What is "dream pop"

n. A subgenre of alternative rock with ethereal textures and breathy vocals rather than hard riffs.

Dream pop (or dreampop) is a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychedelia that developed in the 1980s. The style is typified by a preoccupation with atmosphere and texture as much as melody. The term was coined in the late 1980s by Alex Ayuli to describe the music of his band A.R. Kane and later adopted by music critic Simon Reynolds to describe the nascent shoegazing scene in the UK. In the 1990s, dream pop and shoegazing were regionally dependent and interchangeable terms; "dream pop" was the name by which "shoegazing" was known in America.