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If you’re like us, you’re probably pretty darn excited about the news that a new My Bloody Valentine album might be out by the end of the week — after all, we’ve been waiting for new material from the shoegaze luminaries since 1991. To celebrate the possibility that the wait might finally be over, we thought we’d take a look back at shoegaze in all its reverb-laden, hypnotic glory. We’ve flipped lovingly through our record collection to pick ten essential examples of the genre, both old and new, encompassing both the 4AD/Creation-centric glory days of the early 1990s and the nu-gaze revival that started a few years back and continues to this day. But this list is just an introduction, so let us know what you’d add.

My Bloody Valentine — Isn’t Anything

If we’re going to start somewhere, we may as well start with the classics. Because Loveless gets a shitload of (entirely deserved) plaudits, My Bloody Valentine’s debut album tends to get somewhat overlooked by comparison, so we’re including it here for the sake of posterity. The opening track, “Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside),” pretty much defines the band’s sound, combining a bassline that’s both driving and catchy with stabs of distorted guitar and a decidedly hummable melody.