Jangle pop

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Jangle pop is a musical genre that began in United States during the mid-1960s combining angular, chiming guitar lines played on electric twelve-string guitars and power pop song structures. It was popularized by bands such as The Beatles and The Byrds. The sound influenced later groups such as The Jam, R.E.M., and The Smiths.

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[edit] History

[edit] Origins

In 1964 The Beatles' use of the jangle sound in the songs "A Hard Day's Night" and "Words of Love" encouraged many artists to use the jangle sound or purchase a Rickenbacker twelve-string guitar. The Byrds began using similar guitars after seeing them played in the film A Hard Day's Night. Other groups such as The Who (in their early "Mod" years), The Beach Boys, The Hollies, and Paul Revere and the Raiders continued the use of twelve-string Rickenbackers. The Byrds, whose style was also referred to as folk rock, prominently featured Roger McGuinn's Rickenbacker electric twelve-string guitar in many of their recordings.

The term "jangle" is derived from the lyric "In the jingle jangle morning, I'll come following you"  from The Byrds' cover of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and is associated with the chiming sound of Rickenbacker guitars' upper-register strings. Jangle pop is related to the power pop genre that developed in the 1970s, including bands like The Raspberries and Big Star, who blurred the line between the two styles.

[edit] 1980s

Jangle pop influenced alternative rock during the early 1980s, as exemplified by early albums of R.E.M., The Smiths, Game Theory, The dB's, Let's Active, The Connells, Guadalcanal Diary and The Beat Farmers. It was initially a Southern/Midwestern U.S. phenomenon, though a group of bands called the Paisley Underground led a more psychedelic movement on the West Coast.

The U.K. C86 scene and twee pop in general share many qualities with jangle pop. There were vibrant scenes in the U.K. (The Stone Roses, The Brilliant Corners, Jazz Butcher, Monochrome Set, The Popguns, Loft, The Family Cat, Felt, James), Australia (The Go-Betweens, Hummingbirds, The Church) and New Zealand (The "Dunedin Sound" of bands such as The Clean, Mad Scene, Jean-Paul Sartre Experience, The Bats, The Chills).

[edit] Performers

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