Lawyers for rap legend Dr. Dre are demanding that Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene stop his using his music, after the controversial politician used the hit “Still D.R.E.”
“I don’t license my music to politicians, especially someone as divisive and hateful as this one,” Dre, who was born Andre Young, said in a statement.
Greene, who represents a district in northeast Georgia, has promoted the far-right and baseless conspiracy theory QAnon, and in February 2022 she spoke at a white nationalist event.
In December she said she would have “won” the Jan. 6 Capitol attack if she had planned it with former Trump aide Steve Bannon, which earned a rebuke from the White House as well as Democratic lawmakers.
The letter from Dre’s attorney, Howard King, dated Monday, demands that the Greene immediately cease and desist from using Dre’s music. The letter says she has been using it on social media.
“One might expect that, as a member of Congress, you would have a passing familiarity with the laws of our country. It’s possible, though, that laws governing intellectual property are a little too arcane and insufficiently populist for you to really have spent much time on,” the letter reads. “We’re writing because we think an actual lawmaker should be making laws not breaking laws, especially those embodied in the constitution by the founding fathers.”
Music publication Rolling Stone reported that the recognizable “Still D.R.E.” beat was used in a video posted to Twitter, which appears to have since been removed.
A spokesperson for Greene on Monday sent a response from the Congress member to Dr. Dre that read: “While I appreciate the creative chord progression, I would never play your words of violence against women and police officers, and your glorification of the thug life and drugs.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
The Postal Service‘s Ben Gibbard says he believes that new music from the beloved side-project “would be a disappointment”.
READ MORE: Death Cab For Cutie on their new album ‘Asphalt Meadows’: “This feels like a new band”
Later this year, the band – Gibbard, Jimmy Tamborello and Jenny Lewis – will head out on a co-headlining US tour with Gibbard’s other band, Death Cab For Cutie, celebrating 20 years of their albums ‘Give Up’ and ‘Transatlanticism’.
Speaking on the Kyle Meredith With… podcast, Gibbard said he believes that any new music from the band would be “drastically different” from their sole 2003 album and may not live up to expectation.
He said: “Anybody who’s been asking a second Postal Service record, like really ask yourself, after 20 years, do you really think that there’s gonna something we could make that could even satisfy half of the desire you have in your mind as to what this record would be like?
“Twenty years — a lot of technology has changed. A lot of how we make music has changed dramatically since then. It wouldn’t be the same.”
He added: “I think often, when we think about the music that we love the most and the eras of a certain artist or a band that we love the most, we’re as much thinking about the sound.
“It’s not just the songs or how you were driving around in high school listening to it, wishing you could be anywhere other than the town that you’re living in — it’s the sound of it. Whatever we would make now would sound dramatically different than what we made 20 years ago, and I think it would be a disappointment even if we tried.”
In 2021, Gibbard also downplayed the chances of The Postal Service reuniting to make any more new music together.
“I love Jimmy and Jenny so much, but the dream or idea of doing more music kind of died when we attempted to make the second record in 2004 and 2005,” he told NME at the time.
“I was writing for [Postal Service debut] ‘Give Up’ and [Death Cab’s] ‘Transatlanticism’ at the same time in 2001 and 2002. The Postal Service obviously didn’t exist at that point, but Death Cab wasn’t touring a lot – we were still very self-contained as just four of us in a van with a merch person. The workload and expectations weren’t anything like what they became later so I had so much free time to have these things going at the same time.”
Death Cab For Cutie and The Postal Service will play:
SEPTEMBER 2023 8 – Portland, Cross Insurance Arena 9 – Kingston, The Ryan Center 10 – New Haven, Westville Music Bowl 12 – Boston, MGM Music Hall 13 – Boston, MGM Music Hall 14 – Washington, Merriweather Post Pavilion 17 – Detroit, Meadow Brook Amphitheater 20 – New York, Madison Square Garden 21 – Philadelphia, The Mann Center 24 – Minneapolis, Armory 26 – Denver, Mission Ballroom 27 – Denver, Mission Ballroom
OCTOBER 2023 3 – Phoenix, Arizona Financial Theatre 4 – Las Vegas, The Chelsea Ballroom 7 – Seattle, Climate Pledge Arena 10 – Berkeley, Greek Theatre 13 – Los Angeles, Hollywood Bowl
She may have an Oscar, an Emmy and two Grammys, but composer Hildur Guðnadóttir is uncomfortable in the spotlight. She’d much rather be in her Berlin studio practicing her cello, driving her son to school or making dinner for her family.
The Icelandic composer of “Joker” and “Chernobyl” is in Hollywood to talk about her two award-season projects, Todd Field’s “Tár” and Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” (the latter of which is on Oscar’s shortlist for score). And she does so easily and candidly, with a friendly demeanor and an infectious laugh. But it’s clear this isn’t the place she would normally choose to be.
“I had been going about my music for 20 years and no one really cared that much,” she says with a smile. Her bracing, emotionally powerful music for 2019’s “Joker” – which made her only the third woman in Oscar history to win for original score – altered all that overnight.
“It was a huge change for me to have so much attention,” she says. “Then, of course, straight after the Oscar, COVID hit. So it was a complete U-turn from all the events to just seeing no one. And it made the whole thing a little bit surreal – being by myself, then being around all these people, and then again being alone.”
The Fields film came first, in late 2020. What attracted her to “Tár” was its focus on the process of music-making. “I’m more interested in that than I am standing on stage and performing, or the final product,” she says — an unusual attitude for a composer.
“Hildur’s a composer that I’ve admired for a long time, before she started doing any television or film scoring,” says Field, a classical-music buff who made Guðnadóttir his second call (after Cate Blanchett, who plays the film’s title character) upon writing the script for his film about a powerful symphony conductor whose troubled personal life intrudes on her very public career.
“We had an unusually long process together that began long before prep and went all the way through the film,” Field notes. “Our first conversations really started about noises and sounds. How does she hear? How does she listen? Ultimately she wrote music for all of the actors to have in their ears for when they moved on set.”
Adds “Women Talking” director Polley: “I’ve been in love with Hildur’s work for a long time. She never has any sentimentality in her work, and as this score needed to be concerned with hope, I needed her steady hand to make sure it never felt manipulative while still embracing the concept of faith and a possible future.”
Yet these are the only two films the composer has done since “Joker.” “I’m very picky,” Guðnadóttir admits. “It’s very important for me to be present for the project that I’m working on, that I have the time and space and mental energy to really live inside the story that I’m telling.”
And, Guðnadóttir makes clear, she is not just a “film composer.” “It’s very important for me to not get stuck in one medium,” she declares.
Her musical interests are much broader: In July, she debuted a 16-minute work for choir and orchestra at London’s famous Proms (“The Fact of the Matter,” her musical response to the state of the world) and she recently performed another concert piece in Krakow, Poland, for what she calls “robotic feedback instruments.”
Experimental music – some of which was performed by the L.A. Philharmonic in November 2021 – plays a huge role in her career. Her disturbing, Emmy-winning score for HBO’s “Chernobyl,” for example, was built entirely from sounds she recorded at a Lithuanian nuclear power plant, processed with tape machines and electronic gear in her studio.
“There’s just so much to explore in music,” she muses. “My mind is much more driven by the process than necessarily knowing what the outcome is going to be.”
She loves her life in Berlin, where she has lived “off and on” for the past 20 years. Born in Reykjavik, the daughter of a composer and an opera singer, she began playing the cello at age 5 and went on to study electroacoustic composition at the Berlin University of the Arts.
She fell in love with the city and its thriving classical and pop music scene, and decided to stay. “It’s a place where I can hear my thoughts,” she says. “There’s something very grounding about the city. It’s very easy to just disappear. You don’t have to see anyone if you don’t want to, which is mostly what I do.”
Guðnadóttir spent several years collaborating closely with fellow Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, whose music for “Sicario” and “Arrival” earned widespread praise in 2015-16. “We were very much on the same musical page. He moved to Berlin to work with me and we shared a studio until he died (in 2018).”
Her custom-made instrument, the electroacoustic Halldorophone, played a prominent role in nearly all the Jóhannsson scores, and her original music for the “Sicario” sequel “Day of the Soldato” drew the attention of director Todd Phillips, who commissioned the “Joker” score from her.
She and her husband, English composer-producer Sam Slater, collaborated on the acclaimed videogame score for “Battlefield 2042” (and he produced her scores for “Joker” and “Chernobyl”). They are currently converting an old Berlin restaurant into a new 2,500-square-foot studio; they expect to complete the work in February.
They were married in California in September 2019 (“a very spontaneous decision,” she remarks) just hours before a Society of Composers & Lyricists reception they were attending to celebrate her Emmy nomination for “Chernobyl.” “Brexit was just around the corner, and he was a bit nervous about what would happen. So it was a kind of Beverly Hills Brexit escape,” she says with a laugh.
The international nature of their lives and careers becomes even more apparent with an anecdote about the pandemic. The father of her 10-year-old son is French, and during the COVID lockdown she had to homeschool him for a year and a half in that language. “No one speaks the same language at home. It’s very confusing,” she says with another laugh. “It’s a big mess.”
She finds solace in her daily routine. Yoga, meditation, practicing her voice and cello (usually Bach) in the morning, composing through the afternoon, retrieving her son from school, home to cook dinner in the evening,
Now 40, Guðnadóttir feels this is the best time of her life. “I have a better understanding of what I need to function as a person – what helps me maintain my body, my mind and my creative process. I feel I’m just starting to learn that now. I’m not very strategic about how I choose new projects. It’s normally quite obvious very fast whether a project will resonate with me or not.”
She is just beginning work on “Joker 2,” a reunion with director Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix, whose soft-shoe to the composer’s “Bathroom Dance” music very likely won her the Oscar. Lady Gaga joins the cast as Harley Quinn.
Yet this happy, successful composer continues to shun the limelight and insists: “My life is pretty boring.”
For more stories like this, follow us on MSN by clicking the button at the top of this page.
So many artists, so many songs, so little time. Each week we review a handful of new albums (of all genres), round up even more new music that we’d call “indie,” and talk about what metal is coming out. We post music news, track premieres, and more all day. We update a playlist weekly of some of our current favorite tracks. Here’s a daily roundup with a bunch of interesting, newly released songs in one place.
STORMZY & FLO – “HIDE & SEEK” (REMIX)
UK rapper/singer Stormzy has teamed up with BBC Sound of 2023 winners FLO to put a new spin on last year’s “Hide & Seek.”
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LIL UGLY MANE – “RICOCHET”
Genre-hopping artist Lil Ugly Mane’s latest track is a two-minute dose of lo-fi bedroom folk.
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BABYFANG – “GOAN GO”
Brooklyn’s self-proclaimed “doomsday punk” trio babyfang formed during the pandemic, and now they’re gearing up to release their debut album, In The Face Of, on February 3 via their own LucidHaus label. The first single is “Goan Go.”
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AWOL – “WHO YOU WERE”
Melbourne metallic hardcore band AWOL follows last year’s self-titled EP with the brick-heavy new single “Who You Were,” out now via Last Ride Records.
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HIGHNOON – “ARE YOU WITH ME”
Philly dream popsters Highnoon have just shared a blissful new single, “Are You With Me.”
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THE ALBUM LEAF – “BREATHE”
Post-rock/ambient veteran The Album Leaf (aka Jimmy LaValle) continues his latest string of singles with a gorgeous new soundscape called “Breathe.”
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RARELYALWAYS – “LET’S” & “VOICE NOTE 0142”
UK artist Rarelyalways has announced his debut album, Work, due March 10 via Innovative Leisure. Lead single “Let’s” is an alluring rap song, while its B-side “Voice Note 0412” is a jazzy instrumental.
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JOANNA MATTREY & STEVEN LONG – “EP”
Violinist Joanna Mattrey and pianist Steven Long have announced a modern classical/ambient album, Strider, due February 10 via Dear Life Records. Here’s lead single “EP.”
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YOUNG FATHERS – “RICE”
“Rice” is the fourth single ahead of the 2/3 release of Young Fathers’ upcoming album Heavy Heavy. The Scottish experimentalists spin an infectious, bouncy, spiritual-esque track in “Rice,” the album opener. The song comes with another music video directed by David Uzochukwu.
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ZELOOPERZ – MIGHT NOT MAKE IT EP
Experimental rapper ZelooperZ kicks off 2023 by dropping off an instantly-satisfying five-song EP.
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MEG BAIRD – “ASHES, ASHES”
Meg Baird’s new album, Furling, is out in just a couple weeks and here’s one more early taste. “Ashes, Ashes,” is spectral and dreamy, as is its music video.
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PYNCH – “2009”
UK group Pynch, who released a single a couple years ago on Speedy Wunderground, have announced their debut album, Howling at a Concrete Moon, which will be out April 14 via Chillburn Recordings. The band made the album with Stereolab’s Andy Ramsay producing. The first single is breezy dose of nostalgia titled “2009” which features this memorable opening couplet: “I’m gonna dye my hair and listen to heavy metal / and skate down to the edge of the world.”
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LOWLY – “SEASONS”
Danish band Lowly are gearing up to release Keep Up the Good Work and have shared a gorgeous, inviting new song from it titled “Seasons.”
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AJ LAMBERT – “MORE YELLOW BIRDS” (SPARKLEHORSE COVER)
AJ Lambert, who sings in Bloodside, has shared this cover of Sparklehorse’s “More Yellow Birds” which she recorded at Ennio Morricone’s Forum Studio. It’s in tribute to her tour manager Kiko Loiacono who passed away in December and she’s encouraging donations to Dogs Trust UK.
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TEETHER & KUYA NEIL – “RENO”
Melbourne hip hop / production duo Teether & Kuya Neil will release new mixtape Stressor on February 3 via Chapter Music. Moody number “Reno” closes out the tape.
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THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS – “REALLY REALLY LIGHT”
New Pornographers will release new album Continue As a Guest on March 31 via Merge Records, which is their first for the label. While Dan Bajar is sadly not on this album, he did co-write first single “Really Really Light.”
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PUBLIC IMAGE LTD – “HAWAII”
Public Image Ltd have released a new song, “Hawaii,” that is their bid to be Ireland’s official entry in the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest. The song, which PiL say is the most personal song John Lydon has ever shared, is a love letter to John’s wife, Nora, who has been living with Alzheimer’s.
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BELLE & SEBASTIAN – “I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU SEE IN ME”
Belle & Sebastian recorded 2022’s A Bit of Previous at their Glasgow HQ – the first time they’d made a record entirely in their hometown in ages – writing tons of material and whittling it down to 12 songs. Turns out they were making not one album but two, and surprise!, Late Developers is out this Friday, January 13. You don’t have long to wait to hear the whole thing but here’s the first single.
KRUELTY – “BURN THE SYSTEM”
Japanese death metal-infused hardcore band Kruelty have announced their sophomore album, Untopia, and you can read more about the killer lead single “Burn the System” here.
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DAUGHTER – “BE ON YOUR WAY”
British trio Daughter shared the lead single to their just-announced album Stereo Mind Game today, a fuzzy and many-layered experimental indie track called “Be On Your Way.” Read more about it here.
Looking for even more new songs? Browse the New Songs archive.
Listen to this debut radio season on Mondays at 5 p.m. to explore works by James V. Cockerham, William Grant Still, William Levi Dawson, Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Adolphus Hailstork, Carlos Simon, arrangements of traditional spirituals by Harry T. Burleigh, Hall Johnson and more.
Performers include pianists Armenta Hummings Dumisani and Althea Waites, saxophonists Branford Marsalis and Thomas Walsh, clarinetists Alexander Laing and Anthony McGill, the Imani Winds, Catalyst Quartet, Harlem Quartet and the Gateways Orchestra with performances under the baton of Gateways’ late music director Michael Morgan.
See the entire broadcast schedule below.
Episode 1 (Jan. 3) The season premieres with works by Gabriela Lena Frank, James V. Cockerham, Gernot Wolfgang, Scott Joplin and William Grant Still.
Episode 2 (Jan. 10) Hear performances by the Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble, pianist Althea Waites, the Howard Johnson Chorale and the Gateways Orchestra under the baton of Michael Morgan.
About the Host: Garrett McQueen is the host and producer of widely syndicated radio programs including The Sound of 13, The Sounds of Kwanzaa, and now, Gateways Radio. He has been a member of several professional orchestras, most recently the Knoxville Symphony, and holds a Bachelor of Music in Bassoon Performance from the University of Memphis, and a Master of Music in Bassoon Performance from the University of Southern California. He serves on the board of the American Composers Forum and maintains leadership and advisory positions with the Black Opera Alliance, the Gateways Music Festival, and the Lakes Area Music Festival. Away from the airwaves, McQueen offers music and racial equity presentations with past collaborators including the Sphinx Organization, the Kennedy Center, the Apollo Theater, the Minnesota Music Teachers Association, and countless schools, colleges, and universities.
About Gateways Music Festival: Gateways was founded in 1993 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina by noted classical concert pianist and educator Armenta Hummings Dumisani. The festival relocated to Rochester, New York in 1995 when Dumisani became an Associate Professor at the Eastman School of Music. During the festival, musicians of the Gateways Orchestra, players from major symphony orchestras, faculty from pre-eminent music schools and conservatories, and freelance artists, participate in seven days of performances and events including chamber music recitals, full orchestral concerts, a film series, professional development activities, open rehearsals, lectures, and panels. In addition to inspiring musicians and audiences, Gateways affirms the important role people of African descent have played in classical music for centuries.
This season on “Young Rock,” Becky Lynch pleasantly surprised wrestling fans with her uncanny portrayal of Cyndi Lauper and, via Twitter today, “The Man” announced that she would be returning once again to the network series as the 80s pop music icon.
“She’s baaaaaaaack,” Lynch wrote, accompanied by a video of herself going through hair and wardrobe in order to transform into Lauper. “Delighted to be back on set with the incredible #YoungRock cast and crew playing the iconic Cyndi Lauper! Stay tuned”
Longtime Universal Group Nashville head Mike Dungan announced his impending retirement in a memo to staff Monday afternoon, saying he will be stepping down after holding the chairman-CEO role at Nashville’s top label group since 2012. Although the memo did not go into a line of succession or timeline, sources tell Variety that UMG Nashville president Cindy Mabe, Dungan’s longstanding second-in-command, will soon be announced as stepping into the top position in March.
In the memo to staff, Dungan wrote, “For 43 years the music business has been my home — smiling, dialing, selling, hustling, laughing, doing my part to help the art and magic realize its potential. And loving every minute of it. I’ve lived a charmed life, and there are no words to describe how grateful I am, and how blessed I feel, for everyone that I have encountered along the way. I’m also proud to boast that through it all, with little exception, I have been ‘all-in’ as a competitor and as a friend.”
Dungan’s memo continues: “The solemn truth is that over time, that intensity takes its toll, and a lot of the dog has been knocked out of me. By the time I leave here I will be 69 years old. It is time to slow down — I look forward to devoting more time to my family and to my garden. I have an incredible wife who has put up with my nonsense for 45 years. We have two great kids who have two great wives of their own. And we have five wonderful grandkids who I intend to spoil to the fullest. I am forever grateful to Sir Lucian Grainge, who 11 years ago handed me the keys to the best job in the world. To him and to everyone at UMG, to all of those who have been my family-in-arms now and in the past, to all those creators whose art it has been my pleasure to represent.” In concluding the memo, Dungan writes, “I am at a loss to express my love and gratitude. I am the luckiest man alive.”
Dungan’s retirement is not unexpected in Nashville circles. It had been reported by the Tennessean in late 2016 that the exec, then 62, had signed an extension that was to keep him at UMG Nashville for five more years, and he has already worked more than six years past the beginning of that five-year extension.
In an unusual example of true and seemingly transparent partnership at the top, Dungan has long made it clear that he considered Mabe virtually his equal in running country music’s top label group. Even as UMG Nashville’s second-in-command, Mabe was already the highest ranking executive in the country music industry, and with her soon-to-be-announced elevation, she will become the first woman to be at the head of a major label group in Nashville.
Their dynasty together has been a long one. Mabe was appointed to the position of president back in 2014, two years after Dungan was named chairman/CEO. Their professional association goes back even further, though, than the eight years they have spent together in their current partnership at UMG Nashville, however. It dates back to 2008, when the two first began working together at the Capitol Nashville label.
The UMG Nashville roster includes a disproportionate number of country’s top stars, including perennial Grammy and CMAs winner Chris Stapleton, whom Mabe championed from the start, along with hitmakers like Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Eric Church, Dierks Bentley, Darius Rucker, George Strait, Jon Pardi, Reba McEntire, Lady A, Little Big Town, Sam Hunt, Vince Gill, Parker McCollum, Jordan Davis and Tyler Hubbard. Country superstar Luke Bryan is one of Dungan’s biggest success stories, with the exec building the singer up from the club to the stadium label. Bryan landed his 30th career No. 1 airplay single with UMG in December.
Dungan, a Cincinnati native, started his career working in record stores, landing his first industry job doing rock promotion for RCA, from 1979 through 1987, working with artists like Hall and Oates, the Pointer Sisters and Rick Springfield — he claimed responsibility for breaking the latter singer’s “Jessie’s Girl” when the rest of the label had deprioritized it. He became a Midwestern marketing director for BMG, again on the pop side, then made the move into country in 1990 after Clive Davis decided to start a country division for Arista, and he was put in charge of marketing for the new imprint. In 2002, he became president of Capitol Nashville, a position he held for 12 years before being hired for the top spot at UMG Nashville. When that label group absorbed Capitol, he was able to be in command of his former roster as well as his new one.
For her part, Mabe, a North Carolina native, has been part of the country music industry from the beginning. She started her career with Nashville’s RCA Label Group as a promotion coordinator and then product manager after graduating from Belmont University in 1995. In 2008, Dungan, then the head of Capitol Nashville, brought her on to that label as VP of marketing. She and Dungan briefly worked apart as he was picked off by Universal to be put in charge of the Nashville division. When her contract was up in 2014, she took part in talks to join Sony Nashville as CEO, but elected to rejoin Dungan as president of UMG Nashville, setting up a partnership that stayed in place for more than eight years.
The West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival is delighted to announce details of its Composition Competition 2023 for emerging composers, in partnership with the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland.
The winning composers will receive: – A prize of €500 each (one prize for flute/piano work and one prize for brass quintet work). – World premiere performance of the winning works at the West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival’s “Rising Star” recitals on Saturday 20th May 2023 (winning work for flute and piano), and on Saturday 11th November 2023 (winning work for brass quintet) performed by the festivals selected rising stars. – A pre-concert Composer’s Voice interview with the winning composer and the performers, presented by the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland. – Collaboration and rehearsal with the performers. The competition will accommodate additional supports for selected composer(s) who are disabled and/or who have other specific needs to facilitate rehearsal with the performers. – Inclusion in festival publicity.
Application criteria: – The work should not have been previously performed in public prior to its world premiere at the festival. – The competition is open to composers of all ages and backgrounds currently based on the island of Ireland or holding Irish citizenship who would describe themselves as ‘emerging/early career composers’ (i.e) (composers who have not had works professionally published to date). In particular we would like to encourage applications from emerging/early career composers working in all genres from under represented and under-served communities. – Entrants can submit works to both categories, but only one work per category. – Entries will be judged anonymously. – The adjudication panel will be selected by the Festival and the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland. It will consist of one representative from the Festival as well as two independent adjudicators, at least one of whom will be from an under-represented and/or under-served communities working in the areas of contemporary music and composition.
How to apply: – Entries should be submitted via our online Application Form. -Proof of Irish citizenship or current residency plus the title, MIDI file and PDF score of the new work must be uploaded. – In order to ensure that entries are judged anonymously, the festival will only accept entries of scores with no mention of a composer’s name / address.
Deadlines: Friday 24th March at 5pm (work for flute and piano) Friday 22nd September at 5pm (work for brass quintet)
Pop artist Brian Walker is back. The singer has released a new single and a music video to boot. A vibrant tune, it is called “Red Flags”.
“Red Flags” was inspired by one of Walker’s past relationships. He explains, “Over the summer a few years ago, I was hanging out with this girl, and there were a lot of red flags that came up. I found myself in a lot of lose-lose situations, and I was getting a lot of toxic vibes while hanging out with her.“
The music video looks playful and fun. Watch the clip and follow Brian Walker on Instagram.
Shoegaze, one of the most misunderstood subgenres of rock music, currently tends to fall into two camps: brutish, somewhat metal-adjacent dirges or tuneless pedal washes that have no sense of dynamics or songwriting. Both fully miss the point of what made the classic shoegaze era so good: the mixture of sound design with strong tunes and much more inclusivity than it is often given credit for (many of the original shoegaze bands had female members).
As a gay man coming from the hardcore scene, I always struggled with the combination of masculine and feminine elements inside myself, and shoegaze was the perfect mix of both. Like hardcore, it possessed a physical wall of sound that you felt in your bones, but unlike hardcore, it wasn’t overtly masculine. Bands like Lush, My Bloody Valentine, and Dinosaur Jr.—who, it could be argued, were proto-shoegaze in their use of pedals—started out as punks. For me, the euphoria of playing shoegaze shifted something fundamental in myself, changing how I thought about sound, dynamics, chords, and energy.
It’s often said that shoegaze has been more or less stagnant in the decades since its emergence, but for all the talk of the genre’s lack of experimentation, it should be noted that Slowdive’s 1995 record Pygmalion was itself a mix of electronic, IDM, and ambient music, and showed the band drifting away from loud volumes, consistent rhythms, or even regular song structures. Hated at the time, Pygmalion can now be understood as the next logical step forward in the evolution of shoegaze.
Below is a list of new and old shoegaze bands who are taking the genre into more avant-garde or electronic directions, staying true to the inclusive spirit of its originators while pushing the boundaries of what the genre can be—and it doesn’t have to just be in the context of a rock band.
Experimental Shoegaze
Guitar Sunkissed
Guitar is one of the many projects of German artist Michael Lückner. Sunkissed, released in 2002, is much closer to dance and electronic music, taking what My Bloody Valentine started with “Soon” and making a full record out of it by melding rave music with guitars. The drums are looped to create a trance-like feel, the audio has sharp edits to bend what normal loud/soft dynamics can be, and the fuzz is overwhelming. This is music meant to move the body and create a sensory experience that takes you out of yourself for a time.
Jefre Cantu-Ledsema Love Is A Stream
Released on Type Records (who originally released Grouper’s Dragging A Dead Deer), Jefre Cantu-Ledsema’s Love is a Stream strips away anything remotely accessible about shoegaze, leaving only the sheer noise. This pushes the genre into the avant-garde, with ghostly vocals bleeding in and out of the mix and overwhelming waves of distortion, in a similar fashion to MBV’s “To Here Knows When.” Dynamics are still at play; this isn’t just pummeling sound. As Ledsema’s waves ebb and flow, the tide drowns out everything else—a truly immersive experience.
Gilah From Where I’m Standing
Brooklyn-based Gilah released the From Where I’m Standing EP during the pandemic, and it definitely feels like a product of forced isolation: insular, claustrophobic, and unburdened by the prospect of playing live. The band mixes field recordings, loops, collaged tape manipulations, lo-fi aesthetics, and noise into music that feels like it’s moving in and out of lucidity, pushing shoegaze’s sound design and manipulation to further extremes without losing sight of quality songwriting.
Kraus Path
Kraus, which is more or less the solo project of musician Will Kraus, uses the euphoric walls of noise/feedback similar to Jefre Cantu Ledsema and Loveliescrushing but reins things in with pop song structures. The sound design is more reminiscent of electronic music, using loops and samples throughout, while dynamic drumming keeps it all moving forward and more approachable. There are even hints of hyperpop production in his records. This is rock music using modern tech to create exciting new sounds.
Recent Classics
No Joy Wait To Pleasure
Although easily the best-known modern band on this list, No Joy is still deeply underrated. Solely based on 2013’s Wait to Pleasure, Jasamine White-Gluz’s project should by all rights be the most popular current shoegaze band in the world, even if 2020’s Motherhood is maybe their more experimental and accomplished album. Wait to Pleasure is the modern shoegaze record to beat: a perfect blend of tunes, production, and sonic experimentation. White-Gluz understands that great songs and melodies come first, pedals second.
Blue Smiley return
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There’s a distinct quality to Blue Smiley‘s guitar tone on return—sharp but watery—that most bands would kill for. The songs explode with perfect amounts of noise, melody, and, most importantly, brevity. This is like Loveless in miniature, full of fluid dynamic shifts and fantastic guitar work. Sadly, the tragic 2017 passing of Brian Nowell, the driving force behind Blue Smiley, left the band’s potential unfulfilled and represents a real loss for music.
Big Hush Who’s Smoking Your Spirit
Washington, D.C.’s Big Hush (featuring Owen Wuerker and Emma Baker, now of Flasher) understands what made the classic shoegaze era great: killer tunes that use the guitar as a generator of sound, not as an extension of the ego. What further sets Big Hush apart is their use of vocal harmonies, which are closer to folk and sunshine pop, with all four members singing, weaving in and out of each other to create the swirling feeling that all the best shoegaze contains. This EP, along with 2014’s Wholes EP, was collected into a single 12-inch released by Robotic Empire.
Technicolor Teeth teenage pagans
Where did one of the best but most underheard shoegaze bands of the modern era come from? Appleton, Wisconsin. These are punks from the middle of nowhere absolutely blasting you with sound. Featuring Amos Pitsch from well-known punk band Tenement, who also runs the label/studio Crutch of Memory/JAC World, on drums, Teenage Pagans is fully home-recorded and full of the spark that comes from people just being excited to be making music, throwing ideas and sounds around with reckless abandon in the best possible way.
Blue Ocean Blue Ocean
Much has been made of the current Bay Area fog pop scene due to the great music being made by bands like April Magazine and The Present Electric. But there is also a more shoegaze-influenced scene happening with groups like Welcome Strawberry, Blue Zero, and Blue Ocean. Blue Ocean, who have released two EPs so far, keep their songs catchy and uptempo, using soundplay as a tool to enhance their affection for pop. Hewing close to OG shoegaze underdogs Moose, Blue Ocean hits you with tape loops, feedback, and killer hooks.
Knifeplay Animal Drowning
Hailing from Philadelphia, Knifeplay sit somewhere between shoegaze’s modern downtempo sound and the aforementioned bands with more experimental production, utilizing blaring saxophone, feedback, and acoustic instrumentation. On Animal Drowning, the band draws influence from slowcore, the volume dynamics of classic shoegaze, and the hand-on-your-heart sway of Mazzy Star. This release is certainly on the more “rock” side, but there’s no denying they are experimenting with the genre forward, with songs like “Ryan’s Song” that forgoes all the tropes and is just a beautiful blissed-out ballad.
Classic Era
Should A Folding Sieve
Originally released in 1994—basically at the very tail end of the classic shoegaze era—and reissued by Captured Tracks in 2011, Should come through with some serious bedroom pop gems on A Folding Sieve. Supposedly all the guitars are edited and looped due to Marc Ostermeier’s poor guitar playing. “Own Two Feet” is a lost classic, a perfect pop tune with noisy guitar loops, a simple drum machine, and an infectious melody.
Secret Shine Untouched
Sarah Records is most well-known for their jangle and twee bands, but Secret Shine holds the honor of being the only true shoegazers on the roster. Untouched shines as a great example of how to pair good energy and vocals with lots of atmosphere. The guitar line on “Underworld” serves as an immediate hook, but a highlight of this record throughout is the drumming. It keeps the momentum up in places where it could fall prey to the “all slow no go” approach common to shoegaze.
Astrobrite pinkshinyultrablast
For real heads only, Astrobrite, the solo project of Scott Cortez from Lovesliescrushing, shines in the pantheon of lo-fi, self-recorded shoegaze. 2002’s pinkshinyultrablast signaled a lot of things to come in DIY music, from early Atlas Sound to more recent projects like My Guitar Is Trying To Kill Me. It’s all blown-out noise, with great pop songs buried beneath.
Bailter Space Robot World
Flying Nun Records is mostly known for the Dunedin sound of The Clean, The Chills, and The Bats; Bailter Space are perhaps the sole shoegaze band on the seminal label. Armed with some of the best guitar tones of the ’90s, Bailter Space offer blasts of semi-motorik noise, soft vocals, and subtle hooks. 1993’s Robot World is their best record, featuring unrelenting walls of sound that the band had already mastered coming into hyper-focus with great tunes that match their equally masterful sound design.
