Dream Pop Music Guide: 9 Dream Pop Artists

Dream pop is a style of indie rock and alternative rock that combines elements of post-punk, synth pop, indie pop, noise pop, and psychedelia. The genre has gone through many iterations, beginning with 1980s dream pop bands like My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, Galaxie 500, and A.R. Kane. More recent dream pop successes include Baltimore duo Beach House and the quartet DIIV from Brooklyn, New York.

The dream pop sound is built around a few core characteristics.

1. 1. Emphasis on atmosphere: Classic dream pop records, like My Bloody Valentine's Loveless and Galaxie 500's On Fire, focus less on riffs and more on imposing reverb-drenched atmospheres onto indie pop songs.
2. 2. A mixture of synthesizers and guitars: Dream pop, like many other rock music subgenres, often anchors around guitars, bass, and drums. Yet many dream pop acts—including the Cocteau Twins and A.R. Kane—also add an element of synthesizers and drum machines.
3. 3. Ethereal vocals buried in the mix: Most dream pop albums feature lead vocals on every track, but those vocals are frequently whispery, ethereal, and buried deep within the mix. Lyrics are often abstract and philosophical when compared with other genres.

The dream pop and shoegaze subgenres of indie and alternative rock share many core characteristics. Both feature vocal melodies that recall mainstream pop music. Both augment these melodies with atmospheric soundscapes that may feature reverb, delay, and flanging effects. As such, the terms “dream pop” and “shoegaze” are sometimes used interchangeably by musicians and critics alike.

When distinctions are drawn between dream pop and shoegaze, they often come down to sonic aesthetics. As a general rule, shoegaze music tends to be built around overdriven guitar sounds. Many leading shoegaze bands, like Slowdive, Chapterhouse, and DIIV, emulate the sound of My Bloody Valentine. The band’s guitarist, Kevin Shields, builds layers of sound using a distorted Fender Jazzmaster guitar, which he plays with ample use of the vibrato arm. By contrast, many dream pop records are built around cleaner guitar sounds or keyboard synthesizers. Dream pop albums that use this approach include Bloom by Beach House, the debut album of Asobi Seksu, and the Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack to the Twin Peaks TV series.

Several notable artists stand out within the broader dream pop scene.

1. 1. The Cocteau Twins: One of the earliest dream pop acts, the Cocteau Twins formed in Scotland in 1979. The group's albums, including Head Over Heels (1983) and* Heaven or* Las Vegas (1990), merge Robin Guthrie's guitars and drum machines with the ethereal, sometimes wordless lyrics of vocalist Elizabeth Fraser.
2. 2. A.R. Kane: Well known in dream pop circles for their debut album 69, A.R. Kane imported the electronic textures of dub music into dream pop's musical lexicon. Band founder Alex Ayuli is often credited as the first person to use the term "dream pop" in a recorded interview.
3. 3. Galaxie 500: Showing clear influences from the Velvet Underground and Spacemen 3, Boston's Galaxie 500 offer some of the more minimalist textures of the dream pop scene. From 1988 through 1990, the group recorded one album per year. Those records—Today, On Fire, and This Is Our Music—all stand as seminal dream pop albums.
4. 4. My Bloody Valentine: Formed in Ireland by American-born guitarist Kevin Shields, My Bloody Valentine represents the intersection between dream pop and shoegaze music. Their second album, Loveless (1991), profoundly influenced a generation of guitarists seeking to emulate Shields' loud yet ethereal wall of sound.
5. 5. Mazzy Star: Dream poppers Mazzy Star enjoyed 1990s MTV success with "Fade Into You," a showcase for singer Hope Sandoval's whispery yet powerful vocal turn.
6. 6. This Mortal Coil: Famous for their goth-inspired cover of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren," This Mortal Coil was at times a dream pop supergroup, featuring members of Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, and Pixies.
7. 7. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: This New York combo was among the leading dream pop bands of the 2010s, picking up where My Bloody Valentine and Galaxie 500 left off.
8. 8. Beach House: Hailing from Baltimore, Maryland, Beach House often builds atmospheres using pristine sounds rather than lo-fi drones or cascading electric guitars. Records like Teen Dream (2010) showcase how founders Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally can build textured atmospherics using layers of keyboards and clean guitars.
9. 9. Wild Nothing: Like many forms of music, dream pop spent the 2010s de-emphasizing guitars in favor of synths. Bucking this trend was Wild Nothing, the stage name of songwriter Jack Tatum, who recorded Wild Nothing's guitar-centered debut album, Gemini, while a student at Virginia Tech University.

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