Shoegazing

Shoegazing (also known as shoegaze) is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged from the United Kingdom in the late 1980s and reached peak popularity in the early 1990s. The style is typified by significant use of guitar distortion, feedback, obscured vocals and the blurring of component musical parts into indistinguishable "walls of sound". The term "shoegazing" was initially devised by the British music press as a gibe meant to ridicule the stage presence of a wave of groups who stood still during live performances in a detached, introspective, non-confrontational state, often with their heads down; the heavy use of effects pedals also contributed to the image of performers looking down at their feet during concerts. The term was often used contemporaneously with "dream pop."

A loose label given to the shoegazing scene and other affiliated bands in London in the early 1990s was The Scene That Celebrates Itself. In the early 1990s, shoegazing groups were pushed aside by the American grunge movement and early Britpop acts such as Suede, forcing the relatively unknown bands to break up or reinvent their style altogether. In the 2000s, there was renewed interest in the genre among "nu gaze" bands.

Sound & Color

Sound & Color is the second studio album by American rock band Alabama Shakes. It was released on April 21, 2015 via ATO Records, MapleMusic Recordings and Rough Trade Records.

The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in the U.S., giving the band their first chart-topper; globally, the album hit the top ten in Australia, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Sound & Color was a critical success and received six Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year. It spawned four singles; "Don't Wanna Fight" was the most successful, peaking at number two on Billboard's Adult Alternative Songs chart.

Background

Alabama Shakes began recording their second album in late 2013. The group listened to anything and everything for influence, without regard for its public reception in the end. They spent over a year in the studio, with no clear end-goal, as they had not written any new songs due to their exhaustive touring schedule.Sound & Color is steeped in several different genres, touching on shoegaze to bands such as MC5.