What is Shoegaze and Dream Pop?

I Went to a Shoegaze Concert and Got Heavy Metal...

So you're asking what is shoegaze? You've either never heard the term, or you've heard your sensitive, yet really chill friend mention it in conversation. Shoegaze is defined as music that is so chill that when played live, all the band members find themselves staring at their shoes and standing in one spot - i.e. shoegaze.

Dream Pop is similar to shoegaze and has emerged from shoegaze. Dream Pop is described as an atmospheric subgenre of alternative rock that relies on sonic textures as much as melody. It often features breathy vocals and processed, echo-laden guitars and synthesizers, according to allmusic.

More often than not, all shoe gaze uses a ton of reverb over some guitar that's echoed and played in arpeggios. A great example of shoegaze is the band known as Turnover. Coming from the United Kingdom in the late 1980s, its a sub division of indie and alternative. Lots of effects, including distortion, feedback, and overwhelming volume. 

​Another genre that stems from shoegaze is acid punk. And I know, I'm starting to lose you now, but hold tight. They actually all sound a little different. Acid Punk also originates from the UK and is better known as neo-psychedelic nowadays. A number of bands have bridged the way for what it is today. Bands like Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Velvet Underground, and The Cure.

​The shoegaze bands of today, as of 2019, are Turnover, Hatchie, Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, and Swervedriver, just to name a few that are really worth listening to.

Quinn Moreland of Pitchfork talked with Hatchie, otherwise known as Hariette Pilbeam, an indie rock artist that is said to have a sound like the Cranberries and is redefining the dream pop/shoegaze genre....

​What is it about dream pop and shoegaze that appeals to you?
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I was initially drawn in because I couldn’t even figure out how they made the sounds. I’m not very good at guitar; I can’t create those sounds! I liked that it was different from anything I’d ever heard before. Like, it doesn’t necessarily matter what the lyrics are, but the vocals can still be the most beautiful part of the song. I liked that it doesn’t sound like there’s a singer and a guitarist and a drummer—it’s all just like this wall of sound.


​​Is subverting the pop-star ideal important to you?

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That’s definitely something that I’ve thought about a lot over the last couple of years. When I was in my early teens and toying with the idea of maybe wanting to be a singer one day, I was like, “Oh, but I don’t want to be a pop star. I’m not like that. I don’t look like that, I don’t sing like that. I don’t want to be like that.” I legitimately thought that was the only option. But when I got a bit older I discovered artists like Kate Bush or Siouxsie Sioux and I realized that you don’t have to be a pretty girl. You don’t have to sing about a guy breaking your heart to be a female singer. You don’t have to wear a dress.

​“All of my songs usually start with a couple of lines that are very true, things that I think and write in my diary, and then the rest of the song isn’t really necessarily about me,” Pilbeam explains at a Lower East Side cafe, as two women behind us balance a point-and-shoot camera atop a stool to execute the perfect selfie."

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