Shoegaze (originally shoegazing and also known as dream rock) is a subgenre of indie and alternative rock characterised by ethereal soundscapes, obscured vocals, and extensive use of guitar effects and distortion. Rooted in Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, the Velvet Underground, and psychedelic pop of the 1960s, the genre originated in the late 1980s and early 1990s mainly among British acts who based their sound on groups such as Cocteau Twins, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and My Bloody Valentine. "Shoegazing" was coined in 1991 by music executive Andy Ross when describing Moose and first used by the British music press as a pejorative for bands with a motionless stage presence and guitarists who directed their look down towards their effects pedals. It was sometimes used interchangeably with "dream pop".
The original scene developed after the introduction of Kevin Shields' glide guitar technique on My Bloody Valentine's 1988 records You Made Me Realise and Isn't Anything. Concentrated in London and the greater Thames Valley region, its core acts included Ride, Swervedriver, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Lush, and Moose; they often attended each other's concerts, shared producers and labels (Creation and 4AD), and adopted similarly abstract approaches to album artwork. Another journalists' term of derision, "The Scene That Celebrates Itself", was applied to these musicians and adjacent non-shoegaze acts such as Stereolab.
Shoegaze reached its peak in 1991 with the release of My Bloody Valentine's second album, Loveless, but was overshadowed by the rise of the American grunge scene and the following Britpop movement. In subsequent years, a gradual critical reassessment was driven by new listeners discovering the genre through the Internet. Numerous revivals have since emerged in the form of nu gaze (sometimes "second-wave shoegaze") and blackgaze in the 2000s, grungegaze in the 2010s, and zoomergaze in the 2020s. Other music styles, such as witch house, have reconfigured aspects of the genre.
Etymology
Origins The term shoegaze—originally shoegazing—was coined by Andy Ross, who was a part-time Sounds contributor and head of Food Records, the label that promoted Blur. On March 15, 1991, Ross attended Lush's concert at the Venue in New Cross with his then assistant Polly Birkbeck, where Blur and Moose also performed as support. According to Birkbeck, Ross jokingly referred to Moose as "shoegazers" after noticing vocalist Russell Yates continuously looking down at his shoes during the set; guitarist Kevin McKillop later explained that Yates was actually reading lyric sheets placed on the floor as he couldn't remember them. According to writer Ryan Pinkard, an erroneous story claimed that Ross introduced the word "shoegazing" in a live review of the concert published in Sounds. Polly Birkbeck and Nathaniel Cramp (founder of Sonic Cathedral), whom Pinkard interviewed for his book on shoegaze, confirmed that no such review existed in issues of Sounds from that period.
The earliest confirmed print use of the term appeared in the May 25, 1991, edition of NME, where Steve Lamacq, announcing Slowdive's third EP, Holding Our Breath, referred to the band as "shoe-gazers". This use predated Ross's recollection in his 2016 HuffPost article, in which he stated that he pitched "shoegazing" to Lamacq and fellow NME writer Simon Williams over lunch on October 9, 1991, after Sounds was shut down and he no longer had a publication in which he could promote his "groundbreaking genre". According to Pinkard, the appearance of the term in print several months earlier than Ross's conversation with Lamacq and Williams suggested a problem with Ross's timeline, with the most likely explanation being that he "got the dates wrong".
Criticism The term shoegaze was initially used as a pejorative, which led to several musicians and journalists promptly criticizing it. Ride's Mark Gardener stated that the term was an "English label", that wasn't known in Japan and America, he criticized the term for inaccurately representing "passionate" groups as apathetic and compared the style to the Velvet Underground who "could stand still and make a load of noise". Among first-wave shoegaze bands, "shoegazing" was also divisive, even more so than the term "The Scene That Celebrates Itself", coined a few weeks later by Steve Sutherland in Melody Maker on June 8, 1991, in a live review of Moose's concert at the Camden Underworld. In the 2000s, the term "shoegaze" lost its negative connotations after the genre was reassessed amid a revival driven by new listeners discovering the music on the internet.
British music journalist Paul Lester stated, "All bands hate labels, but with shoegaze, the sense of derision was factored into the name from the word go". Music journalist Chris Roberts stated that the term was "a throwaway comment in the pub", adding "It's such a lame name, and it doesn't even work as an umbrella term. I mean, loads of bands from other genres look at their feet. Pink Floyd stared at their shoes. Does that make them shoegaze?". Musician Greg Ackell cited bands such as the Cure and the Jesus and Mary Chain as being "pretty fucking still on stage", noting that the Velvet Underground showcased "that kind of stoic, backlit presence". Jim Reid of the Jesus and Mary Chain opined that shoegaze "doesn't actually exist" and that "it was some clown at the NME [who] made that up".
Characteristics
Sound
Shoegaze combines ethereal, swirling vocals with layers of distorted, bent, or flanged guitars to create a wash of sound where no instrument is distinguishable from the others. To achieve this, shoegaze musicians often employ a wide range of effects pedals, including reverb, delay, chorus, tremolo, and distortion.
According to Pitchfork, shoegaze is "above all else" a space for exploring the outer edges of guitar texture, and emotionally it turns inward—it's "music for dreaming". Although shoegaze has at times been used interchangeably with dream pop, the two are distinct. Galaxie 500 founder Dean Wareham explained the difference, noting that "shoegaze bands are more of an assault, a wall of sound", while dream pop allows "more room for melody and counter-melody, whether on vocals, keyboards, or guitars."
Visual style According to Victor Provis the visual style of shoegaze album covers and music videos reflected its music. He wrote that the genre developed "an artistic code based on close-ups of objects, to the point of losing their definition and becoming nothing more than coloured, amorphous blotches"; it also often incorporated "fusions of images, projections, colour filters, and swirling cameras". Meanwhile, Rolling Stone Australia, when placing Loveless in its "100 Best Album Covers of All Times" list, noted that abstraction was a common visual aesthetic for turn-of-the-1990s shoegaze bands, including My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive, and Swervedriver. Slowdive's member Simon Scott considered that "Robert Smith, when he was in Siouxsie and the Banshees playing guitar [on the 1983's Nocturne live video], was the coolest as he just stood there and let the music flood out", which was like anti showmanship.
History 1960–early 1980s: Roots and early influences
Shoegaze traces its roots to Phil Spector's Wall of Sound technique, along with the psychedelic pop pioneered in the 1960s by bands such as the Byrds, the Beach Boys, and the Beatles.: "... there was a rediscovery of the psychedelic pop of the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Byrds." Songs such as "Tomorrow Never Knows" (1966) and "It's All Too Much" (1969) by the Beatles, as well as "All I Wanna Do" (1970) by the Beach Boys have been retrospectively viewed as early predecessors of the genre. Other influences include the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, MC5, and the garage rock compilation albums Nuggets and Pebbles.
Additionally, writer Vernon Joynson cites David Bowie's song "Heroes" (1977) written by Bowie and Brian Eno, as showcasing "the type of noisy production with distorted and reverberated guitars and a dreamy hazy atmosphere all of which became key ingredients of shoegaze". Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Cure are equally formative influences.
1982–1988: Origins
As a music genre, shoegaze developed in the 1980s, when a group of Scottish and Irish bands such as Cocteau Twins, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and—most notably—My Bloody Valentine reimagined the sound of the electric guitar, combining contrasting sonic textures with dreamy vocals that challenged the idea of the singer as the central figure of the band.
Emerging from the UK alternative scene with their 1982 debut album, Garlands, on 4AD, the Scottish trio Cocteau Twins had a substantial influence on the development of shoegaze. Their music featured ethereal, atmospheric guitar textures crafted by guitarist and producer Robin Guthrie, alongside Elizabeth Fraser's distinctive, often unintelligible vocals, which were mixed low in the recordings. Another Scottish group, the Jesus and Mary Chain, is credited as the immediate forerunner of shoegaze. Blending conventional pop with noise and guitar feedback, their 1985 debut album, Psychocandy, exerted a major influence on the subsequent shoegaze bands, including My Bloody Valentine, with Creation Records founder Alan McGee noting that the latter "changed their style because of The Jesus and Mary Chain.": "« Les Jesus And Mary Chain ont eu une influence énorme sur le son de My Bloody Valentine et ce qui est connu maintenant sous le nom de scène shoegaze. Je pense même que My Bloody Valentine a changé leur style à cause de Jesus And Mary Chain » admet Alan McGee."
Parallel to this, groups such as Spacemen 3 and Loop revived elements of 1960s space rock in their first albums (Sound of Confusion, 1986; Heaven's End, 1987), exploring minimalist, droning psychedelia over conventional pop structures. According to Peter Kember, Spacemen 3 "could be called a shoegaze band" due to their lack of "stage moves" and focus on their own sound rather than how they were "trying to look".: "Sonic Boom: Spacemen 3 could be called a shoegaze band by the fact that we did not have any stage moves. ... It was all about the sound we were trying to create and not how we were trying to look."
Across the Atlantic, American indie bands such as Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and Hüsker Dü also helped shape shoegaze's guitar language, particularly influencing My Bloody Valentine. In 1988, after several stylistic and lineup changes, the group released their breakthrough third EP, You Made Me Realise, on Creation Records, which showcased frontman Kevin Shields' newfound approach to guitar playing, known as "glide guitar". Later that year, their debut album, Isn't Anything, was critically acclaimed and credited with establishing the shoegaze genre.
Other late-1980s British bands such as A.R. Kane, The House of Love, Kitchens of Distinction, Bark Psychosis, and The Telescopes were also credited with contributing to the sound that would later develop into shoegaze.
1989–1996: Prominence and decline
Rise of the scene Shoegaze began to emerge as a distinct music scene in late 1989 and came into full view in 1990. Ivo Watts-Russell signed Lush and Pale Saints to his record label 4AD after seeing them both perform at the same concert at The Camden Falcon in April 1989. In September 1989, 4AD released Pale Saints' first EP, Barging Into the Presence of God, followed by Lush's debut mini-album Scar. Both records produced by John Fryer—who had previously worked with Cocteau Twins—were well received by the British music press and each reached number 3 on the UK Indie Chart. In December, Pale Saints and Lush played a co-headlining show in Leeds, which received a mixed live review from Melody Maker.