Shoegaze
Shoegaze is a subgenre of indie and alternative rock characterised by ethereal soundscapes, obscured vocals, and extensive use of guitar effects and distortion, often producing an immersive "wall of sound". The style originated in the UK, particularly in London and the greater Thames Valley region, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The term was coined by music executive Andy Ross and was later used by the British music press to describe shoegaze bands' motionless stage presence, during which musicians directed their look down toward their effects pedals.
A British music-press label applied to shoegaze bands and affiliated artists in the early-1990s London club scene was "The Scene That Celebrates Itself". Artists that were associated with the Scene drew primarily from dream pop band Cocteau Twins, as well as from the sonic template established by My Bloody Valentine on their 1988 EP You Made Me Realise and their debut album Isn't Anything.
The genre 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 the 2000s, shoegaze experienced a revival. During the 2010s, the offshoot blackgaze emerged, while unrelated music styles, such as witch house, adopted aspects of shoegaze's atmosphere. In the 2020s, the revival was spearheaded by Gen Z artists, sometimes referred to as "zoomergaze".
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, 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
Several musicians and journalists promptly criticized the term. 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", nothing that the Velvet Underground showcased "that kind of stoic, backlit presence".Among first-wave shoegaze bands, "shoegazing" mostly often derisive, 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.
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 colored, amorphous blotches"; it also often incorporated "fusions of images, projections, color 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 , 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.Songs such as "Tomorrow Never Knows" by the Beatles: "Adam Franklin: I feel like the template for shoegaze is probably 'Tomorrow Never Knows' by the Beatles." and "All I Wanna Do" 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" 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 where 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."
Parallel to this, groups such as Spacemen 3 and Loop revived elements of 1960s space rock in their first albums, 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".
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. 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.In 1990, Ride emerged at the forefront of the shoegaze movement. After signing with Creation Records the previous year, the group released three consecutive EPs—Ride, Play, and Fall—followed by their debut album Nowhere. Their televised performance of "Drive Blind" on Snub TV, which coincided with the release of their first EP, helped bring the band to wider attention. Melody Maker and NME critics praised Ride's blend of dense guitar textures and melodic songwriting, while Nowhere—mixed by producer Alan Moulder after a troubled recording process—became one of the genre's defining works.
In February, Pale Saints released their debut album The Comforts of Madness, which NME described as having "absolutely no stinkers." That same month, Lush issued the Mad Love EP, produced by Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie, whose mentorship refined the band's once-chaotic sound into a polished, "beautiful, primitive" record, according to a Melody Maker review. In April, Creation released My Bloody Valentine's Glider EP, including the track "Soon", which reached number 2 on the UK Indie Chart and was later described by Brian Eno as "the vaguest music ever to have been a hit." The label also released debut EPs by Swervedriver and Slowdive, the latter earning Melody Maker's "Single of the Week."
Meanwhile, The Boo Radleys released their debut album Ichabod and I on Action Records, which received little attention from the press. Chapterhouse followed with the Freefall and Sunburst EPs, while Lush's Sweetness and Light EP demonstrated shoegaze's pop potential despite Melody Makers critique of its title track as "sorely over-produced". The year's end also saw Swervedriver's Rave Down EP, which bassist Adi Vines described as "ethereal metal" after it earned praise in a heavy metal magazine.
By the end of 1990, shoegaze had gained significant underground traction. John Peel included three Ride songs on his year-end Festive Fifty list. Ride's Nowhere appeared in Melody Makers Top 30 albums of 1990, while My Bloody Valentine's Glider, Ride's Fall, and Lush's Mad Love featured in the magazine's year-end singles poll.