Shoegaze is a subtle, spacey sub-genre of rock that is often overlooked. Even though it started sometime around the '90s, it deserves just as much recognition as beloved older movements.
Shoegaze was pioneered by bands such as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Dinosaur Jr., Lush and My Bloody Valentine. Characterized by layered sounds, the movement’s name comes from musicians looking down at their effects pedals, making them seem like they're looking at their shoes.
It's not just layering the sounds that lends shoegaze its signature sound — it's reverb and tons of distortion. All of these noise effects saturated over repeated riffs give shoegaze its distinctive quality. Shoegaze can best be described as a comfortable, cloudy, overcast day. Try picturing a cloud of amplifier effects over solid rock music and you'll get a rough idea.
Whether you liked it or hated it, the shoegaze genre quietly faded away, much like its songs. But in the 2000s, shoegaze saw a comeback, which was dubbed “nu-gaze,” and the movement has persisted into the 2010s, often known as "nu-nu gaze."
Here are some bands that could be categorized as “nu-nu gaze,” and are definitely more palatable to a wide audience:
Unknown Mortal Orchestra — Many of Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s older releases can be considered the brainchild of nu-gaze movements. The vocals sound distant and muffled behind loud, ambient noise. Their signature sound can be heard in songs like “Ffunny Ffrends.”
Tame Impala — Ambient rock at its finest, Tame Impala is pretty close to shoegaze. The vocals are layered to the nines, and the instrumentation might as well be on reverb cloud nine. Songs with strong shoegaze influence include “Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything That We Could Control," “Apocalypse Dreams” and “Solitude Is Bliss.” Pretty much any Tame Impala song has a bridge soaked with distorted, reverberated effects.
Grizzly Bear — While you might know them as “quirky Apple commercial” music, Grizzly Bear’s discography is more than that. They definitely use a lot of reverb in songs such as "Half Gate" and "Yet Again," both tracks from the band's 2012 release "Shields." While many would consider this band hardly shoegaze, there are definitely traces of the movement's influence. Grizzly Bear should probably be categorized as “acoustic shoegaze.”
Nu-nu gaze revives the shoegaze movement of decades past, but with subtle differences. Most notably, instead of guitar riffs being drowned out by effects such as reverb, the vocals are ensconced in ambient sound.