Album of the day (#1250): Souvlaki by Slowdive - Music

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Today's album of the day

Souvlaki by Slowdive (View album | Buy this album)

Year: 1993.
Country:

Overall rank: 316
Average rating: 83/100 (from 181 votes).

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Tracks:
1. Alison
2. Machine Gun
3. 40 Days
4. Sing
5. Here She Comes
6. Souvlaki Space Station
7. When The Sun Hits
8. Altogether
9. Melon Yellow
10. Dagger

About album of the day: The BestEverAlbums.com album of the day is the album appearing most prominently in member charts in the previous 24 hours. If an album, or artist, has previously been selected within a x day period, the next highest album is picked instead (and so on) to ensure a bit of variety. A full history of album of the day can be viewed here.

Mercury

Turn your back on the pay-you-back last call

Gender: Male

Location: St. Louis

I really love this album. It's really the only shoegaze album I've fallen for at all. It's just gorgeous and deeply emotional. Something about the melodies washing over me with those walls of guitars makes me feel really strong emotions.

"Machine Gun" is phenomenal. Like, literally one of the greatest tracks ever recorded that I've heard at least.
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

Dingerbell

Gender: Male

Age: 28

It's an album I can't put quite into words how much I love it. The sound is perfect, the songs are perfect, the melodies are perfect and the vocals are perfect.

I must say, though, Souvlaki Space Station is easily one of the best songs I've ever heard, and having such a stand-out song from one of my top-ten favourite albums shows what a incredible song it is.

HazeyTwilight

boyfriend in your wet dreams

Gender: Male

Age: 27

Location: Elmo Knows Where You Live

An intimate masterpiece. I don't need to say a lot about this because it's recently it's become much more than ever before.
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SuedeSwede

Ognoo

Gender: Female

Age: 27

Location: On a cloud

Mercury wrote:

I really love this album. It's really the only shoegaze album I've fallen for at all. It's just gorgeous and deeply emotional. Something about the melodies washing over me with those walls of guitars makes me feel really strong emotions.

"Machine Gun" is phenomenal. Like, literally one of the greatest tracks ever recorded that I've heard at least.

Agree with everything except the strikethrough and therefore I have nothing to say

...

Alison I'm lost
_________________

Goodsir

I'm in a bit of an obsession period with this album right now. It's climbed my chart faster than almost any album. I heard it for the first time only a month ago, and it's already there. Anyways, it's beautiful lyrically and sonically. "When the Sun Hits" is also possibly one of my favorite songs ever. Lastly, I prefer this over Loveless, but only slightly.

tl;dr: EVERYONE SHOULD LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM

EDIT: The fact that three people have already said that three different songs from this album are one of their favorites ever just shows how great it truly is.

BrandonMiaow

Mercury wrote:

I really love this album. It's really the only shoegaze album I've fallen for at all. It's just gorgeous and deeply emotional. Something about the melodies washing over me with those walls of guitars makes me feel really strong emotions.

"Machine Gun" is phenomenal. Like, literally one of the greatest tracks ever recorded that I've heard at least.

God damn it Mercury quit stealing my opinions.

Secondsoul

Gender: Male

Location: Ireland

Beautiful, inspiring masterpiece of an album that sounds better every time I listen to it. I now have it at number 53 in my overall chart but like Loveless it will probably one day rise all the way up to the Top 10. This is also the best album from 1993 imo

Mercury

Turn your back on the pay-you-back last call

Gender: Male

Location: St. Louis

BrandonMiaow wrote:

God damn it Mercury quit stealing my opinions.

Oh sorry.

Oh an yeah as for more my thoughts on this album as it relates to shoegaze in general, I feel it is way more Dreamy than it is noisy, whereas I feel MBV (the only other major shoegaze act I've tried to get into) is more heavy on the noisy side of it more into the overpowering sonics of shoegaze more than the dreamy side of it. Those are the two fundamental precursors and elements of the genre, right? - Noise Rock and Dream Pop? Anyway, that's how I've always interpreted it.

And that point of taste plays out in the some of the bands that were forerunners to the shoegaze scene like I am much more inclined to love Cocteau Twins than early The Jesus and Mary Chain for example (though both are quite cool)

Anyway, yeah, Album's tight.
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

Silver

Mercury wrote:

Oh sorry.

Oh an yeah as for more my thoughts on this album as it relates to shoegaze in general, I feel it is way more Dreamy than it is noisy, whereas I feel MBV (the only other major shoegaze act I've tried to get into) is more heavy on the noisy side of it more into the overpowering sonics of shoegaze more than the dreamy side of it. Those are the two fundamental precursors and elements of the genre, right? - Noise Rock and Dream Pop? Anyway, that's how I've always interpreted it.

And that point of taste plays out in the some of the bands that were forerunners to the shoegaze scene like I am much more inclined to love Cocteau Twins than early The Jesus and Mary Chain for example (though both are quite cool)

Anyway, yeah, Album's tight.

I don't know if it's quite that simple to say that Dream Pop and Noise Rock were the two precursors to shoegaze. While both are undeniably big influences, I'd say a lot of the shoegaze sound also comes from jangle pop and ambient music, as well as mid 80s neo-psychedelic rock. Of course, I also see Dream Pop and Shoegaze are sister genres, so they're the closest you can be without being the same genre (which they may be anyways), but for a band like Ride I'd say they get a lot from British jangly alt-rock, more so than they do Cocteau Twins or Sonic Youth at least. And then bands like Lovesliescrushing operate in this space of ambient, spacey shoegaze which shares as much if not more with the former than the latter. I tend to see shoegaze as being far more diverse than most people give it credit for though, so maybe that's just me. If you want some more really good dreamy sort of shoegaze acts though Mercury, I'd say check out Moose and Chapterhouse. And if you're so inclined to just try giving more shoegaze a try, Ride is always great, and Drop Nineteens. And seeing how much you love Brian Eno, Lovesliescrushing may be a good choice too.

But anyways, Souvlaki certainly has earned it's place as one of the most well loved shoegaze albums. It's not very close to Loveless for me even though I consider them both to be ten out of ten albums, but there are certain things Souvlaki does that not even Loveless can match. The guitar tone in the chorus of 40 days is one of the most jaw dropping sounds I've ever heard, the mood and subtlety of Here She Comes isn't quite replicated anywhere on Loveless (or most albums for that matter), Dagger is still one of the most hauntingly beautiful closers I've ever heard, and I swear every time the noise kicks in on When The Sun Hits, I see the face of god. Definitely in my top three shoegaze albums.