Waxonia
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Only ShallowMy Bloody Valentine

Independently chosen for3 of our lists. Here is what each of them said.

Released
1991
Label
Creation
On
Shoegaze, The Waxonia Desk — A Way In, and The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Updated
2026-08-29
Search Spotify (platform search — exact link pending) (opens in a new tab)YouTube Music (opens in a new tab)

  1. Ranked No. 1 in Shoegaze

    Four snare hits and then the most disorienting guitar sound ever pressed to record. Kevin Shields bent pitch with a tremolo arm until the instrument stopped behaving like a guitar.

  2. Picked by The Waxonia Desk — A Way In

    Four snare hits and then a wall. Shoegaze is often described as vague; this is the record that shows how precisely engineered the vagueness has to be before it works.

  3. Picked by The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred

    Four snare hits and then a guitar sound nobody has satisfactorily explained since. The loudest record here, and the most delicate.

Analysis

7 sections, no single moment the energy jumps to.

Tempo
112.3 BPM
holds throughout
Dynamic range
4.3 dB
compressed hard — very little between the quiet and the loud
Length
3:42
measured from the YouTube master

The record, end to end

energy
drums
bass
vocals
other
  1. 0:00Apeak0
  2. 0:25Bbreakdownbar 12
  3. 1:10Apeakbar 33
  4. 1:22Bbreakdownbar 39
  5. 2:06Apeakbar 59
  6. 2:29Bbreakdownbar 70
  7. 3:14Asteadybar 91

0:00 · A · peak

sits at the top of this record's range · instrumental · one of 4 stretches of the same music (A)

Lasts
0:25
Energy
99
Brightness
69
Density
100
  • drums
  • bass
  • vocals
  • other

Brightness and density are scored against this record's own sections, not against music in general — they say how its parts differ from each other, and nothing about how it compares to anything else.

Separated into parts by a source-separation model, so each lane is the instrument it names.

drums
the drum kit, separated from the mix
bass
the bass part, separated from the mix
vocals
the voice, separated from the mix
other
everything else — synths, guitars, keys, strings
peak
sits at the top of this record's range
breakdown
energy falling away mid-record, percussion thinning
steady
holding a level — the groove, neither rising nor falling
Every moment against every other. Squares on the diagonal are sections; a bright patch off it is the record recognising itself — the second chorus meeting the first.

Measured from the YouTube master on . Section labels describe how the energy of the recording moves, not its musical form — a machine can see loudness climb and jump, it cannot hear a chorus arrive. Anything we were not confident enough to state is left out rather than shown with a caveat.