Beautiful Noise

BEAUTIFUL NOISE is a documentary about shoegazing, the 1980s/early 1990s genre of pop music that emphasized guitar flange and vocals buried in the mix. Though Eric Green began work on the documentary in 2005, it was only released in 2014 after crowdfunding could help secure rights to the huge amount of music used in it.

The documentary mainly consists of presentations of the most prominent bands in this scene: Cocteau Twins, Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Pale Saints, Lush, and Medicine. The first three get the most time dedicated to them, while the rest are covered more briefly. Their stories are told through a mix of archive footage and recent interviews of the band members. To show the wider impact of these musicians, there are also interviews with Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, Robert Smith of The Cure, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Adam Franklin of Swervedriver, Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips, 4AD label head Ivo Watts-Russell, Ulrich Schrauss, Rob Dickinson of Catherine Wheel, and Creation label head Alan McGee.

The documentary then moves on to short bits on various aspects of the scene in general: experimentation, the predominance of female vocals, the image of shoegazers are shy, uncertain performers, their rocky reception in the press, "the scene that celebrates itself", and finally the collapse of the shoegazing scene due to changing economics or bands' internal squabbles. The document ends with a mention of the "resurgence" of the shoegazing aesthetic in new post-millennium bands like M83 or A Place to Bury Strangers and the reunion of some of the classic bands.

The downside of this format is that while it provides a great deal of exclusive live footage and interviews to thrill fans of this music, it offers no straightforward narration that would inform viewers unfamiliar with this movement in musical history. Also, to fit into a 85-minute format, material naturally had to be cut, but it is disappointing how the perennially overlooked band AR Kane is so prominently mentioned at the start of the documentary, but we get only two brief shots of band member Alex Ayuli.

I love the scene and genre the documentary is exploring, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. It's a shame... Though if you are interested in scene it does have some from key member from the scene in interviews. Also, the time spend with bands and members are uneven, even if they are massive in the genre and scene.

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 had always heard of many of these bands all through my listening career of the 80's' and early 90's, but never really had a chance to have a proper listen to any of them, or, perhaps I did, but was unmoved. When I first heard Lush's De-luxe, I knew instantly that I liked this band and their sound. And that was my introduction to the "shoegazing" movement. I delightfully explored their whole back catalog.

So, over the years I tried numerous times to get into some of the other shoegazing bands covered in this documentary. And no matter how I tried, I always came up with the same conclusion; 'there is a reason none of these bands ever made it big, they all suck'.

Incorporating noise, feedback, distorted guitars etc. into rock n roll was nothing new in the 1980's, as this documentary would have you believe. The Beatles first famously used feedback from George Harrison's guitar amp at the beginning of I Feel Fine. Later The Velvet Underground fully incorporated noise into their sound and did it masterfully. In the 80's, the band that was experimenting with noise but also retaining a keen sense of musicality and songcraft was Sonic Youth, who, no surprise, have had much more success and longevity than either Cocteau Twins or My Bloody Valentine.

This documentary has a kind of amateurish, half-assed feel to it, kind of like the Beautiful Noise scene it's portraying. So my predisposition to the whole movement was pretty much reinforced while watching it. Unfortunately Lush gets only a brief bit of covarage for their contributions. At least they used one of their very beautiful compositions "For Love" over the beginning of the Girls and Guys segment.

In conclusion, unless you're a real die hard fan of this scene or any of the bands covered, there is very little reason to watch this show. Even if you are a fan, they cover so many acts in such a short amount of time, you can't possibly sink your teeth into any of them to get a good handle on their music or their message. Do yourself a favour and buy a Lush album instead.

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.