Galaxie 500 was an American indie rock band that formed in 1987 and split up in 1991 after releasing three studio albums: Today (1988), On Fire (1989), and This Is Our Music (1990).

Guitarist Dean Wareham, drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang had met at the Dalton School in New York City in 1981, but began playing together during their time as students at Harvard University.

[5] On Fire reached number 7 in the UK Indie Chart, and met with much critical acclaim in the United Kingdom, but was less well received by the US music press, who cited Wareham's 'vocal limitations' as a weakness.

When Rough Trade went bankrupt in 1991, Krukowski and Yang purchased the masters at auction, reissuing them on Rykodisc in 1996 as a box set containing all three albums and another disc of rarities.

Krukowski and Yang continued to record under the moniker Pierre Etoile (French for "Rock Star"), and then Damon & Naomi (whose first two releases were also produced by Kramer), and as members of Magic Hour.

"[19] Music critic Jim DeRogatis assessed, “Galaxy 500 never altered its trippy, somnambulistic formula, but what a splendid formula it was.”[20] In his book Gimme Indie Rock, music journalist Andrew Earles described the band's sound as "a usually slow to mid-tempo amalgam of the Velvet Underground, the Feelies, the U.K.'s proto-shoegaze/drone rock icons Spaceman 3, The Dream Syndicate, and Television gently pushed through a hazy dream-pop filter.

[23] "Tugboat" has been covered by many artists, including The Submarines, who recorded it with indie rock producer Adam Lasus for their iTunes Live Session EP, British Sea Power, on Rough Trade compilation Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before..., Welsh lo-fi band Joanna Gruesome, and Portastatic, Kiwi Jr., for a planned concert of Galaxie 500 covers at Rough Trade Brooklyn set to coincide with Record Store Day and the release of Galaxie's Copenhagen on vinyl.

In 2010 the bands Cloudland Canyon and Citay, appeared on a 7-inch EP together wherein they both covered Galaxie 500, the former taking on "Temperature's Rising" and the latter doing a version of "Tugboat".