Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie also provides his trademark production, which was recently stripped for a 2018 reissue of the album. Their fourth record features the sublime “Primitive Painters,” their most successful track to date, complete with the soaring vocals of Elizabeth Frasier. In a category all their own, Felt’s flirtation with introspective popstar success never quite projected the band into the stratosphere, but their influence sent shockwaves across the indie scene that can still be felt to date. Felt- Ignite the Seven Cannons (Cherry Red, 1985) Lose yourself in the warmth of “O Pamela,” sway in the warm spring breeze of “Melancholy Man,” or let the title track bring out the hopeless romantic buried even in the deepest reaches of your heart.ģ. Often dismissed as a Joy Division/New Order clone (depending on which record you consider), Scotland’s The Wake layer bright lines over reverb-drenched production, writing a series of perfect pop songs that would inform much of the Captured Tracks roster over 30 years later. The Wake- Here Comes Everybody (Factory, 1985) This Australian band combined sparse washes of synthesizer, delicately rambling piano melodies, churning post-punk guitars, fretless bass, and ghost-ridden vocals, and the results are as ephemeral as they are stunning.Ģ. Our first entry on this list is an unsuspecting and extremely underrated one, released a few years before the genre was “officially” coined, but no less deserving of inclusion. Not Drowning, Waving- Another Pond (Rampart Releases, 1984) With that in mind, we do hope you enjoy our list – please do feel free to share, discuss, and pick things apart in the comments as much as you see fit!ġ. Instead of ranking these in order of preference, they are simply listed chronologically, as is our Spotify playlist, which can be found just below for those listening at home. Our goal in turn is to shed some light on both genre masterpieces as well as some underrated gems. While it’s easy to place five Cocteau Twins records in the top 10 alone, it was a rewarding challenge to settle on our collective favorite album across the board, or at least, the one that stands out as the clear genre staple. We also made the difficult decision to limit ourselves to one release per artist. Lastly, while indie-pop often flirted with the same textures and shared a similar set of influences, opening the door to the genre felt equally inaccurate (though we adore Black Tambourine, The Field Mice, Blueboy, and Heavenly as much as anyone). The same rule held true for bands like Curve, whose electronic cacophony didn’t feel quite-so-dreamy, as vital as it may be. As such, some of the noisier bands on the spectrum (Starflyer 59, Medicine, Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel) were left off. By design, we decided to steer as clear from pure shoegaze as we could. With that in mind, we at wanted to try our own hand at devising such a definitive genre list.įirstly, I’d like to thank resident experts Amber Crain ( When the Sun Hits) and Greg Fasolino ( The Harrow, Bell Hollow) for helping through every step of the process, from whittling down a list of nearly 200 releases over a series of loving debates, passionately defending and suggesting alternate choices, and most importantly, for their help in writing many of the blurbs below.Īs the line between shoegaze and dream pop is flimsy at best, we decided to set a few ground rules to help guide our selection process. We couldn’t help but notice Pitchfork’s attempt at capturing the 30 best dream pop releases, a problematic list that relied too heavily upon repeated artists and completely omitted THE band who coined the genre.
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