Genre Analysis: Dream Pop

Dream Pop, a sub genre of alternative rock, is a genre that focuses on sonic textures as much as melody (AllMusic, 2018). This genre features "combines nebulous, distorted guitars with murmured vocals sometimes completely smudged into a wall of noise" (Reynolds, 1991). It's also famous for it breathy vocals, and heavily processed and reverberant guitars and synthesisers (AllMusic, 2018). Commonly in dream pop music, the lyrics "celebrate rapturous and transcendent experiences, often using druggy and mystical imagery" (Reynolds, 1991). A few favourite Dream Pop artists of mine are The Holydrug Couple, Beach House, and DIIV.

History

Dream Pop emerged in the mid 80s and commonly associated with the UK label, 4AD Records (TV Tropes, 2018). From Reynold's article, he described dream pop bands and artists as a wave of hazy neo psychedelic groups (Reynolds, 1991), with also a Rolling Stones article describing dream pop to have originated from the early works of the Cocteau Twins in the early 1980s, (Grow, 2014). Because dream pop music often come from experiences with drugs and the desire of escaping reality, all this comes from the political times and the hardships most artists faced in the 80s. A lot of independent artists used to live off unemployment benefits and because Government didn't approve of this "dole culture", bands and artists were pressured into sponsored job training programs, (Reynolds, 1991), so producing dream pop was an escape for these artists.

Bands like the Velvet Underground is said to be one of the most influential bands in the development of dream pop as they were known for experimenting with their tones, textures and repetition rather than focusing on song structure, (Wiseman-Trowse, 2008). Ambient pop in the 1990s, which was known for its electronic textures, was an extension of dream pop and also started to develop the shoegazer movement, (AllMusic, 2018). Because dream pop has now been mashed with other genres such as shoe gaze, psychedelic rock and other genres, it's hard to find dream pop bands in today's age that has the classic dream pop sound but there are still some bands out there, like Beach House who still produces traditional elements of dream pop (TV Tropes, 2018).

Characteristics

The characteristics of dream pop include having processed guitars and synthesisers, heavy use of echo and reverb with the vocals to give a celestial atmosphere and having an overall emphasis on hallucinogenic experiences (TV Tropes, 2018). This genre's sound can also be described as blurry or nebulous because of the murmured vocals and the entire mix can sound like a wall of noise; a style pioneered by American artists like Husker Du and Dinosaur Jr (Reynolds, 1991). Dream pop also tends to more on the mood or atmos of the song as well as creating unique textures rather than focusing on riffs or any lead instrumentation (Bogdanov, 2001). The lyrics also play an important part in dream pop songs as they typically talk about escaping reality or introspective themes, which helps with portraying transcendent or hallucinogenic experiences through the music. Listen to a couple of dream pop tracks below:

Red Moon - The Holydrug Couple (One of my favourite songs of all time)

Other People - Beach House

Sometime - DIIV

Bibliography

AllMusic. (2018). Dream Pop. Retrieved from https://www.allmusic.com/style/dream-pop-ma0000012303

AllMusic. (2018). Ambient Pop. Retrieved from https://www.allmusic.com/style/ambient-pop-ma0000012263

Bogdanov, V. (2001). All Music Guide to Electronica. 4th ed. San Francisco: Backbeat Books.

Grow, K. (2014). Dream Team: The Semi-Mysterious Story Behind the Music of 'Twins Peaks'. Retrieved from https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/dream-team-the-semi-mysterious-story-behind-the-music-of-twin-peaks-78506/

Reynolds, S. (1991). POP VIEW; 'Dream-Pop' Bands Define the Times in Britain. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/01/arts/pop-view-dream-pop-bands-define-the-times-in-britain.html?pagewanted=1

TV Tropes. (2018). Dream Pop. Retrieved from https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DreamPop

Wiseman-Trowse, N. (2008). Performing Class in British Popular Music. [Place of publication not identified]: Springer (https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=egeMDAAAQBAJ&rdid=book-egeMDAAAQBAJ&rdot=1&source=gbs_vpt_read)