Prestige Format Picks // 16 May 2025

let's rock out!

Author

Ryan Ruppe
May 16, 2025 • Read this in about: 4 minutes

Whoa, look at those shoes

Fired up my record player for the first time in a while this week

I bought this on clearance at Urban Outfitters more than a decade ago

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless

Legitimately a classic, still rules and is chock-full of noisy earworms. It’s wild how much broader than “shoegaze” is now compared to how it was 34 years ago.

(I also own this on CD)

Morella’s Forest - Super Deluxe

Growing up, I had been convinced that only Christian music was acceptable for listening. This limited my listening options significantly, but thank the Lord for Tooth & Nail records releasing bands who were listening to good music and then making their own at the time. This Morella’s Forest album was my introduction to shoegaze and noise pop and, in my opinion, it still holds up so well. It’s also very much its own thing when it could’ve easily just been a clone of the album above.

this tape has been played A LOT

MxPx - Teenage Politics

I’ve written about this album before, for the Chrindie 95 project about 10 years ago. (Yes there’s also a photo of this exact cassette on some wood grain there.) I know every word to every single one of these songs without thinking about it, and it still rocks. If you like 90s Green Day, you should listen to 90s MxPx.

it’s a CD

(Pretty sure it’s pronounced “goth daddy”) This band is Kevin Robinson from Viva Voce and Jake Endicott from Portland band Oh Darling making something that is pretty close to shoegaze. It ventures heavily into Starflyer 59 territory without biting their style, and has great riffs and huge choruses. A great listen that’s getting a lot of spins over here.

Link it up!

Anamanaguchi announced a new one, which they recorded at the American Football House. The verdict from my anamanaguchi-loving teen is “sounds kinda like Weezer, and I like it”

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