How to curate a commercially-released shoegaze compilation

Frank Deserto, co-curator of 'We Are the Beautiful', discusses the challenges of building a genre-spanning comp, discovering shoegaze as a teen, and why he doesn't think the genre is going anywhere.

I miss mixtapes. Specifically, I miss making mixtapes for people. I’ve made a lot of them in my life, most as a way of introducing myself to a new friend. In fact, I used to jump to make a mixtape for someone I had just met because I believed it was the easiest way for them to get to know me. (This was years before social media existed.) “Hi, here is a tape of the music I like. Maybe you’ll like it too.”

Cassette tapes were always better than CDs, in my opinion. (Sadly, mix vinyl records understandably never really became a thing.) They just felt more personal; like the music you chose, making the artwork felt like a fun DIY project you could cater to the individual you were making it for. And if you ever fell out with someone who made you a mixtape, well, you could always just tape over it and make a new one for someone else. I think a lot of what made cassettes special was lost in the transition to CDs, however, boy, were mix CDs so much quicker and easier to make.

(Back in 2011, I started a “tape club” with some friends, where we mailed carefully-curated mixtapes to each other across the country. There were eight of us, and it lasted a few rounds before fizzling out. I still think it about it from time to time…)

I was this close once to compiling a commercially-released album for a major record label. Back when I held an associate editor position at Exclaim!, we were in talks with a label that was interested in releasing compilations for the different genres we covered. I don’t know how close it really came to fruition, but it was a dream of mine to make a professional mixtape that complete strangers would listen to. Kind of like what Frankie Teardrop, aka Frank Deserto, gets to do for Cherry Red Records.

Deserto had the enviable privilege of co-curating We Are the Beautiful: Two Decades of Shoegaze 1991-2011, a new compilation album released by legendary indie label Cherry Red, who know a thing or two about classic shoegaze and dream pop. Having previously put together like-minded comps for the label,We Are the Beautiful just feels like a perfectly timed primer for fans of shoegaze, both old and new. Focusing on the first 20 years of the scene’s development, it features four CDs of music by some of the genre’s biggest names (Slowdive, Lush, Ride, Chapterhouse), as well as its hidden gems (An April March, Here, Teenage Filmstars, Bethany Curve), and includes an essay and band-by-band biographies, each written by Deserto.

So who exactly is Frankie Teardrop and what do you do?

Frank Deserto: It’s funny, “Frankie Teardrop” was a nickname that an old bandmate, since deceased, passed along to me when I first moved to NYC. It seemed fitting of a fresh start for me, shedding my skin and taking on a persona, albeit one named after a terrifying song. It became my DJ name. I’m nothing like the Suicide track’s protagonist, though, rest assured, it just sort of stuck and I can’t get rid of it now if I wanted to.

As for who Frank Deserto is? I’m a musician, a DJ, a music blogger, and a curator, none of which pay the bills, all of which bring me shades of joy. I’ve been active in these spaces since the early 2000s. I run the music blog Systems of Romance, play bass and synths in dream pop/shoegaze/post-punk band The Harrow, write for post-punk.com, and of course, work with Cherry Red records.

How did you first discover shoegaze?

I knew about shoegaze as early as middle school. Growing up as a Smashing Pumpkins, Cure, and Nine inch Nails fan in the early/mid-’90s, I would always hear about these earlier wave of bands that influenced them, or hear about how beloved producers like Alan Moulder and Flood were. While I liked some of the music coming out at the time as well, I preferred to look backwards to see what my heroes were championing.

However, growing up in upstate New York in the pre-download era, I was at the mercy of whatever selection lived at the local chain store CD bins, or if I was really lucky, in the used vinyl bins in even smaller shops. As you could imagine, it was very difficult to find many of these records. I had a long list of things to check out, but it wasn’t until college, when I immediately joined the radio station, where I would be able to ravage the CD and vinyl library, finally getting to hear bands I’ve heard so much adoration for over the years…

What is it about the music that you love?

So much! There’s a vulnerability in the music that I’ve always been drawn to, a certain sadness that permeates the genre that really makes my heart soar, makes me feel less alone. I generally gravitate towards the sadder, more ethereal side of the spectrum, but I can even hear this vulnerability in the heavier bands of the scene.

While so much has been said about the noise factor, even the loudest bands wrote tremendous songs, album cuts and singles alike. Buried underneath the distortion and reverb are wonderful melodies, hooks, and energy that never gets old for me.

What band do you feel best represents the shoegaze sound?

I know the answer everyone is looking for here is My Bloody Valentine, and there’s an argument to be made there for sure, but I’d have to say Slowdive. Even before their second coming gave them the credit they were due, I’ve always thought they were the quintessential shoegaze band, despite not being as beloved during their first go-around.

Slowdive were the most interesting and most dynamic band in my opinion - walking the line between dream pop and shoegaze beautifully, writing perfect pop songs, making exciting cacophony, experimenting with dub and ambient… There was a little something for everyone and they covered so much ground in their short tenure, not to mention how they evolved as Mojave 3.

However, unlike most fans, I often tend to prefer their first record Just for a Day more than Souvlaki, but that’s also my college experience/nostalgia talking here…

What is your favourite shoegaze band?

Well, it’s probably Slowdive for all the reasons I mentioned above, but a top three would also include Cranes and Curve, both of which I know aren’t strictly 100 percent shoegaze, which is partially why I rank them so highly. I do love a band that flirts with different styles and brings them all together.

What is your favourite shoegaze album?

Welp, I guess I’ll have to take Just for a Day by the same logic… Probably not as popular of a choice, I know, but boy is it deadly.

Fans seem to love trying to determine who the original Big 4 bands of shoegaze were? I prefer a round number, so who do you think the original Big 5 were?

Lush, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and Ride are the ones I consider the “Big Four” - and, of course, fans tend to credit The Jesus & Mary Chain, House of Love, and Cocteau Twins as the real genesis of it all. This all seems pretty universally accepted at this point.

If I must round it out, I’d say Chapterhouse, who I’m glad I got the opportunity to see this last year. They’re also the band we’re honouring with the name of this compilation!

What made their song the right name for the album?

All due credit to Richard for landing on that one, but it really fits, doesn’t it?

How did you come to get the gig to curate and compile We Are The Beautiful?

As much as I hate to bring them up, I have to blame Pitchfork for this. In 2018, they published a ragebait piece profiling their personal top dream pop albums, many of which were repeat artists and lazy uninspired choices that didn’t really do a lick of justice to a genre I adore. It pissed me off beyond belief - how could they pick multiple Beach House records and zero A.R. Kane or Bel Canto, just to name a few glaring omissions? Bonkers.

So, with fire in my heart, I teamed up with my Harrow bandmate Greg and the wonderful Amber from When the Sun Hits blog, both devoted fans of the genre, to come up with our own list for post-punk.com that celebrates the entire genre, didn’t repeat artists, and made sure to give credit across the board. The piece was a lot of fun to put together, even if I’m still kicking myself for leaving off bands like The Darling Buds or The Heart Throbs out. Can’t win them all…

Anyway, Richard Anderson from Cherry Red got in touch out of the blue and asked if I would be interested in helping out with a dream pop box set that was already underway, and it was kind of a match made in heaven. Richard and I have worked on three box sets so far, with another one in the initial planning stages. It’s pretty funny how my annoyance at one poorly compiled list could yield such fruitful collaborations!

What were the other comps you curated before this?

The first box set we did together was called Cherry Stars Collide - Dream Pop, Shoegaze & Ethereal Rock 1986-1995, and the second was No Songs Tomorrow - Darkwave, Ethereal Rock & Coldwave 1981-1990. The latter is another genre I am near and dear to, as I also adore French coldwave and obscure post-punk just as much as I do shoegaze and dream pop, and sometimes those lines tend to blur, which was fun to explore throughout these compilations.

I also wrote the liner notes for the Cranes and Julee Cruise collections, both artists which are very near and dear to my heart…

What went into your decision to select these tracks?

The first thing to keep in mind here is that my original list for this compilation was over 160 tracks long, which would have been probably 10-plus discs! For this original list, I went through my entire collection and picked out favourites across the board. Nothing was off limits - I chose big singles from classic bands, some personal favourites for the real collectors, and several bands that blended genres in the later years, combining metal, electronic, and more with shoegaze.

The only criteria was that the song had to mean something to me, had to make me feel true joy and bliss. I also wanted to capture that college radio time, the years 2000-2004, where I was discovering the old bands, falling in love with 4AD and Projekt Records, and simultaneously pillaging through the review bins for new sounds. Bands like Con Dolore, Andalusia, Ashrae Fax, Skywave, etc. may not be household names compared to say, The Jesus & Mary Chain, but they were all bands I discovered in the promo bins of my radio station and bands that I fell in love with just as deeply as the classic bands. I’m especially proud we were able to capture that particular moment of nostalgia for me.

We also made the conscious decision to pick some late ‘90s tracks, where electronics started to permeate the genre. With Slowdive’s Pygmalion, Seefeel, trip-hop, and of course bands like Orbital, Stereolab, and Radiohead coming to prominence, it seemed worthy to capture that little moment in time where electronics seemed like the next salvation of rock music.

I’m also very happy we pushed to capture that post-punk/shoegaze revival crossover from the mid-2000s, which was a very special, interesting, and fruitful time in music. This is where bands like Asobi Seksu, Ringo Deathstarr, Tamaryn, A Place to Bury Strangers, and more rose out of the scene and truly popularized the genre in the United States.

What tracks do you feel were essential to the compilation?

The Autumns, Mira, The Veldt, and Bethany Curve are four quintessential bands that I feel perfectly capture the wide spectrum of the “shoegaze sound” outside of the original wave. These were must-haves from the get-go.

As for classic bands, I’m always happy to have Blind Mr. Jones and Drop Nineteens, two bands I don’t feel get the same amount of love as some of their peers, the same which could be said about Curve, who are all-time favourites.

I’m also delighted to have The Daysleepers on here, one of the most stunning bands from more recent times. Their record Drowned in a Sea of Sound is just perfect.

What are some of the more obscure tracks you’re most proud of to feature?

I’ll speak to three of them here. The first is Here’s “Haze,” a gauzy-by-design track from an obscure Czeckoslovakian band that really makes my heart burst. I think collectors know this one by now, but it’s always been a favourite from the moment I heard it. The album was just recently reissued, first time on vinyl!

Andalusia’s “Swallow” and Con Dolore’s “Dream,” which are coincidentally and chronologically sequenced here, are two examples of deep cuts that reflect my college radio bin experience, and two that I’m hoping people adore even half as much as I do.

Were there any artists/tracks that you weren’t able to include?

Of course! The list would be long, but to name a few that I would have loved to feature: Airiel, Swervedriver, Medicine, Mahogany, Majesty Crush, Ozean, Difference Engine, Chimera, Closedown, Lilys, Lovesliescrushing, and Fleeting Joys. These were all on my “must-haves” list but didn’t work out for one reason or another.

While we’re here, I’ve seen quite a bit of online comments about what is or isn’t on the compilation, and for starters, I think it would have been a total disservice to fill the box with all the household names at the expense of others. As I mentioned above, the original list for this box was 160-plus tracks, and we definitely couldn’t fit them all.

I also think a lot of people tend to forget that it often isn’t a personal choice to leave tracks off. Some labels/bands (including most of the ones that people are complaining about) turned us down, others we had to make a difficult decision to cut, while others just never got in touch after we reached out. It’s never as easy as curating a Spotify playlist, and it really is super easy to complain from behind a screen about what isn’t here, without actually celebrating what IS here.

Otherwise, I’d say that this box isn’t meant to be a complete retrospective (it could never be!), but is still a valid historical snapshot, as seen through my personal experience. It’s both a diary as well as a storybook.

The album doesn’t seem to include anything from the last decade or so. How did you decide on a cut off? What artists would you put on a compilation of newer shoegaze?

Well, ultimately, there was only so much room, and with only four discs, we had to draw the line somewhere. If we opened it up to the last ten years, we wouldn’t be able to stop! Richard and I agree that there was a story to be told between the early days, the late ‘90s stragglers who flirted with electronics or kept the scene afloat, and the post-punk revival explosion that helped bring this music back into the light.

Of course, now the scene is SO saturated, there are so many wonderful bands that have formed in the last ten years that have some of the same ethos as the bands that came before. Perhaps if we do another installment we can spread the net a little bit to capture the more recent revival, but let’s see how it all shakes out in the next few years, first. It’s hard to properly assess a scene as it’s happening.

There was clearly some research involved in writing the liner notes. What was something you were surprised to learn about the shoegaze scene or some of the music featured?

I think the most surprising thing was learning that Sun Dial was an offshoot of Modern Art, a UK-based rickety minimal synth project I adore and have been DJing out in NYC for some time. I never made that connection before writing the blurbs!

The comp is being released at a time when the popularity of shoegaze is peaking. Why do you think it’s become so big and influential?

I have this theory that music resurgence is based on an approximately 25-30 year loop, and that this is something that has been going on for ages and probably taps into youth culture mining the music of the past, the music of their parents seeming cool, and so on.

In the ‘80s, there was nostalgia for the ‘50s - think about Neil Young going rockabilly, Back to the Future, The Stray Cats, and so on. In the ‘90s, grunge was equally indebted to punk, metal, and classic rock, all of which were ‘60s and ‘70s constructs. When I started DJing in the 2000s, the ‘70s and ‘80s post-punk and new wave bands were all the rage again. Now, of course, it’s time for the ‘90s to shine, for better or for worse. Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, and Smashing Pumpkins T-shirts are everywhere again all of a sudden, and bands that were playing small/empty clubs at the end are being championed and selling out mid-sized venues.

Shoegaze being as popular as it is now is not shocking to me, by this same logic. It’s kind of beautiful in a way, but also kind of strange. It really has become one of the most dominant forms of indie rock in the last ten years or so, which I think is pretty great and subversive in a way.

There is a lot of music now that tries to identify as shoegaze, but in my opinion, is not really true to what shoegaze originally was. How do you feel about all of these newer artists trying to change and/or reinvent what the genre is?

There are two strains of modern dream pop and shoegaze that I am a little burnt out on already, the first being “brogaze,” the post-hardcore strain of shoegaze that champions riffs over melodies. Seeing folks moshing at a shoegaze show is just as disturbing to me as seeing folks moshing at a post-punk show, but I digress. The other is the laptop dream pop artists who took the Beach House template and ran it into the ground. It just sounds a little uninspired to me. By the way, there are bands I like who live in both of these worlds, but overall, I feel it’s a little tiring.

As for the modern crop of artists, my take on it is this: If you can write a good song, a beautiful melody, and so on, I am here for it. If you are a carbon copy without any true heart or inspiration, please don’t. This expands to other genres as well, it’s something I feel strongly about as a writer and collector.

What artists would you put on a compilation of newer shoegaze?

There are a lot of wonderful new bands that would certainly be on the short list if and when we mine this era for a box set on the last few years, including They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Just Mustard, Be Forest, Deserta, Julie, Still Corners, Pale Dian, Venera 4, Chasms, Winter, Nuclear Daisies, Blushing, Edweena, Leave the Planet, Dead Leaf Echo, Mo Dotti, and so on. Maybe even the new Harrow single would be a contender… ;)

As for identifying as shoegaze, I hope this box set proves that shoegaze CAN evolve and can mean so much to so many different people. It’s here to stay, that’s for sure…

In the streaming age, we have no shortage of playlists to listen to or even make within minutes. Why do you think compilation albums like We Are The Beautiful still matter?

In a world of infinite choice, things still need to be curated and organized. Infinite choice isn't even accurate here, as Spotify and other streaming services often have incomplete catalogues. Anyone who is deeply passionate about music should view streaming as a handy tool but not a viable and complete solution. Not only are you missing artists and tracks arbitrarily, you don't actually own anything. This is where having a box set that's lovingly selected, featuring big and small names alike, comes in handy.