Slowdive – Alive and well and living in the sound.
Slowdive for this Lunch Hour – recorded live at BBK Bilbao, Spain on July 13, 2024 by RNE Radio 3.
Slowdive, picking up where they left off after their 1995 hiatus to reunite in 2014, giving the audience a giant sigh of relief that one of the most prominent and best loved bands of the Shoegaze era were alive and well and just as amazing as ever.
Slowdive were initially dismissed by the British independent music press. While reviews of the band’s early extended plays were favorable, Slowdive’s reputation took a downturn with the release of their debut album, Just for a Day, which received middling reviews from publications such as Melody Maker and Select. In 1991, Richey Edwards, guitarist and lyricist of Manic Street Preachers, proclaimed: “We will always hate Slowdive more than Hitler.” Upon its release, Souvlaki was received similarly negatively; Melody Maker‘s Dave Simpson infamously wrote, “I would rather drown choking in a bath full of porridge than ever listen to it again”, three years after the publication praised the band’s EPs for being “impossible, immaculate and serene”. The band theorized that they came across as too soft and feminine, and were overshadowed by the emergence of Britpop at the same time. Said Goswell of Britpop: “It was very laddy.” About the band’s initial poor reviews, Goswell said: “Within about a year of being in the industry, I became very disenchanted, because of the treatment that we got from this small amount of UK journalists. Obviously, they held a lot of power in this country at that point.” In 2004, The Independent referred to Slowdive as a “long-forgotten indie band”.
The band’s reputation was mended by critics throughout the 2010s, who acclaimed Slowdive as one of the best shoegaze bands. Upon Slowdive’s re-formation in 2014, the band began playing to larger crowds than they did during their initial run, and members realized that they were more famous and recognizable than ever before. Music writers noted Slowdive’s modern popularity as part of shoegaze’s revival in popularity with younger Millennials and Generation Z.
Further evidence the Press have been known to drive agendas into the ground and being objective is often a foreign concept.
In any event, Slowdive have weathered the winds of capricious journalism and gained the momentum they didn’t have almost 30 years ago. Times, they do change.
As for lunch – press play and dive in.
