History Main / DreamPop

* All {{Shoegazing}} bands could be associated with dream pop due to the latter's influence on the former and some overlap between the two genres. For some it's reasonable (Music/{{Slowdive}}, which later evolved into the aforementioned Mojave 3, ''possibly'' Music/{{Starflyer 59}}), for others it's just too much of a stretch (Music/MyBloodyValentine are pure shoegazing, Music/{{Lush}} had their moments but too few to actually call them dream pop, Music/{{Ride}} moved into different territory later on).

* Music/{{Joji}}

* Fishmans (Famous Japanese band best known for their big underground popularity from [[ImageBoards /mucore]], started off as [[Main/{{Reggae}} Dub]])

* [[Music/ARKane A.R. Kane]] (the band who [[TropeNamer originally coined the term]] to describe themselves, though their sound also went into AlternativeDance and a [[NeoclassicalZydecoPunkRockabilly a whole lot of other stuff]])

* [[Music/ARKane A.R. Kane]] (this combined with AlternativeDance and a [[NeoclassicalZydecoPunkRockabilly a whole lot of other stuff]])

* Music/TheBlueNile (Though the TropeMaker and Codifier of SophistiPop, they owe a lot of their atmosphere to the Cocteau Twins. Where most Dream Pop bands have a tendency to lean more towards lo-fi, these guys are ''very'' much hi-fi. If The Cocteau Twins grabbed a vocalist that sang like Music/{{Morrissey}}, and stole all of Music/MichaelBolton's synthesizers, you'd have these guys.)

* Music/LisaGermano

* Muisic/{{Air}} (also {{Ambient}} and ElectronicMusic)

* [[Music/ARKane A.R. Kane]] (this combined with AlternativeDance)

* Music/AsobiSeksu, as of their third album. (Their previous two were Music/MyBloodyValentine-imitating {{Shoegazing}}.)
* Music/AzureRay are dream pop, with the [[EchoingAcoustics overwhelming reverb]] replaced by folk and indie influences.

* Music/DreamAcademy (also PsychedelicRock)
* Music/{{Dubstar}}

* The xx are fairly modern, but unmistakably dreamy, breathy, and beautiful.

** Chino Moreno's side project Team Sleep, on the other hand, is mostly DreamPop.

Generally, if someone says "dream pop", they're most likely thinking of bands in TheEighties on the 4AD label, such as Music/DeadCanDance, Music/CocteauTwins, Dif Juz and the genre's own {{Supergroup}}, Music/ThisMortalCoil. These bands represent dream pop's "classic sound" - all instruments and voices soaked in reverb, breathy vocals, introspective themes and creating a wall of sound out of generally sparse instrumentation [[note]]even the more arrangement-heavy dream pop bands like the Cocteaus stuck to the standard guitar-bass-drums-keyboards lineup; only This Mortal Coil really used string sections, and even they stuck to minimal arrangements instead of overproduction[[/note]], adding up to something that, all snarkery aside, is really quite beautiful. Most dream pop bands varied in terms of emotion between [[TearJerker somber and depressing]], [[NightmareFuel terrifying]] and [[SweetDreamsFuel optimistic]]. Still, not every band on 4AD was dream pop (ThePixies, Music/TheBreeders, Colourbox and Throwing Muses were on the label) and not every dream pop band was on 4AD (Cranes, The Passions, Bel Canto, Galaxie 500 and The Dream Academy among many others were on other labels). While dream pop was intially a pretty unified genre, variations on the basic "ethereal soundscapes + pop melodies" formula soon appeared, in particular bands that focused more on guitars than synths. Pretty soon, the genre started splintering into a ton of other subgenres as well: Low went into {{slowcore}}, Mazzy Star smashed together DreamPop, {{Shoegazing}} and PsychedelicRock, Music/LoveSpiralsDownwards went into electronica, and so on.

Dream pop was an important influence on the emergence of {{Shoegazing}}, and starting with TheNineties the two genres began cross-breeding and eventually became indistinguishable. You're not likely to find many DreamPop bands that use the "classic sound" of the Cocteaus or This Mortal Coil anymore, although there are a few new bands, such as Music/BeachHouse, that continue the "traditional" dream pop sound. There aren't many of these, but they're pretty popular amongst indie kids. Instead, there's a ton of bands that are somewhere between dream pop and shoegazing (which in itself could be called DreamPop taken UpToEleven), most likely thrown under the umbrella term "post-rock" - a good example of this would be SigurRos.

* Music/{{Seefeel}}

* [[Music/ARKane A.R. Kane]]

* Music/{{Chapterhouse}}

* Music/TheChameleons

Dream pop is a specific subgenre of AlternativeRock that emerged in the middle of TheEighties, and is commonly associated with the label Creator/FourADRecords. As befitting its name, dream pop lies in the middle between {{Ambient}} music and pop: it borrows the emphasis on ethereal soundscapes typical of the former and applies it to the catchy melodies of the latter. Theoretically this gives it the best of both worlds, since it avoids both ambient's excessive monotony or [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible inscrutability]] and pop's shallower tendencies. In troper terms, it's basically the musical equivalent of SceneryPorn.

Dream Pop. [[SweetDreamsFuel It sounds really lovely and you can fall asleep to it]].

** ''{{FurAndGold}}'' (2006)