I think smashing pumpkins blended shoegaze and grunge super well especially in their Siamese dream album

Shoegaze is like a manic pixie dream girl and grunge is like the boyfriend who is broke, depressed and probably addicted to some drug

I like bands like Swervedriver, Smashing Pumpkins, Love Battery and Drop Nineteens because they made a kind of fusion of both music styles and sounds interesting. Heavy but dreamy at the same time

I love both genres, but I used to be way more into Grunge when I was younger, nowadays I kinda prefer Shoegaze. Love your channel, keep those videos coming!

I love both grunge and shoegaze. Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, Slowdive, Lush...all fantastic.

Smashing Pumpkins's Gish sounds like the perfect balance between Shoegaze and Grunge for me.

I remember when I was a junior in college in 1994, I bought Soundgarden's SuperUnknown on the day of its release then took the CD with me the next day to France for my semester abroad. The kids in my French host family and I were totally blown away by it and it got a lot of play during that time and by summer it was a huge hit all over Europe. So many good memories... such a good time to be alive and young.

I love both of the genre, but I definitely prefer shoegaze much more due to the wall of sounds, swirls and ethereal voices, the genre itself made a lot of sense to my life in general. I remember getting into my bloody valentine and the shoegaze genre when I turn 18 especially with loveless that changed my life and my musical direction, this was when most people in my age group that I know were listening to fall out boy, my chemical romance, bullet for my Valentine, the killers, arctic monkeys (only to name a few in 2005/6), somehow getting into the shoegaze genre made me step away from the mainstream culture what was happening at the time. Even since them I got into Bands like LoOp, Moose, Lush, Ariel, Ringo Deathstarr, Heroes of Switzerland, slowdive, no joy, nothing etc.

I didn't discover Shoegaze (My Bloody Valentine) until I was 60+ and had thought I had already heard it all. What an awakening that was -- it's never too late to be completely blown away by something!

The Verve (before Urban Hymns) is one of the most amazing and underrated Shoegaze bands of the early 90s and deserves a mention!

Loved the comparison format this video. Shoegaze & grunge will forever be my top genres

I remember discovering Shoegaze in the mid-2000s while falling down into the Pop-Punk, Alternative, Emo pipeline. The depth of the sound and mostly melancholic tone of it spoke to me a lot

I used to looove grunge in high school, I still do, but the more older I get the more I fall in love with shoegaze

Shoegaze & Grunge are both the sonic versions of abstract expressionism that just have two different interpretations on the same kind of melancholy feelings

it was really cool of you to give that shoutout in the intro. no one wouldve been able to tell you were inspired by him if you didnt say it yourself but you still did. really cool of you.

Grunge+Shoegaze is the best combo.

I'm a metalhead, but man, 90s alternative rock genres are so sweet and sick at the same time! I discovered shoegaze few days ago and it immediately reminded me grunge bands. It's funny to shift AIC songs with MBV songs...

Seattle local here, love grunge and shoegaze!! Super awesome to grow up in the area all my favourite bands did too. Great video, and love your channel! I'm looking forward to seeing you grow even more!

Love that you gave Taylor Hawkings a shout out and RIP, and then played a snippet from a song that Dave Grohl famously played the drum parts on.

I’m an original shoegazer, and although I lived through grunge, I have come to love it recently. I can see the beauty in both kinds of fuzzy goodness.

Metalhead at heart, but also a huge Pearl Jam fan since a young age, recently discovered the joy of listening to Soundgarden. Wish I would've found them sooner. R.I.P Chris.

At the time that both genres were emerging, I was absolutely on "Team Shoegaze", being a big fan of MBV, Lush, Ride, Slowdive as well as other related Brit bands like Cocteau Twins, Chapterhouse, Charlatans UK ( as they were referred to here in the U.S. ) and Happy Mondays. As a musician going to jams over the years, some of the Grunge material started making it's way into the "curriculum" of tunes that might come up in the "so, whaddaya wanna play?" back-and-forth during jam sessions, Open Mics, etc. As a result, I started to gain more of an appreciation of some of the Grunge tunes that most people know and play. As of yet, I still don't own any Grunge albums, but I do now have a few dozen songs in the genre that I can honestly say that I like

58 yr old shoegaze fan. Perfect on your selection as top 3. I'd have to say an honorable mention could be arguably the founding band of sg: Cocteau Twins. Great job on grunge as well. Nailed it with AIC's Dirt

Depends on how I'm feeling. And if I wake up with a song in my head. Music is always in my head.

Thank you for your video. Very interesting. I’m truly addicted to MBV. Sometimes I think grunge is the rowdy brother of shoegaze.

I love both, including the fusion of the two which many have called “grungegaze”. There’s a band I like called Slow Crush that emulates this pretty well. Definitely gotta check out that Swervedriver band

I really appreciate the fact you have a part in your description with the songs you used a lot of videos don’t have that and it made looking for them so much easier

I've always liked shoegaze (psychedelic rock as we called this style back in the time) than grunge (noise punk). Growing up back in the late '80s, '90s and '00s. Its all under alt rock category though. Similar. I'm GenXer, in my 40s now. Know a lot of the music. Liked and listened to both. But shoegaze to me was more chill and less angrier than grunge. So I listened to more shoegaze back then.

As a fan of both genres I kinda wish alternative rock had evolved more to incorporate elements of both, kinda like Narrowhead

I think The House of Love's criminally underrated debut album in 1988, not purely a Shoegaze record, but songs like "Christine" are a masterpiece of the genre and deserves some attention.

I just turned 30 so I was born when all these bands were in their prime. I discovered shoegaze about five years ago through a random Spotify playlist and have been hooked ever since. I've always been a fan of electronica, new wave, and post punk. I'm huge sucker for a deep, meloncholic sound and shoegaze hits the mark just right.

Imagine an alternate universe where My Bloody Valentine became the most iconic band of the 90s and Grunge was just in the underground.

My incredibly simplistic take is that shoegaze is music to calm yourself to, and grunge gets you fired up.

I’m a fan of both genres, but I fall more into the grunge side of things. There’s something about the rawness of it that I enjoy a lot. To go even further I’d say I like the softer side of grunge. My favorite Nirvana/AiC albums have to definitely be their MTV Unplugged albums. Literally any of the songs off either of albums are amazing. And if I had to pick some specific Nirvana stuff I’d definitely say About a Girl, All Apologies, or Come As You Are are all great songs that to me are the outliers in their albums because they’re not as “loud” as the others. Anything of the songs off AiC MTV Unplugged is amazing too!

When I was in high school in those years 90s. We just called all of this music as alternative rock. We didn't have half a million terms or subgenres for all of this 😆 . I mean the media did lump a lot of bands as "grunge" but those bands were basically punk rock, garage rock bands from the Pacific Northwest. And shoegaze was pretty much noise rock, very fuzzy psychedelic rock with chill vocals. I guess I liked "shoegaze" more back then. Grunge was ok but came off kinda whiny and angry at times, kinda screamo emo.

I love how our descriptions of shoegaze are close to a perfect match.

Catherine Wheel was probably the best of those types of bands. I'm not sure which genre they fit in but they were talented.

Im a big grunge fan but I've never heard the word shoegaze before, so thanks for educating me. I always appreciate to learn new things about topics I love

I turned 23 in 1991 and my whole life I have loved late 1960s music. Once hearing once Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in chains, etc. my whole life was changed. I finally loved the current bands which represented my generation X status. Everything you said is very accurate and my vote is definitely for grunge in the early 1990s

That one Sweet Trip album is wild it’s like a fusion of shoegaze and edm type stuff

Hey man, can you talk about the album "Dynamo" from Soda Stereo, it's an argentine shoegaze album inspired by Loveless from My Bloody Valentine, it was released in 92 and it's considered the best Soda Stereo album, sadly it isn't very known because it is in Spanish but i think the experience it's still genuine, hope you read this, great content btw

As a fan that was 16 years old at the end of 1991, I loved all these bands. It makes me sort of sad that Spundgarden is best known for Super Unknown. It’s a great CD, don’t get me wrong, but some of their earlier albums are my favorite and very superb. Louder than Love being my favorite. Chris Cornell is my favorite songwriter, but Alice In Chains is my favorite. They put in many great works, both metal and acoustic, I’m a short amount of time. Soundgarden a close very close second for me.

this video is fantastic! not even a minunte in and i was hooked. You packed so much information into a ten mintue video, very well done

I had heard of Dinosaur Jr., My Bloody Valentine, and Jesus & Mary Chain many years ago, but SHOEGAZE as a named style is totally new to me. I came across it February 4, 2023 in a 2022 interview with Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan. He talks about how he wanted to know how Alan Moulder mixed MBV's "Loveless" album. I am a big fan of Grunge and have albums by most of the well known bands. The Smashing Pumpkins are one of my favorite bands of all, up there with Pink Floyd among my obsessions. This morning I ordered copies of the MBV albums Loveless, Isn't Anything, the Compilation of 1988-1991 EPs. I'm taking a deep dive into Shoegaze!

I think that one good example where grunge and shoegaze collided is Hum. Hum is a very underrated grunge/shoegaze band in my opinion. Grunge was more popular back then. It still is nowadays. Kurt is an icon and his image was made a brand, that’s barely arguable. But post grunge received a lot of criticism, and I’d argue that future looks “brighter” in terms of success to shoegaze than to post grunge. Because in 21st century we currently had gone through amazing artists since the late 00’s with bands like LSD and the Search for God to the release of last Slowdive’s album. I really think it is just a matter of time until MBV release something else (I really have high hopes on this!). EDIT: I loved the video, awesome work!! :)

If there's one way i would describe Shoegaze, it'd be comforting.Sometimes It feels like a invisible blanket is covering my body and even my brain giving me a message that everything's going be okay. Other times it feels like a water falls rushing down on my brain...it feels REALLY good when that happens! XD I love all the classic bands of the genre; My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Pale Saints. The lists goes on; despite this I the first Shoegaze song I remember hearing was actually this song called Ginger by Mr. Twin Sister ( or at the time when they made the song, Twin Sister). I say that given how that band has a very different sound for their albums, jumping from Indie Rock, Ambient, House, etc. And other bands like Hazel English and Alvvays being my next discoveries with the classic bands afterwords. Anyways, this video is great! Very nice! :)

That's very interesting. I've never really noticed just how similar the two genres are. No wonder I love both sides. And I'm glad to see the Shoegazing scene re-emerging.

Shoegaze was took a lot of inspiration from late era UK post punk, and mid to late 80’s goth rock; mixing it with some of the alternative sounds coming from the US. Grunge was really more of a meeting between alternative and metal. Nirvana was really rooted in American alternative rock and punk; but the other major grunge bands were all incorporating metal or traditional hard rock to some degree. Which makes it kind of funny that grunge became the genre to define “alternative rock” in most peoples minds.

Great video and spot on. I'm 44 years old and shoegaze and grunge were my era. I was a huge fan of Slowdive, MBV and Nirvana - that was my musical education. Really happy to see these bands still enjoyed by younger generations 🙌

I love both. Moose, Pale Saints, Slowdive , Boo Radleys, MBV and Ride were my favorites

Would love to see this style of video with other genres such as Trip Hop, and Dream Pop, which are both interconnected with Shoegaze.

Love the Mr. Beat shout out! Been a long time fan of him. Glad I found your channel through this video and I look forward to what's to come!:)

I came of age during the early '90s discovering this stuff and looking back with this video something becomes clear. Largely due to geography, Nirvana were quickly labelled "grunge", but that term always evoked a more "produced" masculine and riff centric vibe for me. Aic, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, etc. Great bands but aesthetically very different to Nirvana, who embraced lofi, outsider art themes. Lyrically, Nirvana's north west roaring angst was grunge maybe. But in terms of attitude, production, atmosphere, dress sense, etc, they were really closer to the shoegazing/ indie rock vibe. Obviously I'm not being as facetious as to suggest Nirvana were shoegaze, but when you look at their whole image it's much closer to UK indie/ cardigan/ t shirt culture than the denim, tattooed, goaty grunge vibe.

I love how you mentioned Candy Claws. I feel like they get overlooked. Everyone I've talked to has never heard of them. Ceres & Calypso is such an otherworldy and beautiful record.

I'm aged 60 and although I enjoyed shoe gaze bands and went to see Ride live, it was grunge which made a massive impression on me. Still does.

I love this channel so much I could cry. Excellent content. Thank you for everything you do!

I wanna jump in a time machine and stay forever in the late 80s / early 90s... Love them both equally! 😍 Great vid - have subbed 👍

i do love grunge and more familiar with it and this video was so informational and fun to watch. if you could do more grunge videos that would be awesome

I've never even heard of shoegaze. The prime music of my life was 80's punk and 90's grunge. I grew up in the PNW though, so maybe I was too close to look anywhere else. Still love it.

Nevermind wasn’t just a cornerstone of Grunge, it became a cornerstone of pop music and music in general. Specifically Smells Like Teen Spirit of course

Great short and well researched video comparison. Also nice little call out to Swervedriver who was one of my favorites and deserves more mention for their blending of styles and consistent sonic sound of their own. One thing to add is a focus on the rhythms in both. I played drums around this time original and some cover bands and the influence was everywhere. I think due to the UK origins of shoegaze the drums tend to focus at times on dancing rhythms mixed with chaos. The fact that MBV Loveless has a mostly all programmed drums speaks to another level of technology, syncopation and hypnotic elements using technology which doesn’t get enough attention. The story behind it is insane as well. The drummer and band were experiencing such challenges to get the record done in multiple studios producing mostly By themselves with little encouragement and difficulty in finding causes the drummer to lose the use of his lower body for some medical reason probably partially due to the stress. In any case - there is also a wild Chaotic side to shoegaze to contrast the hypnosis swirls and In some Bands that went to the drumming more and some to for sure guitar. Grunge mixed nothing dance like in beats and merges more quiet loud. Or sometimes pretty and chaotic but always driving. Slower beats and heavier downward impulses. Master players helped both genres in some of the l defining bands you listed like Matt Cameron on drums for the hard rock to be flushed towards the 70s more than Shoegaze. Guitarist like Andy Bell from Ride doesn’t get the credit he deserves also for being a master painter of sonic harmonies and wildness - often overshadowed by the sheer uniqueness of MBVs most potent mix of male and female vocals / aggressive and gentleness. The contrasting elements are inside these two often very loud styles of music.

I'm 47 & I liked bands like Champagne Illinois's Hum that was a blend of both sounds, someone already mentioned pumpkins which also would draw heavily from Shoegaze. However in modern times I would listen to bands like Pity Sex that to my ears also are a hybrid of both styles.

Thanks for this. Though I didn’t necessarily learn anything new because you presented a broad brush when explaining the two genres but I understand and appreciate any attention given to shoegaze. I loved both shoegaze and grunge at different times in my life, but definitely love Shoegaze more now. Thank you! Keep the videos coming!

It was easy for me to fell from Grunge to Shoegaze. always bringing such interesting topics :)

Husker Du are also a huge influence on early emo. Some of the other shoegaze bands mentioned show up on lists of influences 90s era emo bands would cite. It might be really interesting to compare these genres with emo as it existed in the 90s. Bands like Mohinder, Indian Summer, Evergreen, Antioch Arrow, Jawbreaker, Mineral, etc. Also noisy and with a tendency to veer between intense chaos and softer parts, but different from how grunge or shoegaze do loud/soft.

Most of Modest mouse is a folk-pop blend of shoegaze and grunge. Brilliant.

Definitely excited to see where this channel goes, love this video.

Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and Husker Du were a massive influence on both Kevin Shields and Kurt Cobain. So those three are a massive influence on both genres.

I clicked on this video, thinking I’d be the oddball who preferred grunge growing up and now prefer shoegaze! It’s so interesting to see how many people feel the same way!

i love your videos i always learn about a band or artist that i didn't know existed

Cool video essay, this is the first video I watched of yours.

Thanks! I liked the special mention about Swervedriver, I totally agree. Like this presentation. It helped me confirmed what I observed and I think it'll somehow guide me how I'll write or create. Thanks again!

I'm kinda amazed you went through a Shoegaze comparison video without mentioning Cocteau Twins, possibly one of the most influential shoegaze groups.

I was into both at the same time. It was more about the passion and the "undergroundness" than the commercial popularity. Most of us back then, at least in my circle, listened to industrial, punk, post-punk, as well as grunge and showgaze. I guess you could say anything that was on 4AD or Sub-pop. i am sure i am forgetting a few genres and sub-genres but that is the point, isn't it. we didn't think about the genre

Great video, very interesting to hear the comparisons! We are in exiting times to witness the revival of Shoegaze, so many innovative bands forwarding the sound yet also keeping it true to it's roots.

For me, Shoegaze is somewhat of a recent discovery. I've been slowly getting into the heavier, underground rock subgenres that i didn't really have a name for since around 2019, and only this year did I realize that shoegaze fits into that nicely- if not what i was listening to already. I dig it a lot for how heavy and loud it can be, while also having that meditative droning quality or melancholy tone. As a side note, for anyone interested, there's an EP by Andrew Auscherman called Playland on his KZfaq channel. I don't know if it fits the shoegaze bill, but it's up there with the songs and albums that got me into shoegaze.

I think grunge had a handful of bands that were amazing and countless imitators that were borderline awful. US radio seemed to favor those imitators though over the many excellent shoegaze bands because of the popularity of "grunge" in the US. Swervedriver's Mezcal Head and Catherine Wheel's Chrome should've been huge in the US and were as strong as any of the the best known grunge albums, and should've been as popular as Smashing Pumpkins in the US.

There's this band called mayonnaise in the Philippines who's name comes from the smashing pumpkins song, their lead singer is really influenced by grunge so I gave it a listen and man I fell in love

I love it when this site recommends quality videos like this to me! Grunge is my preference, but I'll check out thos 3 shoegaze albums for sure

Very well done comparison. I definitely think you are spot on accurate with history, influences, and composition of their respective sounds. I always leaned more into the Grunge genre. But I still dig Shoegazer too. Probably enjoy it more the older I get too. The only reason I wasn't fully in on shoegazer is the intensional de-emphasis on the vocals. Which is a personal contradiction since it's typically the last thing I pay attention to. As with pretty much any genre, it depends on my mood what I will listen to. But I always loved playing alt-rock and grunge when I was still gigging in a band.

I like them both but actually lean more towards Dream Pop.

now we have grunge-gaze, effectively combining elements from both genres and of course taking a massive influence from deftones.

Youre literally listting a bunch of my old LP's in this video :)

I found this video to be quite educational. Definitely going to make me go down a rabbit hole now. I probably have 20+ years of albums to catch up on.

Some of my favorites at the time. Nirvana - Beach - 1989 Unsane - ST - 1991 Hole - Pretty On the Inside - 1991 Also Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician - 1987 Big Black - Songs About Fucking - 1987 Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation - 1988 Plus seXhc, fastcore/pv, post-punk, Crust and other odd music I was never into Shoegaze but will check out those bands.

The term “Shoegaze” was coined by fans. And the term “Grunge” was manufactured by the media as a marketing scheme to sell Seattle bands that was originally said as joke by bands. Mark Arm, the vocalist for the Seattle band Green River and also Mudhoney is generally credited as being the first to use the term grunge to describe this sort of music because the media would call Sub Pop Records and ask to describe their music and they would just jokingly say “Grungy crap” and the media turned that into “Grunge”. It got so ridiculous that MTV and The Rolling Stone would call and ask for “Grunge Lingo” and they would just sit around laughing making up words that would later be in magazines.

One band you should check out which blurs the lines between shoegaze and grunge (and even post-rock) is Narrowhead, which sounds like a insane fusion of all three, they're great! Check out the album "Satisfaction", especially the songs 'Cool In Motion' , 'Feels Like Sand' and 'Paranoid Hands' which you immediately hear the noisy shoegaze sound texture and droning singing with grunge/post-rock vocal tones, melodies and riffs. I'd like to see a comparison between shoegaze, grunge and "post-rock" which most people don't seem to know the difference between.

I like your compare/contrast analysis here. Good video! Another good metric could be how much of the band's gear was still intact by the end of the show. ;)

The one band in the UK that to me really fused the two styles in the late 90s and early 00s were My Vitriol. A bloody beautiful band who captured that my Bloody Valentine drone that could lead into a absolutely brutal chorus and a wonderful dreamlike verse. Likely heard of them but worth checking out, if you haven't.

Julie has the perfect blend of both shoegaze and grunge in their music. Highly recommend listening to them if you love both genres!

Kinda fell out of love for shoegaze, but my love for swirlies has sustained; I’d love to see you do a do a documentary on them!

I’m writing a book about the history of music. It begins is the 1950s through now and I have section with genres. You really compared those two quite nicely. I prefer grunge but I like shoegaze as more of background music while I’m working on something.

One important bit of info left out of this production is that Robin Guthtis is considered by many as being the Godfather of Shoegaze.

I was a 90s teenager who was never that into grunge. I liked a few Nirvana songs but that was about it. When I first heard shoegaze I was like, "Damn, I was born on the wrong side of the pond". Fortunately, that was when the American wave of shoegaze was just getting started.

I think one thing a lot of people miss in comparing the two is how members of bands were often seen attending each others' shows and even playing in their bands. There was a lot of that in both genres, I believe (at the very least with the deep, lesser known grunge bands in the greater Seattle area). Then again, you saw a lot of that not just in grunge, but in the Seattle indie/alt scene in general. It definitely seemed to still be that way at times, at least through the time I lived there until the late 00s.

i was more into grunge most of the time, but i wanted to get more into shoegaze for a long time, so maybe i will check out your channel some more

It’s hard to say which is my favorite as both shoegaze & grunge basically define my life. Sugar was in my opinion the epitome of combining the two genres and the most criminally underrated band of the 90’s.

I've enjoyed your channel and was inspired to give a history from my " I was there" point of view. This seems like a good spot to comment and you'd be surprised by how closely related Grunge is to Shoegaze in the sense of influences and that many of us were fans of the shoegazers. Nils Bernstein who had a big part in creating our scene and owned Rebellious Jukebox turned me on to MBV I happened to be in a band that was there for the early formation of what some call "Grunge" and moved on when it became world renowned. Mainly because all the bands that followed were boring as fuck and not very innovative. The last Grunge concert I would attend was Nirvana at the Paramount in Seattle after Nevermind was released. My Band Feast who split up around the same time as Malfunktion, Green River and The Melvins sacking Lukin, played often with Soundgarden. Feast was mainly influenced by Post Punk namely 4AD, Factory, etc. In our formative years I could say the same about Soundgarden. I've often mentioned Feast was the Cure meets Black Sabbath and Soundgarden as Bauhaus meets Led Zeppelin. We were also all into post punk noise rock as in Sonic Youth and Swans. For me the heaviness all came about because of Swans and The Melvins who seemed to come out of nowhere to stun us all. They were clearly from the American Punk scene that slowed it down to the ultimate in heavy. Live shows were jaw dropping. Soundgarden and the Melvins had an underbelly of weirdness made beautiful akin to the Birthday Party and Butthole Surfers. Mark Arm was part of the Great Mr. Epp and the Calculations. Anti punk weirdos. I once sat in with them to perform The Gift by The Velvet Underground After Feast split I formed Hippie Big Buckle which was a Heavy Sexy Acid Fueled Freakshow and around this time was also listening to a lot MBV and electronic such as Aphex Twin and the Orb. One could say HBB were kind of like Smashing Pumpkins without the precious and whiny Billy C who is far from sexy Hahahaha! Now Bilinda Butcher IS sexy! I missed MBV's Seattle debut because we had a show that night. When post millennium MBV returned to Seattle there were plenty of Seattle Rockers. I hung out with Kim Thayil and Henry Shepherd, Ben's older brother. Seattle also had a scene aside from grunge. See Common Language, My Diva, Maxine, Jessamine. I eventually started producing electronic music and am now performing in Luna Moss with Rolf Bertieg, drummer from Feast and Char Easter, bass and Vocals from Common Language.

Those 2 genres are both great, but it have some moods and variables when listening to it. I listens grunge when I am in the mood for exploding emotions, a boost of spirit. When in shoegaze mode, I listens it for its ethereal atmosphere, twirling sounds to make myself at ease, calm, even imagining the things to reflect on myself what have I done in the past. For me, shoegaze is a more serious genre to listen, and every time I found a great shoegaze song, it always blows me away.

Great Video! Thanks for the upload!