The context was the end of 11 years of suffocating conservatism in Britain by Prime Minister Margaret ‘The Iron Lady’ Thatcher and her succession plan with the bland, faceless John Major. The internet was new and not widely used. It was a time of civil unrest with riots about new taxes and conditions in jails. Rave culture was building momentum, itself a kind of new punk.

Madchester was off its chops. Grunge was about to hit. Britpop – so clean and tidy and tuneful and chirpy – was waiting in the wings.

And so shoegaze became a sort of short-lived but incredibly powerful form of sonic rebellion, misusing the instruments to make something new. The antecedents were clear – The Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd , Krautrock, Cocteau Twins , The Jesus and Mary Chain – and this was good lineage.

But in truth it was a tiny, insular scene. It became a kind of meme in the magazines who covered it. It was dubbed “the scene which celebrates itself”. Coverage of it also became a parody of itself. Critics found it hard to describe the music because it had few or indistinct lyrics and so much weird emotion just in the guitars. Once the phrase “sonic cathedrals” was used more than once, it became a laughing stock.

This list is not meant to be exhaustive, it’s just my favourites and some memories of the time. Shoutout to Spaceman 3 and Spiritualized, Swervedriver , Chapterhouse, Curve, Lush, Pale Saints , The Telescopes , Catherine Wheel , Mogwai , Ripe, and Drop City.

Shoegaze is also not only in the past tense. It has been re-born by a couple of new generations now and that only happens when the music was good to begin with. It’s funny that a term so despised by the original bands can be so accepted: the new breed including Melbourne’s own most excellent Lowtide and bands like The Cherry Wave (from shoegaze central, Glasgow); DIIV from Brooklyn; and Fazerdaze of Auckland, New Zealand, don’t seem to mind too much.