Philip Sherburne at Pitchfork:
A monkey in the zoo, defiantly staring down passersby. A woman trembling as she reveals her injuries from a horrific car accident. A lovelorn soul eating ice cream and crying. A masked and helmeted man smashing bottles in a rage room. What these otherwise unrelated moments share: They are all TikToks soundtracked by the forlorn guitars and funereal drums of Duster’s 1997 song “Stars Will Fall.” And they’re just a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of TikToks to which Duster’s patient, ruminative music adds a sprinkle of the sublime. Clips tagged as #dusterband have garnered nearly 18 million views on the app, a level of visibility that has helped the onetime cult act rack up nearly four and a half million monthly listeners on Spotify—more, notes The Guardian, than Sonic Youth and Pavement combined. Not bad for a lo-fi band that broke up in 2001 without ever cracking the charts.
Duster’s newfound popularity is just one example of how—thanks in large part to social media and streaming—once-marginal ’90s subgenres have found a new generation of fans by swirling together into a vibes-first incarnation of indie rock. It’s all come together underneath the banner of shoegaze, a sound once synonymous with squalling guitars and blissed-out vocals that today has become a vehicle for young people to express uncontainable feelings.
more here.