Ride - Chrome Waves
"This strange machinery is keeping you from seeing me."
Album: Going Blank Again [2nd album]
Recorded: Oxfordshire, England
Genre: Rock, Shoegaze, Indie Rock, Space Rock
Album Release: March 9th 1992
Length: 3.55
Producer: Ride & Alan Moulder
Vocalist: Andy Bell [age 22]
Label: Creation Records
Official Audio
Live from London in 1992
Live on KEXP in 2015
Charts, Streams & Sales
UK (albums): Certified gold in October 2009 (100,000 + units sold)
UK (albums): #5
Spotify: 1,800,000 +
YouTube Music: 400,000 +
NME 500 Greatest Albums (2013): #417
Pitchfork's Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time: #5
Credits
Details
- The name 'Ride' comes from the 'ride' cymbal. The band liked how ride sounds musical but also brings to mind traveling or motion. Which fits nicely because, after all, sound is a wave.
- The band were inspired to form after watching The Smiths.
- The lyrics on the track don't mean much, vaguely nodding towards life in post industrial Britain. It's the music where the track really shines, with it's overlapping vocals and hazy, shimmering guitars typical of the dream like soundscapes shoegaze fans know and love.
- Britain, the early 90's, shoegaze is booming, bands like My Bloody Valentine have released their genre defining works and all is well. However, it wouldn't take long for a storm to start brewing. Or maybe more than one. From across the Atlantic, a new type of music, known as 'grunge' would soon be making its way to British shores. Grunge, as it was so labelled, bore the name, at least in part, due to the dirty, unwashed aesthetic of its performers and fans. A fact that contrasted sharply with the pants and shirt, or polo neck, wearing attire of the shoegaze bands. However, only the most ardent fans would go to gigs for both scenes, and soon, an uneasy peace was found. The shoegazers, although not considered 'cool', managed to thrive side by side with their grungy cousins from across the Atlantic. The real killing blow for the genre would come from closer to home. Britpop had raised its head above the parapet and within a few short years shoegaze would be dead.
Shoegaze was always considered to be middle class. The music was complex. Britpop had simple verse chorus verse chorus song structures. You couldn't hear the words in a shoegaze song, the music was too loud, the guitars too fuzzy. Britpop was anthemic. It featured loud, simple choruses shouted again and again. Anyone could join in. Shoegaze was polite. The members of the bands would famously attend each other gigs and cheer each other on. Britpop had rivalries! Blur vs Oasis. It was like the Beatles and the Stones all over again only in the 90's. The tabloid press, as well as the public at large, couldn't get enough. For a while at least.
According to rateyourmusic, at least in terms of releases per year, shoegaze peaked in 1992 with 207 releases. That same year Britpop had 25. So, in 1992, for every 1 britpop release there were over 8 for shoegaze. By 1996 shoegaze had 94 releases while britpop had had 299. So, in 1996, for every 1 shoegaze release there were over 3 for britpop. Almost, a complete reversal. Although numbers can only show so much. What really illustrates the decline of shoegaze and the rise of Britpop is that in 1999 the singer and guitarist of one of shoegaze's most revered bands, Ride's Andy Bell (above far left), would become the bassist... of Oasis. He even got the Oasis haircut! The moment Andy Bell started copying Liam Gallagher's haircut was officially the moment shoegaze died.
Andy Bell from his time in Ride | Andy Bell backing Liam Gallagher
Lyrics
