to worry about any of the hassles that come with heading out to the movie theater. I really can’t see any way back to sitting in a movie theater anymore, at least not regularly. It’s just not for me, I guess.
I like the idea of live theatre, but there aren’t a lot of local productions where I live, so that’s not really much of option. There’s always a production of “The Nutcracker” each year, but that doesn’t float my boat. I think they did “Rent” back in 2019, but I’ve never been a big fan of that one. I wish they’d bring back “Shakespeare in the Park”. That was always fun.
Is it really that difficult to explain what shoegaze is? There are some pretty succinct definitions out there, one of you clowns even read one on your show. But you act like you’re flummoxed by the Gordian knot of music, some kind of unfathomable mystery. Get over yourselves. It’s not that tough. You didn’t even take your dumbass “investigation” in an interesting direction. Medicine? That’s your big example of shoegaze done right? I think you Sherlock’s cracked the big case. The Jesus & Mary Chain sucks, but fucking Medicine is the bee’s knees. Real bang-up job, gentlemen. You should call TRAPPO ‘the show that wastes your precious time on purpose”. It would be more accurate.
ReplyDeleteYou’re a real jerk. Were you Raised by coyotes and don’t understand simple courtesy? I’d like to slap you upside the head with a dead fish, just once. It might knock some sense into you.
DeleteAnd fuck The Jesus & Mary Chain.
DeleteGet a name people can spell, jackass
DeleteBe a fan of a better band than the fucking Jesus & Mary Chain.
DeleteYou briefly mentioned black gaze in your show, but you didn’t elaborate at all, which is a shame because black gaze is a varied and interesting musical umbrella in and of itself. Try investigating black gaze sometime. You might enjoy yourselves.
ReplyDelete