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What is Shoegaze?

Shoegaze is a subgenre of music deriving from Indie music and Alternative Rock. Often marked by distorted and layered guitars, the genre is described as a wall of sound. Seeing a resurgence over the last five years, many artists use it as a tool alongside their other music. Short-form content sites such as TikTok have platformed a lot of these artists, reeling new listeners in through snippets. In most cases, the build-up to the climax means a lot of new listeners would skip the song before it got to that point. Tiktok allows artists to showcase the highlights of the song, drawing in those listeners who haven’t engaged in the past. Shoegaze is a priority genre for this page, so a lot of artists that we cover will have elements of the sound in their music.

Examples of popular artists who use Shoegaze

Shoegaze is generally considered to have started in the late 1980s. My Bloody Valentine were one of the first major artists with this sound. Their album ‘Loveless’ was released in 1991 and is considered a classic by many. ‘Just for a day’ by Slowdive was released at a similar time, these two albums show the rise in popularity for the genre.

Despite this, the genre hasn’t always maintained a stream of popular artists. Two notable artists from the 2000s that incorporated Shoegaze into their music were Deftones and Mazzy Star. Both artists did this in very different ways, but at its core the elements were present in both styles of music.

In the present day, there aren’t many major artists who are using Shoegaze often. This doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of smaller artists making amazing music within the genre.

Why we want to cover this genre

Shoegaze is a staple of Alternative music. Many artists who we wish to cover on this page are influenced heavily by the genre. You will often see an overlap for artists who make Indie Rock fall into this category too. The same way Dream Pop and Bedroom Pop quite often go hand in hand. Artists who use the psychedelic sound may also fall into this genre at times but in a lot more melodic fashion. Even if we can’t cover a whole artist on the page, we will still be doing standout tracks if we come across songs that deserve a page.

Artists on this page that use Shoegaze