9. Adorable, Against Perfection (1992) — There’s something exhilarating about flipping through a pile of used cd’s and coming across an album you’ve been trying to find for a while. This was especially true for Against Perfection, which languished on my “to-buy” list for nearly 5 years and was probably the most notable album missing from my Shoegaze collection.  Disappoint it has not. Adorable definitely align more with the rock/pop side of the Shoegaze genre a la bands like Ride and Chapterhouse, but in my opinion they write consistently better songs than both of them (!). Tracks like “Sunshine Smile,” “Favourite Fallen Idol,” and “Breathless” show a range from pop to rock to classic shoegaze that many other bands of the time didn’t/couldn’t quite pull off with such consistency. I also love the swagger that lead singer Piotr Fijalkowski brought to this style of music — I have a feeling these guys put on a great show in their time.

CIOIYL: more rock in your Shoegaze (like Ride, The Verve, Catherine Wheel, Majesty Crush, etc.), pop + noise, albums that sound like they were probably recorded live with very few overdubs