Jangle
(redirected from Genre.JanglePop)
Jangle is a guitar sound, typically combining acoustic and electric timbres to create bright, chiming melodies. Predecessors to the jangle guitar style can be traced back to the late 1950s and early 1960s, and became prominent within mid-1960s pop rock within and influenced by the British Invasion, particularly UK group The Beatles? and West-Coast American bands like The Byrds?, who developed jangle's association with folk rock?. The term "jangle" derives from the Bob Dylan? song "Mr. Tambourine Man" as performed by The Byrds, with the lyric, "in the jingle-jangle morning" and its bright guitar lines which are perfectly prototypical of the sound.
"Jangle" or "jangly" began to pick up steam as a term to describe bright, strummy guitar bands with prominent plucky leads and droning composition in the early 1980s in American college-radio trade publications and British music periodicals, with groups like being explicitly linked to their Southern folk-rock influences and described as part of a New Southern Jangle? or "neo-folk rock" movement by the middle of the decade before they went major-label and helped to establish Alternative Rock?. The West Coast featured its own psychedelic-tinged Paisley? jangle scene, influencing college rock? bands nationwide with their incorporation of retro acid rock? and psychedelic folk? guitars alongside darker psychedelic pop? melodies and postpunk propulsion. In the UK, "jangle" was initially associated with early 1980s indie pop? postpunk bands like The Monochrome Set? and Orange Juice?, found major popularity with The Smiths? in the middle of the decade, and developed an association with the budding "anorak?" and "twee?" aesthetics, especially with the NME? cassette compilation C86? and the establishment of Sarah Records?.
The term "jangle pop" (and related counterpart "jangle rock") appears to date back to the '80s but really gained steam in the '90s, to describe the postpunk wave of college-rock and indie-pop bands with pop melodies and these distinctive guitar sounds. The term "neo-acoustic?", or "neo-aco", is a primarily Japanese term which was initially associated with early UK indie-pop bands and has sometimes been used as a synonym for jangle pop; however, some sources seem to indicate that neo-acoustic as a style is more associated with acoustic or very clean electric instrumentation, jazzy chords and lead melodies, and sometimes even brass or strings akin to sophisti-pop? or chamber pop?. "Twee pop" is the term most commonly used for the bright and childlike melodicism and musical aesthetic spawned by the 1980s UK scene, while "C86" or "anorak pop" is more closely associated with the particular vocals-guitar-bass-drums standard jangle indie-pop band with aesthetics ranging from twee to noise pop? to paisley-pop to satirical political commentary, in the case of a few '80s bands at least.
The jangle pop style saw some college-circuit and commercial success in both the US and UK, as well as in New Zealand (Flying Nun? & the Dunedin sound?) and Australia (the Go-Betweens, the Church) through the 1980s, but heavier alternative rock? began to dominate in the tail end of the decade as jangle became saturated, and the UK had dance-oriented indie movements like baggy? and grebo? before grunge? hit the mainstream and propelled alternative rock's commercial success even further in the early 1990s. There were still some jangle bands in the early post-grunge era, including Washington's the Posies who had retooled from a more folk-rock oriented and acoustic-leaning sound to darker melodies and guitar fuzz, and Scottish midtempo slackers? Teenage Fanclub, and then as "alternapop" became established as a form of adult alternative? radio-rock, bands like Gin Blossoms updated folksy jangle power pop to a cleaner, more modern sound. Jangle also remained a common influence in the 1990s indie-rock underground, with lo-fi? slacker bands like Guided by Voices? and Pavement prominently blending jangly guitars with guitar fuzz and power-pop or classic rock? melodies.