Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun music Shoegazing, an introspective genre of alternative rock popular in the 1990s which made extensive use of guitar effects
  • verb music To perform in the shoegazing style

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

shoe +‎ gaze

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Examples

  • Buzzing with the synaesthetic beauty of so-called shoegaze forebears, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (pictured above) create swirling anthems that function just fine as daydreams.

    Wired Top Stories 2009

  • Anyway before you know it, there's something called shoegaze and a bunch of bands in the firing line because the music papers need something new to write about and so everyone moved on but it seems time has been rather kinder than expected to the shoegaze bands.

    Drowned In Sound // Feed 2009

  • Bryan Derballa A woman at a block party at Monster Island on Metropolitan Avenue and River Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn Marketing It 's Hard to Be a Hipster Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, trucker hats worn ironically, affection for obscure musical genres like "shoegaze": These are the telltale signs of the species known as the hipster.

    Week in Ideas: Christopher Shea 2010

  • The term "shoegaze," in this context, is more of an instruction than a description - one that applies as much to the audience as it does to the performer.

    The Santa Barbara Independent stories < 2010

  • I'm not sure where year zero would be … For my money The Velvet Underground were probably the first "shoegaze" band, so we we're probably way down the line somewhere.

    FasterLouder.com.au > Australia's leading independent live music hub. Stock up on music and tour news, reviews, gig photos and idle gossip, or bitch to your heart's content in the forums. 2010

  • The term "shoegaze," in this context, is more of an instruction than a description - one that applies as much to the audience as it does to the performer.

    The Santa Barbara Independent stories < 2010

  • The label is associated with the whole "shoegaze" genre.

    Drowned In Sound // Feed 2009

  • Is there ever a worry that you'll be forever pigeonholed by the "shoegaze" connection?

    Drowned In Sound // Feed 2009

  • No musician likes to be trapped in a genre - at the same time I always thought "shoegaze" was one of the more acceptable terms to be associated with simply because you're given a lot of musical freedom.

    Drowned In Sound // Feed 2009

  • How did that effect you and the band at the time and looking back, do you feel that the whole derogatory element of such monikers eventually romanticised the "shoegaze" scene as a musical genre?

    Drowned In Sound // Feed 2009

Comments

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  • this is one of those words where, in Wiktionary's attempt to have a briefly written definition like a paper dictionary, they miss out on explaining what the word means.

    the 90's are 20 years in the past, and this is the first time I heard this word, and wiktionary failed to explain this colour of music to a non-musicblind person.

    the recursive verb definition is the cherry on top of the unclear definition.  

    September 13, 2017