Talk:Dream pop/Archives/2014

Influences

I think Gothic Rock should be added as an influence/crossover of some of the artists. JanderVK

citation needed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.20.143.196 (talk) 01:34, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I just read Reynolds' NYT article from 1991. The description of the genre is slightly different:

"Dream pop combines nebulous, distorted guitars with murmured vocals sometimes completely smudged into a wall of noise."

Reminds me of Noise Pop!? But the following sentence is much more interesting:

"Other influences include the ethereal soundscapes of the Cocteau Twins and the fractured "avant-garage" rock of Sonic Youth."

There is this ethereal thing again. It was possibly a bigger influence than traditional Gothrock. Any interviews/oral history?

There is another reference in the Reflex magazine from September 1988. It says:

"...4AD, a company that had corralled all that was gothically ethereal..." [sic!]

...while the dreampop article in Wikipedia claims that the...

"...4AD record label is the one most associated with dream pop..." (unsourced, btw)

I agree with Greg Fasolino. Dreampop is not a subgenre of Ethereal. But like user Caparrzzo02 i also think that Ethereal predates Dreampop and, as an influence, it should be a part of the infobox, right behind post-punk and neo-psychedelia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.244.70.21 (talk) 12:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Origin conflict: Attribute/Coined

The first paragraph is confusing and contradictionary, attributing the term "Dream pop" t o both A.R. Kane ("to whom the term has been attributed") and Melody Maker ("allegedly coined by Simon Reynolds and Chris Roberts").--Piepie (talk) 08:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Deletion (why not?)

I came across this article and am sorely tempted to take it to deletion, it is pure original research, it is not a valid sub-genre of anything, it's not because one guy (in the States) used the term once that it is a musical genre, otherwise we'd have "shitkicking hillbilly" and the like. None of it is referenced and is all pure speculation im my opinion, shoegazing is sufficient, maybe with a sub-section about more ethereal bands. Feedback? CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 17:38, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Tis a vaguely defined sub-genre, it's true. But it is used by both CMJ and SPIN writers as a legit classification (examples [1]). Allmusic also gives it a description page. I'd oppose deletion. (p.s. I'd love to see an article on "shitkicking hillbilly", btw ;)) The Interior (Talk) 17:52, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Vaguely-defined, because it doesn't really exist, this is a classic case of stuff going up on Wikipedia and then (almost) all of the information on the web leeches from the wp website.

I don't know what all those wierd books are that come up on google books but look at this one, it says "source:Wikipedia". And in this article the writer states "No critic-created musical sub-genre of recent years", which just reinforces what I'm saying, it's a purely artificial sub-genre popular with one or two US writers (in the nineties) more or less.

What I object to is the article's knowledgeable tone when all of this is more or less OR and lumps a whole heap of bands together because the author/authors think that they are broadly "dream pop" or were influences. So, merge to shoegazing? CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 19:10, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, when I linked the page above, it was for the CMJ and SPIN reviews, not for the Wiki ripoff "books". Arguably, all genres are created by critics and reviewers. It is through repetition in music mags that terms such as "grunge" and even "rock-and-roll" gained traction. One prob with the article is that it supposes a continuum between late 80's UK groups and the modern Pitchfork scene. Which is perhaps reasonable, but shouldn't be here. Pitchfork itself uses the term quite often, it would be wonderful if the folks over there made a stab at defining it. My preference would be to see this article stripped down to something resembling the Allmusic summation, which is the only remotely concise description I've been able to find. "Shoegaze", judging by our equally unreliable-looking article, is strictly limited to a time and place (late 80's, early 90's UK). The Interior (Talk) 03:25, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh bother, we have an unreferenced list too - List of dream pop artists. The Interior (Talk) 03:26, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh dear, well, let's see what we can do by knocking heads together then. I object to the pure speculation such as the Velvets "Sunday Morning" or Lennon's "#9 Dream" were early influences on dream pop, for example. There are a whole raft of bands in the article that I know nothing about, but for example The Legendary Pink Dots are an experimental, industrial psyched out band and if you visit their page you will see a lot of genres listed that seem to be far removed from dream pop. Maybe we should start by sorting the wheat from the chaff, which would mean visiting the pages of all the bands mentioned to see if they could reasonably be considered "dream pop" (overall defining sound and not just a song here or there). What say you?

Well as to genres and critics, yes and no, sure the critics find names to call the stuff (but not always, I think some of the uk urban music such as Grime named itself) but some stuff evolves due to artists evolving towards a different sound and so you get Acid House, Hard House, Deep House and so on. Madchester for example was a critic defined genre that lumped together disparate bands and then a load of other people jumped on the bandwagon so it became a movement, albeit briefly. I think "dream pop" was one of those things that didn't really stick and a lot of the bands wouldn't identify with it. Oh and "shitkicking hillbilly music" would be a great category ;-) CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 13:30, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if this sways anyone's opinion left or right but most if not all major internet radio stations (Rhapsody, Last FM, etc.) have Dream pop as a category. Searching live365 yields more results. Rateyourmusic has Dream Pop as a specific category. --Popoi (talk) 19:19, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

The funny thing is:

In the early '90s, bands such as the Cocteau Twins and their ethereal soundscapes were considered an influence on dreampop (see Reynolds). In the mid-'90s, the influences became the "grandparents of dreampop". The definition of dreampop has changed over the years. First it was described as a melodic variant of noise pop (without the noise) and it was (almost) identical to shoegazing (My Bloody Valentine was one of the earliest bands who were called "dreampop"). A few years later, the '80s influences had become the spearheads of the genre (Chameleons, Felt, Cocteau Twins etc.). The whole thing was redefined. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.244.69.110 (talk) 13:43, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

The inline lists of bands are getting out of hand

These seem to be continually expanding, and in the cast majority of cases are unsourced. I would be inclined to simply remove them. One or two sourced examples is fine but these long lists of original research really drag the article down. --Michig (talk) 05:59, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree. There is, after all, a List of dream pop artists article. We could cut it back to the ones with reliable sources.--SabreBD (talk) 07:49, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Use of the term

The article claims that the term has been used in the 1980s. But why it is so hard to find any sources from this decade? The regular use of the term dates back to 1992. So it seems that most of the '80s forefathers have been labeled retroactively. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.244.70.173 (talk) 17:05, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

A first genre definition appeared in Reynolds book "Blissed out: The Raptures of Rock" in 1990. Couldn't find anything from the '80s. In the book Reynolds describes A.R. Kane as a black variant of The Jesus & Mary Chain, but without the Noise Pop vibe.

In 1992, different magazines started to use the term more frequently (SPIN magazine, Option music magazine, The New Yorker, Newsweek etc.). SPIN, Billboard and other popular magazines didn't use it in 1990/1991. The term is (obviously) an invention of Simon Reynolds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.244.69.110 (talk) 12:12, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

mid-1980s vs. late-1980s

• A.R. Kane (Lollita / Love-Sick)
• Cocteau Twins (Blue Bell Knoll)
• My Bloody Valentine (Isn't Anything)
• Galaxie 500 (Today)
• Bel Canto (White-Out Conditions)

If dreampop is a musical genre, all of these albums could be representative. Do you people agree with me? But all these albums were released in 1987/1988. My question: Why says the infobox "mid-1980s"? Which album from the mid-1980s marks the starting point of the genre? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.244.79.169 (talk) 08:21, 3 June 2014 (UTC)