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I don't have any issues with 'unoriginality' or with bands 'slavishly copying' classic artists, etc. If I like the reference point, then I welcome the copyists.

If 'nugaze' doesn't excite me quite as much as 'shoegaze', it's because the variations to the 'formula' brought in by the former often seem to come at the expense of the aspects of the latter that I like the most.

E.g. heaps of nugaze comes across as a bit weak relative to the crushing, head splitting noise of, say, MBV or Curve at their noisiest. So, even The Radio Dept., which imo is the act in your nugaze playlist that is most faithful to my idea of shoegaze, can sound a bit MBV-lite at times.

Or again, the best shoegaze for my ears is the stuff that doesn't follow a conventional pop song structure and/or is not built around a chord progression as such. But, with the exception of the more electronic inflected nugaze (like SVIIB), the nugaze acts I'm familiar with more regularly make use of conventional song structures. E.g. 'So High' and 'Tambourine Girl' by Ringo Deathstarr — they're by no means bad tracks, or ones that I think should've been left off the album, but they do remind me that I'm listening to a contemporary take on the sound that I think of as shoegaze. (NB: I'm fully aware that most of, e.g., Ride's songs were worked around conventional song structures. I just keep hearing a difference, in any case.)

and it's my favourite genre now. I couldn't be happier that new bands are doing it again.
The 90's in general are back big time. Yuck doing the indie guitar thing. A mate played me a band last night called Sulk who are reviving the baggy manchester thing.
I'm A-OK with it! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOnfHDBW7SA (summer shoegaze)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw29ukk47uQ ('epic' shoegaze)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPbFyiuMWDU (j-pop shoegaze)

I've got a couple of cruff in the bedroom albums, need to give them a proper listen.

Good to see Rollerskate Skinny and Tamaryn on the mixes, much prefer Tamaryn to Pains of being new at heart in terms of 'nugaze' stuff, can't stand the guy's vocals for them, so weedy sounding.

http://jonporras.bandcamp.com/track/seascape

which is genuinely updating the ideas underlying shoegaze. Really don't have much time for the full-on revivalism, particularly as so much of it's so excessively fey.

...altho no Pale Saints on the first and no Ulrich Schnauss on the second :(
It's a shame that the original scene got dropped like a hot potato by the UK music press as soon as grunge came along as there was some genuine innovation going on. A damn sight better than the revivalist nonsense we got lumbered with a few years later in the form of Britpop *shudder*
Side topic: which bands were able to survive the end of shoegaze and reemerge in Britpop? Lush, Blur, Boo Radleys...is that it?

'The scene that celebrates itself' was soon lambasted by the musical press, especially NME/Melody Maker for being musically and socially incestuous, spoon-fed Thames Valley kids bankrolled by their parents making safe, comfy and non-committal easy-listening sounds and going to each other's gigs. Some of the original bands were far from accomplished - the reliance on an array of pedals was often a necessary tactic to cover up inept vocals - none more so than Lush, 'Ichabod & I' era Boo Radleys, Chapterhouse. 'Shoegaze' itself was a criticism of a lack of stage presence.

The scene very quickly imploded - Ride tried to pre-empt Britpop too early and failed, Boo Radleys and Lush timed it right and prolonged their careers, Moose went country, Catherine Wheel aimed for US College Radio, Swervedriver just weren't shoegazers in the first place, Slowdive went ambient / electronica and then acoustic with Mojave 3, Chapterhouse couldn't make their minds up, Curve went more electronic still. My Bloody Valentine remained respected but disappeared from view. By the mid-90s some of these bands were viewed as a joke, especially Slowdive.

Sigur Ros was probably the first band to get positive reviews for having a shoegazing element to their music and ever since 'nu-gaze' shoegazing is now seen as a legitimate and relevant music genre in its own right and poor Slowdive as sonic pioneers influencing bands from across the globe...long after they had disbanded without so much as a recognised obituary in the music press!

Can 'nugaze' improve upon the originals? It's possible, as the originals were flawed, but if authenticity is part and parcel of greatness then it's unlikely, especially when a band's vision is no more than just emulating sound. The Fleeting Joys for example sound far more focussed in sounding like MBV than MBV ever were! But the nugaze bands do sound great and they've given a derided musical genre a lot of overdue respect.

Great soundmixes by the way!

Tamaryn
Cruyff in the bedroom
Belong
Ulrich Schnauss

I listen to a lot of "gazey" bands, yet I rarely come across someone refer to Asobi Seksu, A Sunny Day In Glasgow or The Radio Dept. as "nugaze." It always felt like some needlessly tacked on sub-genre to me. Having that said, I definitely enjoy the more recent shoegaze, as opposed to the bands that created it. I tried to get into the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Catherine Wheel and Ride, but unfortunately for the most part classic shoegaze doesn't sit well with me. Although early Verve is the best incarnation of the band, and A Storm In Heaven is an unequivocal masterpiece. I really ought to listen to Slowdive some more as well, I get the impression I could like them.

And I'll have to join in with Jordan on the whole J-Gaze love; I'm enamoured by Japanese shoegaze, but unfortunately there's so little of it around that my hunger is never satisfied. A few recommendations...

Clams (album S/T 2003)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ6jsCxuR7A

Nanocycle (Something Burning 2007)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3oHpjDLDBY

Lemon's Chair (I Hate? I Hope? 2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2-wHpOpbps

That's just a sample. There're more I like, but those three are the best at their craft by my reckoning. Especially Lemon's Chair; I cannot emphasise enough how epic that band is.

Great mixtapes by the way man. You've got a lot of my favourites there like Asobi Seksu, SVIIIB, Maps, Radio Dept. and even Tamaryn too. Their album The Waves was one of the great unsung albums of last year I felt. Check out Holler, Wild Rose! and their album Our Little Hymnal at some point.

Resplandor are really good http://soundcloud.com/resplandor/sensitive-pre I also love the current electro nu-gaze stuff like A Sunny Day In Glasgow & School Of Seven Bells. But I still prefer the original noisy shoegaze bands like MBV.

If you go to some Nordic country's it like Shoegaze never wen't away.

Serena Maneesh http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT_uwSI01Hc

I'm really pleased that you've started this thread - and that Serena Maneesh are mentioned. This video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jmjpqq8e94 is possibly a better example of nu-gaze than the previous one above. Their album on 4AD (Abyss in B Minor) is absolutely tremendous.

I love Curve too, I saw them many times during the 90s, although live they could be somewhat hit-and-miss. I actually preferred their first tour (with the drum machine) rather than the tour with the full band. Maybe it was because I was in love with the 'Blindfold' & 'Frozen' EPs at the time when I first saw them play at the Manchester Boardwalk (it's no longer there, so don't look for it!).

Ride were another excellent band up to the point of their second album, but I really don't understand why they brought a producer in for their third - the production sounded shocking when compared to their (self-produced) first couple of albums. 'Nowhere' is still a lesson in how to do it properly - generally a much more consistent album than Curve's 'Doppelganger' and 'Cuckoo' albums (although Curve went on to later release some sensational stuff when the music media had moved on to Blur and Oasis...)

Another couple of bands which aren't mentioned as part of the Nu-Gaze list are Amusement Parks On Fire and My Vitriol. I have a couple of albums by them which sound pretty good. In the latter's case, I couldn't stop playing that album for months after I'd bought it.

I think that overall, it's pretty hard to compare Shoegaze with Nu-Gaze. Sure, there are lots of similarities in the sound. The production and quality of songwriting & vocals on Serena Maneesh's album are far superior than a lot of the original shoegaze stuff, to be honest, but honestly - how can you beat classics such as Curve's 'Die Like A Dog' & 'Lillies Dying', Lush's 'Thoughtforms' and MBV's 'Sueisfine' ???

Great stuff. Bring back Slough Festival - from memory, it ran for one year only and was a shoegaze fest - Curve, Ride, Slowdive, Chapterhouse - and all for the princely entry price of £6.50!!! No wonder people complain about ticket prices nowadays!!

Much better than Ride, Chapterhouse, etc, who i thought sounded a little wet and now a bit dated. Much more kinship with MBV. Cranes could be on that list, maybe Starflyer 59.

Mahogany are probably my favourite underrated 'new' shoegaze band (although they've been around since the 90's I think). Skywave are pretty great.

My summation: when the original bands were great, they were much better than any of the 'nugaze' acts.....however a few 'nugaze' acts are far more interesting than some of the originals.

Lilys are great though. Listen to Lilys.