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Still in a Dream

Shoegaze, Slackers, and the Reinvention of Rock, 1984-1994

Contributors

By Simon Reynolds

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Jan 12, 2027
Page Count
464 pages
Publisher
Da Capo
ISBN-13
9780306833809

Price

$19.99

Price

$25.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Trade Paperback $19.99 $25.99 CAD
  2. ebook $13.99 $17.99 CAD

Twenty years after his acclaimed postpunk best-seller, Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds tells the tale of what happened next: the underground explosion of noisepop, shoegaze, slacker rock, and grunge that reverberated through the late Eighties into the early Nineties.

Capturing the musical exhilaration of the era along with the alienation of youth during a period of ascendant conservative politics and glitzy mainstream pop, Still in a Dream celebrates a golden age of guitar reinvention, a second psychedelia of mind-blowing sounds pioneered by bands like My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth. In Britain, groups like Cocteau Twins and Slowdive escaped into shimmering dreamworlds while American underground rockers like Dinosaur Jr. and Pavement blended apathy and urgency into thrilling noise.

A propulsive and personal account from a journalist who covered this music in real time from the frontlines, Still in a Dream vividly recreates a period that was the last blast for the analog culture of vinyl records and music papers, before the Internet changed everything.


Simon Reynolds

About the Author

Simon Reynolds is the author of Energy Flash: A Journey through Rave Music and Dance CultureBlissed Out: The Raptures of Rock, The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellions and Rock and Roll (co-written with Joy Press), Rip it Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978 – 1984, and, most recently, Bring the Noise: Twenty Years of Hip Hop and Hip Rock.

Learn more about this author