TikTok Has Made Shoegaze Bigger Than Ever
Quannnnic's creative path is very similar to that of their friend and collaborator, 20-year-old Jane Remover, who also started a digital career and has since transitioned mostly into reverse post-rock. It moved from electronic music to traditional rock, achieving a genre relationship similar to that of its post-rock predecessors, such as Disco Inferno and Bark Psychosis, but in the opposite direction. His new album, Census Designated , combines patched vocals, digi beats, blue light synth growls, DJ drum loops and guitar wails to create a kind of disembodied version of shoegaze. Jane's music is a bit more complex and exciting than Quannnic's, and while she has a respectful and passionate fan base, she only has a small amount of streaming engagement (163,000 monthly Spotify listeners, which would have been 163,000 monthly listeners before these boom times. (a lot), which is impressive for a young shoegaze band).
Gin, Quanek and the Flying Fish - thanks to the use of translucent midsoles, which are not necessary because he does not play guitar, but which give an artistic effect, play with a slightly new sound in the Western shoe tradition, but already well established in the Eastern shoe scene Asia. the strong influence of Korean author Baranul. His 2021 debut album To See The Next Part Of The Dream used only midi instruments and vocals recorded on a Galaxy S5 smartphone. - Sharp, sharp, beautiful and intimate to open a shower of lo-fi shoes. Take a close look at Parannoul's low-quality computer audio clips and you'll see the same synth humming in Quannnic, Jane and Flyingfish.
Quannnic also named Japanese band Vocaloid Shoegaze mikgazer vol. 1 , which features vocals by Hatsune Miku, a Japanese digital pop star, created using the Vocaloid vocal synthesizer software, as well as various shoegaze tracks created by several Vocaloid musicians. Music fans ranked the album as the 11th greatest shoegaze album of all time, between My Bloody Valentine and Parannoul's debut album. It's only fitting that the opening track mikgazer , Nekobolo's deftly shot "嘘と电影", mixes MBV-esque chord progressions with brooding synth drums and the resonance of Parannoul, which hits its stride a decade later. Zoomer-gaze leaders whose musical tastes have moved from RYM and Reddit to TikTok include bands like Candy Claws, Panchiko and Sweet Trip, whose synths and digital effects are also central to these songs. it's signature shoegaze. The guitar has become as important a part of shoegaze's DNA as the Creation Records classics, if not more so.
Beyond their sonic influence, Baranol and Mixgazer showed a new generation of observers that analog instruments were not necessary to make shoes, which could be seen as a new development or a polarizing regression. Clearly, as the popularity of Wisp and Flying Fish shows, young listeners don't care if their music is played on "real" instruments. Even Sign subverts traditional slow biker rock by using digital plug-ins instead of actual pedals, recording their guitars directly into a free DAW called Waveform. quannnic uses a lot of digital instruments on kenopsia , but they're actually pretty clean about using real guitars to create their shoegaze vibe. They were "surprised" to discover that there was no guitarist on Baranol's debut album, and were skeptical of the increasing reliance on mediocre bags.
“I hate to be a boomer and say. "Oh, midi guitar isn't real music," they say. "But it's just people using sets of strings to make the same song over and over again."
Just a few years ago, many pioneering shoegaze bands took full advantage of today's advanced audio equipment (light years ahead of the analog programming that shoegaze creators had to use) to create as crisp and clean as possible. As many widescreen shoegaze albums as possible. In 2023, films are lo-fi and homemade, and the technology used is the home studio. Now a random teenager with a basic DAW can create a shoegaze song for a billboard with a mouse and a button.
What makes this new guard even more interesting, however, is how its streamlined production qualities and post-internet influences collide with underground rock and the distinctly American genre of shoegaze known as the nu-look, which is heavier and dirtier. more. The metallic shoe form has its roots in the rock of the 90s. In other words, the Deftones side of the Deftones-Duster series. Quannnic say they listened to a lot of Deftones and Paramore, creating "Life Imitates Life," which has the same liquid shoegaze intensity as many of the best songs on Jane Remover's Census Designated .
The sheer speed of big room rock also had an indelible influence on Wisp's "Your Face" and its shoegaze vibe, though it may be unfamiliar to listeners whose genre references include Slowdive and Blissful Lush, both of which are hugely popular on TikTok. - Age of mass. In addition to Deftones, contemporary bands such as Fleshwater and Glare are beginning to emerge, as did their predecessors in the early 2010s, when the convergence of grunge, soul, riff and shoegaze influences sparked an unexpected renaissance in American underground music. Basement and Superheaven (both self-proclaimed influencers) have experienced resurgence thanks to their 10-year-old TikTok viral songs, "Covet" and "Jongest Daughter," respectively. ("Youngest Daughter," released in 2013 when Superheaven topped the 250 chart, is now No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Hard Rock Songs chart.) It didn't quite make it, but they made it famous. an angry growl. . By Fleshwater and Narrow Head. it's all part of the alternative rock of the TikTok era that includes Deftones, Midwest emo, hardcore and Paramore around "Decode" and now shoegaze is on fire.
This palette of tastes is combined with the sound of shoegaze frontman Novulent, whose 2023 single "Saviour" is currently very popular on TikTok (34,000 videos marked as "popular" by the app). Dark, sexy, and full of melancholic, cinematic auto-tune vocals, suffocating synth drums, and searing shoegaze guitar, "Savior" has become one of the staples of 2023, especially thanks to its use on TikTok.
In one popular video, the song's soundtrack features an iconic anti-drinking and driving ad in which beer pours from the intruder's car door. The moments of intense stress relief in "Savior" and other non-New Look songs are the part that TikTokers are looking for. Shoegaze's gorgeous guitar bursts are perfect for dramatizing face filters, setting the mood, creating a looping soundtrack, or even playing grumpy stuffed animal Miles on the bathroom floor.
Incidents like Shoegaze are often linked to the music of Whirr, a loose millennial group popular with Gen Z audiences. Whisp, whose Instagram account goes by the name "whirrwhore4lyfe," says Whirr is "a master of [those parts of the song]. where we experience the downturn and where all the tools work perfectly.” It's interesting to see shoegaze songs broken down into 'drops', the same way people define the tense climax of a techno or dubstep song; A genre that rhythmically engages clubgoers, creating a functional connection between song and dance that seems out of sync with historically isolated, album-based shoegaze rock.
In fact, all the hype surrounding TikTok, an app based on song and dance culture, seems a bit tiresome. In the rock world at least, most indie rock bohemians consider artists who release and promote their music directly on apps to be hackers. On the one hand, the shoegaze artists behind the video trend feel shrouded in shame, inherent in the genre's image. Both Quannnic and Sign Crush Rider are cool about the shoe molding "scene" on TikTok, but very mixed; an area where Duster is consistently seen as the epitome of depression and Quannnic is wildly celebrated and accused of being a long-running "genre beat". . It achieves the renewal of "life imitating life".
Wisp, who was just a shoe researcher before starting her own app, understands where people are coming from when they complain about the more annoying shoe factions on TikTok. But overall, he's a champion of the platform, and it's great to see so many people loving the genre he loved as a teenager.
"There was a point in my career where I thought, 'I don't know if I want to post on TikTok anymore,'" Wisp told me. “But I think you need to forget about things like 'TikTok is boring' or 'I don't want to be an artist posting on TikTok' and just enjoy the size of the platform and the people who like it. and now I love shoegaze on TikTok.
But Kvannik is more skeptical. Their new album, Stepdream , is inspired by Elliott Smith and Jeff Buckley, just like Baranol, and they've deliberately tried to "sound fun for people who like 'life imitating life'", as they put it. However, those who have benefited from all the hype , not sure how long Shoegaze will remain at this peak of popularity unless the sound changes again in 2024.
"I think if it stays unique, it will continue for a few more years," they thought. "But if it's the same old 'Quannick beats,' I think people will get sick of it pretty quickly." And I feel like people are going to get sick of it."
To play devil's advocate a bit, are we seeing the grunge equivalent of what Candlebox and Bush did? The bands that came after the alternative rock pioneers battled diminishing returns for a decade and were able to capture niche audiences and gain major label status without having to "prove themselves" through traditional indie rock. Or are we in for a wave of opportunistic smugglers with commercial ambitions who will follow this trend and cut the money? If music history is any guide, yes. But I don't think any of these artists, Quanik, Wisp, Flyfish, hipster bikers, are playing that game.
In principle, sell here is not hungry. McKay candidly explained to me why it doesn't make sense for a major label to sign a candidate they like or another project, much to the dismay of the A&R crossing the finish line. "I was offered two things: a deposit and marketing, and I didn't need either of them," he shrugs. In the end, Wisp signed a contract (and feels very "safe" with this decision), but he is especially keen to highlight his younger bands that haven't broken up yet. I didn't feel like a rock star during our conversation.
With Stepdream, Quannnic could have released an entire album called "Life Imitates Life" (a request they get every day from Rando TikTokers), but instead became a college singer-songwriter. Dan Flyingfish was openly frustrated with the quality of his music and wanted to create something that would "influence the music of generations to come". It doesn't just use its algorithmic privileges and create empty playlists for easy browsing.
Wherever the shoe ends up in the coming years, I'll likely be cheering for the Wisp's youthful optimism about this unusual moment in the genre's history, a scourge for fashion and corporate fans alike.
"I'm sure this new generation of shoe lovers will attract a lot of fans who will stay here forever," he says with a smile. "And I know they love shoes as much as artists do."
