Beautiful Noise

Beautiful Noise is a well done documentary on a very specific type of music. I call it dream pop, some call it shoe gaze. All the bands documented are excellent, but I would have liked to hear about all the fans who came to their shows! There are no interviews from every day non famous fans. Also the bands do not talk about touring which to me is an important part of being in a band. There was so much going on in the early 90s cultural landscape, but there isn't too much mentioned about that. My favorite band Curve only gets a minute of mention. There was no mention about how different their music was and how bands like Garbage were influenced by Toni Halliday and Dean Garcia's music skills. I liked this film and watched it three times to get an idea of what more I would have liked to see.

I finally got around to watching my DVD of the "Beautiful Noise" documentary directed by Eric Green - and while much of it was what I expected, it was still great to hear the artists behind the music I've loved for so long discuss their influences, the scene they got lumped into and how their bands folded up shop, so to speak, as well as the current resurgence and interest in this type of music.

I question how useful or entertaining this doc will be for the uninitiated to this style of music. For the rest of us, it's a great walk down memory lane, and with interviews from rock luminaries like Billy Corgan and Trent Reznor, a validation of what we've known all along.

But my favorite part was the interviews of Kevin Shields and Alan McGee inter-cutting between each other as they talked about the recording process of MBV's "loveless" (they are basically ripping each other a new hole about the whole experience by recounting how, basically, they thought the other person was disrupting their lives, and in McGee's POV business). This just goes to show that history is determined by those who write it (or talk about it in this case).

Personally, the most important outcome of watching this documentary was that it made me pull out all of my shoegaze/dreampop CDs to rip them into FLAC format so I could revisit it all during a long trip I have coming up.

If you get a chance to see "Beautiful Noise", by all means do: the artists are interviewed in intimate settings where one gets the sense they were able to relax and really reflect upon the music they've made and their larger cultural impact. It was definitely worth the wait for this doc.

I was actually skeptical about this film when I saw the trailer and crowdfunding campaign. I had the usual worry of what they would cover in the film and what they would leave out. Some of the talking heads in the trailer were not really of this scene (a bunch of Americans!), so I was ready to yawn and roll eyes. But luckily they were people inspired by UK noise, that although more well-known than the shoegazers themselves, were there as supporting cast rather than the leads. Its quite surreal having massive pop-stars like Robert Smith talking about this much smaller music from a listener's point of view.

So its a vague scene for starters. I mean, where do we say "noise" started? Well, I think its OK to draw the line somewhere and just say it was Britain in 1980. Of course we know about the Velvet Underground and earlier - but this really is about "shoegaze" music (in the late 80s - early 90s), which openly revived the kinds of texture The Velvets and others explored in industrial music, but sometimes with new technology.

So the lead players are really The Cocteau Twins, Jesus And Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. Three hugely influential pillars of popular rock music that didn't really sell a lot of music. What this film does best is just let the musicians, engineers and studio heads speak for themselves. And what you get is not every piece of the sprawling puzzle (snobs wake-up, its impossible to explain everything about a decade of fuzzy music in one film) but a great overview of how the musicians felt about what they were doing and who influenced them. This is supported by bigger known American artists who sight these groups as influential to them.

The film doesn't have the structure and production value of something like a slick authorised Rolling Stones documentary - but thank goodness it doesn't. This was obviously a labor of love and the filmmakers obviously cared about the subject or all the significant artists wouldn't have contributed to it. A Rolling Stones (or any other big group) documentary is an authorised product these days, which means they get to cut out anything embarrassing and basically create a piece of advertising/propaganda to keep the legacy (business) going. Watch a John Lennon documentary and Yoko as the head of the Lennon estate will make sure you never know about John's previous wife.

This is definitely worth seeking out and surprisingly good.

Not a bad effort. However, it would have greatly benefited from featuring a lot more of the bands who were influenced by the original wave. It suffered slightly from only really talking about the main players in this "scene" - Not that it ever really was one, outside of the music press.

Would have been nice in the last half hour, rather than it kind of petering out, to feature the new wave. People who have been influenced by it. More than just a name on a screen and a couple of photos.

Having said this, it's lovely to see some interviews with Guthrie, Kevin Shields, etc and to get their take on the goings on back then.

Not really sure about the addition of Billy Corgan and Trent Reznor though. Never really considered their music either influenced by, or relevant to, these bands.

Maybe they needed them. Just in case the American Market didn't understand the point of the doc... Seemed pointless to me. The sort of people who will watch this doc are the sort of people who don't need Billy Corgan spoon feeding them what they already know. It just came across as mildly patronising to be honest.

In fact, you could argue that the American Bands of the time kind of ruined it all in the eyes of the music press. Smashing Pumpkins, kind of being one of the bands that caused the press backlash in the first place.

Kind of ironic. That.

Oh. And lovely to see that old git Alan McGee churning out his "Loveless is overrated" tirade yet again.

No mate. You are just bitter that they didn't want a drug addict ruining their buzz in the studio. And it cost you a few quid.

Still. Less than you ever spent on drugs. And nowhere near the amount you pretended it cost to perpetrate your sad, mad, self-mythologising. So there's that.

God if I have to hear that wizened old man saying that again, I'll kill myself.

He didn't support these bands. He let them flounder, and as Kevin Shields rightly said, "He was just a drug addict who didn't understand what we were trying to do"

Yup.

Still. I waited a long time for this to surface. I paid me money and was happy to see some of the more obscure bands mentioned (Flying Saucer Attack, Pale Saints) amongst the others.

So all in all, if you like these bands. This won't tell you anything you don't already know. It'll preach to the converted. But I give it a 7 because this doc shone a light on an otherwise overlooked scene that meant a lot to me when I was a kid.

And you can shout "F**k off McGee, you utter, utter twit" at the telly whenever he comes on.

Also. Bobby Gillespie.

Nah. Never took that wee chancer seriously, either.

Some good live footage I'd not seen before too. So hooray for that.

Moody, dreamy, noisy, loud, gentle, feminine, insular, withdrawn, antisocial; Shoegaze was an anomaly in the glitzy and colorful Rock scene of the late 1980s - early 1990s when it emerged as a maligned and misunderstood oddball who nevertheless was impossible to ignore. With its nerdy outcast-looking band members who stood on stage and stared at their shoes (hence the name) while creating and conjuring whirlpools of ear-numbing noise the scene certainly wasn't primed for the big time but it's unique appeal left a lasting legacy that endures to this day. "Beautiful Noise" covers that crucial period in Rock history when the tide turned and the changing of the guard ushered a new and far superior phase in Rock with Shoegaze right in the middle of it. The genre's luminaries like Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine and Ride are given their proper space while stars like Robert Smith, Trent Reznor and Bily Corgan share their memories and views on the music's profound impact on them. Historic footage of the band's are shown highlighting the blistering and deafening power of the music. The film could have been better if the roots of the genre were shown (basically the bands are Velvet Underground offshoots) and the presentation of the bands less chapter-like. Nevertheless it's good to see a well-done doc on the fascinating and influential genre. May there be more to come.