The genre reached its peak in the early 1990s, particularly in the UK's underground rock scene, but was soon sidelined by American grunge and early Britpop acts, leading many bands to break up or reinvent their sound.[1] By the 2000s and 2010s, shoegaze experienced a revival, which was later known as "nu gaze",[18][19] and led to the emergence of fusion genres such as blackgaze,[20] and influenced several internet microgenres such as chillwave, shitgaze[21] and witch house.[22]
Shoegaze genre combines ethereal, swirling vocals with layers of distorted, bent, or flanged guitars,[3] creating a wash of sound where no instrument is distinguishable from another.[1] It is primarily characterised by its emphasis on dense sonic textures, extensive use of guitar effects, and subdued vocal delivery.[1][23]
The genre is typically "overwhelmingly loud, with long, droning riffs, waves of distortion and cascades of feedback. Vocals and melodies disappeared into the walls of guitars".[1] According to Pitchfork, "emotionally, shoegaze turns its focus inward. The extreme noise eliminates the possibility of socializing while the music is playing, leaving each member of the audience alone with their thoughts. It's music for dreaming".[24] It is sometimes conflated with dream pop.[25][26] Early UK shoegaze was influenced by American bands such as Dinosaur Jr., Hüsker Dü and Sonic Youth.[27]
A defining characteristic of shoegaze is its use of heavily processed electric guitars. Guitarists often employ a wide range of effects such as reverb, delay, chorus, tremolo, and distortion to produce a layered and immersive wall of sound.[28] A notable technique within the genre is the use of the "glide guitar", developed by the Irish-English band My Bloody Valentine, in which pitch bends are achieved via the whammy bar during chord strumming to create a woozy, undulating effect.[28][29] These textures are frequently described as blurred or atmospheric and are designed to blend seamlessly, creating a continuous sonic field.[30]
Imagery
A significant portion of early shoegaze output was released as extended plays (EPs), often consisting of three to five tracks.[31] This format enabled artists to develop and showcase their sound without the constraints of full-length albums. EPs served as important entry points for new listeners and were regarded as accessible representations of a band's stylistic identity.[32]
Visually, shoegaze releases often incorporate abstract or distorted imagery in album artwork and music videos, mirroring the genre's sonic qualities. Effects such as overexposure, blur, and color inversion are commonly used to complement the music's atmospheric qualities. Many notable early shoegaze bands featured both male and female members, contributing to a broader range of vocal timbres and a balance of musical sensibilities. Mixed-gender vocal interplay became a common feature in several influential acts.[28]
A notable pattern within shoegaze is the frequent use of band and release names containing phonesthemes—clusters of sounds that evoke movement or fluidity (e.g., Swirlies, Swervedriver, Whirlpool, Swoon). According to a study written by Zac Smith, this trend has been interpreted as an unconscious branding strategy that reflects the genre's emphasis on swirling, indistinct textures and fluid sound design.[28]
According to Pitchfork, shoegaze is "a particularly unusual genre in that its name describes neither a sound nor a connection to music history".[33] The name comes from the heavy use of effects pedals, as the performers were often looking down at their pedals during such concerts.[34]
In a 2016 article for HuffPost, Andy Ross claimed he coined the term shoegazing at a show on 3 September 1991 which featured Chapterhouse, Slowdive and Moose, because the bands' members seemed to be "sucked into a state of trance by the footwear lurking semi-motionless beneath their low-slung guitars".[35] Alternatively, The Guinness Who's Who of Indie and New Wave Music (1992) claimed that the first use of the name was in a concert review for Moose, published by Sounds, in which the author referenced how singer Russell Yates read lyrics taped to the floor throughout the gig.[36]
According to AllMusic: "The shatteringly loud, droning neo-psychedelia the band performed was dubbed shoegaze by the British press because the band members stared at the floor while they performed".[1] The term was also used by the British music press to describe dream pop bands.[37]Slowdive's Simon Scott found the term relevant:
I always thought 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. That anti showmanship was perfect so I never really understood why people began to use "shoegaze" as a negative term. I think if Slowdive didn't stand there looking at what pedal was about to go on and off we'd have been shite. [...] I am glad we were static and concentrated on playing well. Now it is a positive term.[38]
However, to some, the term was considered a pejorative, especially by a part of the English weekly music press who considered the movement as ineffectual, and it was disliked by many of the groups it purported to describe.[3]Lush's singer Miki Berenyi explained:
Shoegazing was originally a slag-off term. My partner [K.J. "Moose" McKillop], who was the guitarist in Moose, claims that it was originally leveled at his band. Apparently the journo was referring to the bank of effects pedals he had strewn across the stage that he had to keep staring at in order to operate. And then it just became a generic term for all those bands that had a big, sweeping, effects-laden sound, but all stood resolutely still on stage.[3]
Ride's Mark Gardener had another take on his group's static presentation: "We didn't want to use the stage as a platform for ego... We presented ourselves as normal people, as a band who wanted their fans to think they could do that too".[15]
American underground bands Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.,[51] and Pixies were also cited by various shoegaze bands as touchstones for their respective sounds.[43][44][56][57] Also, Galaxie 500 were initially associated with the original shoegaze scene but were later seen as "heartbreakingly apart".[58] They would go on to be influential in the development of slowcore and dream pop.[59]
Scottish band Cocteau Twins (pictured in 1986), helped define what would become known as shoegaze, credited by The Guardian with the development of "a sound that would become the gold standard for enigmatic, ethereal indie-pop".
Although the term didn't yet exist, the Scottish band the Jesus and Mary Chain is where the genre "shoegaze" broke ground.[61] In 1985, they released their debut album Psychocandy, which mixed traditional pop with noise and guitar feedback. It had a major influence on alternative rock and encouraged bands to experiment with loud, distorted sounds.[62][63] Another prominent Scottish group who played a key role in the underground music scene and helped define what would become shoegaze were Cocteau Twins.[64][65] In a 2009 interview, My Bloody Valentine's frontman Kevin Shields recalled:
Fundamentally, the huge irony with the bands called "shoegazing" was that a lot of those bands really were into the Cocteau Twins. And they all used choruses, flangers and other effects pedals to create a certain kind of sound. Three pedals I refused to use in that era were chorus, flanger and delay. Everything we did was everything but that.[42]
In 1988, My Bloody Valentine released their breakthrough third EP, You Made Me Realise, and their debut album, Isn't Anything.[66] In 1991, their second full-length album, Loveless, was released, becoming the definitive shoegaze album and frequently appearing at the top of "greatest shoegaze album" lists.[17][67]
While many contemporary alternative rock scenes such as grunge and Britpop were largely male-dominated at the time, shoegaze bands including My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Lush, Pale Saints, and Curve, among others, featured at least one prominent female member who contributed significantly to their sound and songwriting. In the 2014 film Beautiful Noise, Kevin Shields noted that "there seemed to be as many girls around as guys" in the shoegaze scene.[68]
The Scene That Celebrates Itself
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a small, close knit community of shoegaze bands emerged mainly in the Thames Valley region (including Oxford, Reading, and London[69]). Key groups such as Ride, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Lush, Moose, and Swervedriver[70] were all part of what became known as the Thames Valley scene, with the exception of My Bloody Valentine.[71][72] They often attended each other’s gigs, shared producers, labels, and even members, forming what was seen as a friendly, self-supporting network rather than a competitive scene.[73]
Well-known meeting spots included Syndrome, a weekly indie club in a basement on Oxford Street, and venues such as the Camden Falcon, the Borderline, and the Underworld. Outside London, shoegaze bands often toured together, and when the music press eventually took notice, the scene was quickly named and sensationalized.[74]
The phrase "The Scene That Celebrates Itself" was coined by Melody Maker' in 1990 in a near-contemptuous gesture, focusing on how bands involved in the scene, rather than engaging in traditional rivalries, were often seen at each other's gigs, sometimes playing in each other's bands and drinking together.[75]
Bands lumped into the 'scene' by the press included several of the bands that were branded with the shoegazing label, such as Chapterhouse, Lush, Moose and other (mainly indie) bands such as Blur (prior to the release of their single "Popscene"), Thousand Yard Stare, See See Rider and Stereolab.[75][76] A prime example were Moose, who often swapped members with other bands on a given night. Moose's Russell Yates and Stereolab guitarist Tim Gane would often trade places, while "Moose" McKillop often played with See See Rider.[77] Gane and his Stereolab colleague Lætitia Sadier even played on the 1991 session by Moose for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show.[78]
The first stirrings of recognition came when indie writer Steve Lamacq referred to Ride in an NME review as "the House of Love with chainsaws".
The shoegaze genre label was quite often misapplied. As key bands such as Slowdive, Chapterhouse and Ride emerged from the Thames Valley, Swervedriver found themselves labelled shoegazers on account of their own Thames Valley origins, despite their more pronounced Hüsker Dü-meets-Stooges stylings.[79]
Decline
The coining of the term "The Scene That Celebrates Itself" was in many ways the beginning of the end for the first wave of shoegazers. The bands became perceived by critics as over-privileged, self-indulgent and middle-class.[3] This perception was in sharp contrast with both the bands who formed the wave of newly commercialized grunge music which was making its way across the Atlantic, as well as those bands who formed the foundation of Britpop, such as Pulp, Oasis, Blur and Suede.[15]Britpop also offered intelligible lyrics, often about the trials and tribulations of working-class life; this was a stark contrast to the "vocals as an instrument" approach of shoegaze, which often prized the melodic contribution of vocals over their lyrical depth.
Many shoegaze bands would either disband or change their sound during the mid-1990s. Ride disbanded before the release of their fourth album, Tarantula, which would shift to a more contemporary alternative rock sound. Slowdive's third album, Pygmalion, would shift to a more experimental sound that was stylistically closer to post-rock than shoegaze. Slowdive would be dropped from Creation Records just a week after Pygmalion's release,[80] and Tarantula would also be deleted from their catalogue a week after its release.[81]
Lush's final album, Lovelife, was an abrupt shift from shoegaze to Britpop, which alienated many fans; the 1996 suicide of their drummer Chris Acland signaled Lush's dissolution. Following a long gap from My Bloody Valentine since Loveless, aside from their 2008 reunion tour, the band released m b v in February 2013. Shields explained their silence by noting, "I never could be bothered to make another record unless I was really excited by it".[82]
While shoegaze briefly flared and then faded out in the UK, the bands of the initial wave had an immense impact on the development of regional underground and college rock scenes in the US.[84] In particular, a Lush and Ride tour of the US in 1991[85] directly inspired the spawning of American shoegaze groups including Drop Nineteens, Half String[86] and Ozean.[87] Columnist Emma Sailor of KRUI in Iowa City opines:
The insularity and introversion of British shoegaze was an intention[al] backlash against their country's mainstream. But when the shoegaze sound was exported to America, it arrived unattached from the cultural context that originally prompted its gloomy moods. The result? American indie bands gave shoegaze an entirely new image. Where the sound once was tightly linked with introversion, it was now attached to summery, outward looking songs with a focus on celebrating youth.[88]
About DC-based Velocity Girl's 1991 single "My Forgotten Favorite", Sailor goes on to note, "Could anything be more different—and yet so similar—to [Slowdive]? The hazy [production] and dreamy, high pitched female vocals are there, but the outlook is entirely different".
Starflyer 59 made shoegaze immediately accessible within evangelical Christian communities throughout the United States.
During the mid 1990s, emerging American Christian rock label Tooth & Nail Records signed Starflyer 59 as one of its first acts. Band frontman Jason Martin, having been inspired by acts like The Cure, The Smiths, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple,[90] led Starflyer 59 to exhibit strong shoegaze influence with its first three projects, all featuring monochromatic cover art: Silver,[a]Gold,[b] and Americana. Despite the chaotic production process of Gold and Martin's dissatisfaction with the album, Gold went on to reach nearly triple the sales of Silver,[91] along with becoming a hallmark of the shoegaze genre, reaching number 41 on Pitchfork's 50 Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time list.[92] Starflyer 59 would later depart from its shoegaze sound, shifting between softer indie rock and modern alternative rock. Although, 2004 studio album I Am the Portuguese Blues features a harder alternative rock sound reminiscient of Starflyer's original shoegaze era. It contains a large portion of fully redeveloped demo work recorded between Americana and following pop-oriented album The Fashion Focus.[93] In 2024, Starflyer 59 released its seventeenth studio album Lust for Gold, designed as a modern, refined tribute to its shoegaze era.
A resurgence of the genre began in the late 1990s (particularly in the United States) and the early 2000s, that helped usher in what is now referred to as the "nu gaze" era.[15] Also various heavy metal acts were inspired by shoegaze, which contributed to the emergence of post-metal and metalgaze styles.[94][95] Particularly in the mid-2000s, French black metal acts Alcest and Amesoeurs began incorporating shoegaze elements into their sound, pioneering the blackgaze genre.[96] The term shitgaze, a microgenre that further developed in the mid-2000s, was originally coined by the Midwestern rock band Psychedelic Horseshit to describe their style of music, with the label becoming one of the earliest examples of an internet microgenre, and later appropriated by wider online music critics and blogs. Notable acts in the scene include the Hospitals, No Age,[97]Times New Viking,[98] and early Wavves.[99][100][101]
2010s–2020s: Revival
In eastern Asia the genre has become increasingly popular with bands such as Cocteau Twins influencing the creation of new "art school" shoegaze.[30] Bands like Tokyo Shoegazer and For Tracy Hyde have increasingly adopted western elements, with some bands combining Indie music with shoegaze and psychedelic rock.[102] Further, since the late 2010s, some artists began prominently incorporating emo themes into shoegaze, with albums like Weatherday's Come In (2019) and Parannoul's To See the Next Part of the Dream (2021) being examples.[103][104]
In the early 2020s, shoegaze experienced a revival among Generation Z, through internet spaces such as TikTok, with newer bands like Julie, Wisp and Fleshwater as well as an influence on digicore artists like Quannnic and Jane Remover. Multiple outlets described this as shoegaze's "revival" or "resurrection".[105][106][107][108] Irish band Fontaines D.C. have commented on shoegaze influences in their sound, particularly My Bloody Valentine; their fourth album Romance was particularly noted for this sound by reviewers.[109][110][111]
↑ Silver was companioned by the following She's the Queen EP, which was included as bonus tracks on its 2005 extended, remastered edition.
↑ Gold was companioned by the following Goodbyes Are Sad 7-inch single and Le Vainqueur EP, which were both included as bonus tracks on its 2005 extended, remastered edition.
↑ Olivier Bernard: Anthologie de l'ambient, Camion Blanc, 2013, ISBN2-357-794151 "L'ethereal wave (et notamment les Cocteau Twins) a grandement influencé le shoegaze et la dream pop... L'ethereal wave s'est développée à partir du gothic rock, et tire ses origines principalement de la musique de Siouxsie and the Banshees (les Cocteau Twins s'en sont fortement inspirés, ce qui se ressent dans leur premier album Garlands, sorti en 1982). Le genre s'est développé surtout autour des années 1983-1984, avec l'émergence de trois formations majeures: Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil et Dead Can Dance... Les labels principaux promouvant le genre sont 4AD et Projekt Records".
↑ Walschots, Natalie Zina (26 February 2014). "The Translator". Exclaim!. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
↑ Lesuer, Mike (22 August 2023). "I Miss Shitgaze, Man". FLOOD Magazine. Retrieved 12 October 2025. ..."shitgaze": a rough take on shoegaze where rather than 90 percent of the track being swallowed up by dense reverb, that percentage was instead reserved for ear-splitting lo-fi noise, tape hiss, and, occasionally, campy vocals shouting things like "welcome to hell, puker corpse!"
↑ Lindsay, Cam (31 January 2011). "The Translator". Exclaim!. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
↑ Prown, Pete; Newquist, HP (1 February 1997). "Euro-Pop, Euro-Goth, Euro-Rock". Legends of Rock Guitar. Hal Leonard. p.1996. ISBN978-1-4768-5093-1.
↑ "Shoegaze / Dream Pop". MuzPlay. 17 December 2020. Retrieved 12 October 2025. In a brief and simple way, shoegaze presents a harsher sound, in which the ethereal vocals are buried under layers of guitars, creating nebulous songs. In dream pop, there is more clarity in vocals and melodies, with soft sonorous textures that evoke dreams.
↑ Earles, Andrew (2014). Gimme Indie Rock. Voyager Press. p.189.
↑ Pinkard 2024, p.17: "...the first wave of shoegazers all drew from the same core influences. Specifically, there was a rediscovery of the psychedelic pop of the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Byrds."
↑ Kaldy, Dana (29 April 2018). "The Wall of Sound". Got A Million Rhymes. Retrieved 12 October 2025. Shoegaze is inspired by Phil Spector's wall of sound, stemming from the aspect of overwhelming sound on a song's tracks.
↑ Pinkard 2024, p.18: "Adam Franklin (Swervedriver): I feel like the template for shoegaze is probably ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ by the Beatles. Surely that’s the first shoegaze song, with all those samples and weird horn sounds that are being spliced together."
↑ Allen, Jim (20 June 2024). "How The Beach Boys Became The Godfathers Of Dream Pop". uDiscoverMusic. Retrieved 12 October 2025. This is where the dream pop family tree starts to come into focus. The further you dive into this period in the Beach Boys' development, the more connections you start to see in all the groups that followed them.
↑ Doherty, Kelly (4 August 2017). "15 artists pick their favourite Brian Eno records". The Vinyl Factory. Archived from the original on 14 July 2025. Retrieved 3 December 2024. Peder Mannerfelt: "I would like to argue that Brian Eno not only invented ambient music but also shoegaze with Here Come The Warm Jets…with the final track everything suddenly comes together and the connection is made to what bands like Ride, Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine created in the early nineties."
↑ The Eagle 2023 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFThe_Eagle2023 (help): "Developed from The Velvet Underground’s noisy garage rock, Cocteau Twins’ dreamy, ethereal pop music and The Cure’s gothic, textured sound from the early 1980s, shoegaze grew from a myriad of sounds and artists."
↑ Parys, Bryan (13 September 2019). "Shoegaze Music: 17 Songs That Chart the Genre's History—and Its Future". Berklee College of Music. Retrieved 14 October 2025. While they are often described as shoegaze, the term didn't exist when the band made their hazy experimental masterpiece, Psychocandy. Other bands on this list took these sounds further, but for many, the Jesus and Mary Chain is where the genre broke ground.
↑ The Eagle 2023 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFThe_Eagle2023 (help): "Psychocandy opened up a space where bands could experiment with jarring noise and guitar distortion. A space that would lead to the creation of a new genre: shoegaze."
↑ Pinkard 2024, p.21: J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.): "If one of shoegaze’s defining characteristics is its particular fusion of noise and melody, then the first band you could reasonably accuse of being shoegaze is another seminal Scottish act: the Jesus and Mary Chain."
↑ Pinkard 2024, p.20: Nick Chaplin (Slowdive): "...Scottish trio the Cocteau Twins had a keystone influence on what became shoegaze. This had much to do with their dreamy, atmospheric sound, masterminded by guitarist-producer Robin Guthrie, as well as the otherworldly singing of Elizabeth Fraser, whose unintelligible and frequently nonsensical vocals were buried cryptically deep in the mix. Just try listening to a song like 1983’s “Sugar Hiccup” or 1990’s “Cherry-coloured Funk” and deny their influence on the swirling sounds of Slowdive, Chapterhouse, and Lush."
↑ Parys, Bryan (13 September 2019). "Shoegaze Music: 17 Songs That Chart the Genre's History—and Its Future". Berklee College of Music. Retrieved 14 October 2025. Like the Jesus and Mary Chain, Cocteau Twins helped define what would become shoegaze. Often categorized as dream pop, a related genre that has also seen a resurgence, the band is a titan of the '80s underground music scene, and their influence is far wider than any one genre. While vocalist Elisabeth Fraser's voice is higher in the mix than in most shoegaze bands, her insistence on surrealist or even unintelligible lyrics helped set the stage for music that made listeners pay attention to more than just the words. You can hear Fraser's influence further down the list in Lush, Blonde Redhead, and IAN SWEET.
↑ Green, Eric (2014). Beautiful Noise (film). United States: HypFilms.
↑ Pinkard 2024, p.37: "One theme that helped the press justify grouping the shoegaze bands together was the fact that many of them came from the Thames Valley, a region immediately west of London that includes the towns of Oxford—home of Ride and Swervedriver—and Reading—birthplace of Chapterhouse and Slowdive."
↑ Pinkard 2024, p.5: "After peaking in the early ’90s, the original shoegaze scene—which included core acts Ride, Slowdive, Lush, Chapterhouse, Swervedriver, and Moose—quickly lost popularity and faded into history, only to be rediscovered and gain an outsized influence in the new millennium..."
↑ The Eagle 2023 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFThe_Eagle2023 (help): "Outside of My Bloody Valentine, key groups in the scene included Chapterhouse, Lush, Ride and Slowdive."
↑ Pinkard 2024, p.37: "...the band that forged the genre’s most supreme document, 1991’s Loveless. Yet at the time, they were not part of the shoegaze scene so much as the progenitors of it."
↑ The Eagle 2023 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFThe_Eagle2023 (help): "The unique thing about the shoegaze scene, both musically and socially, is how bands themselves supported each other. The members were friends — they went to each other’s gigs, they drank together, they performed together. The bands didn’t play into rivalries, they celebrated one another."
↑ Pinkard 2024, p.76: "Some of the more well-known meeting points were Syndrome, a weekly indie music club hosted in a basement bar in Oxford Street, and venues like the Camden Falcon, the Borderline, the Powerhaus, and the Underworld. Outside of London, the shoegazers also found themselves being booked on tours with each other. When the music papers inevitably took note, it was only a matter of time before it was given a name and sensationalized."
↑ Stevens, Andrew (11 July 2007). "Leave Them All Behind: The 3:AM Guide to 'Shoegaze' and British Indie Music in the 1990s" 3:AM Magazine. Retrieved 17 March 2013.
↑ Jacobs, Koen (4 September 2008). "Metal Gaze – From My Bloody Valentine To Nadja via SunnO)))". The Quietus. Archived from the original on 12 March 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2012. ...the recent trend for combining metal's sense of threat with the immersive idyll of shoegazing is undeniable, and only one aspect of the ongoing cross-pollination taking place in extreme music. For his part, r views the 'metalgaze' movement as less entropic than cyclical.
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