Jingle Jangle Phylly

Roger McGuinn of The Byrds

I've always loved the sound of The Byrds.  Something about their sound has always really appealed to me.  Of course I loved their harmony, but it wasn't only that.  I wasn't sure what it was until I really thought about it, and when I heard a song similar to theirs I realized it was the guitar music with that jangly sound that I liked so much.

I have been hearing this type of music almost my entire life, but I never really thought about what made it different than any other type of music. I knew plenty of songs I loved, but I never really made the connection to what they had in common.

Mr. Tambourine Man / The Byrds  

In the early '80s my husband and I saw a movie where we enjoyed the soundtrack so much we tried to purchase it but it was always sold out.  The movie was Valley Girl with Nicolas Cage.  Here is one of my favourite songs that was played on that soundtrack.  You can hear that jangly sound in it.

I Melt With You / Modern English

This next song was also made famous by the Valley Girl movie.

A Million Miles Away / The Plimsouls

So for years I was loving that jangly guitar sound without even realizing it was anything but a certain style of playing guitar.  (I didn't even know for sure it was a guitar sound until I asked my husband about it once).  Then one day, as I was listening once again to Free Falling by Tom Petty, I realized he had that same sound and I just had to know what it was that made me like it so much.  I decided to do a Google search for "jangle music" and what a surprise I had!  I learned that Jangle Pop is an actual genre of music!

Here is the definition (according to Wikipedia):

Jangle pop is a genre of alternative rock from the mid-1980s that "marked a return to the chiming or jangly guitars and pop melodies of the '60s", as exemplified by The Byrds, with electric twelve-string guitars and power pop song structures. Mid-1980s jangle pop was a non-mainstream "pop-based format" with "some folk-rock overtones". Between 1983 and 1987, the description "jangle pop" was, in the US, used to describe bands like R.E.M., Let's Active and Tom Petty, and a subgenre called "Paisley Underground", which incorporated psychedelic influences.^[1] In the UK the term was applied to the new wave of raw and immediate sounding melodic guitar-bands collected on the NME's C86 (and laterCD86) compilations.

Here's a great blog post on the history of the Rickenbacker 12 string electric guitar (which is what gives Jangle pop its jangly sound): 
Jingle-Jangle Revolution: How Rickenbacker Guitars Changed Music 

So to celebrate this fave genre of mine, I would like to showcase a couple of Richard Armitage fanvids which feature jangle pop tunes!

Richard Armitage - The Golden Hour / by maraiad72

Losing My Religion / R.E.M.

And here is a fanvid I was originally going to use in a winter-themed post.  I realize the season has moved on but actually the song still works anyway, as it does refer to the seasons changing.  Besides, I shouldn't be so northern hemispheric, eh?  For you folks Down Under, this fits in quite nicely!

But, of course the real reason I have chosen it today is for the sound.  This song, "A Hazy Shade of Winter", was originally written by Paul Simon and performed by Simon and Garfunkle.  The cover is by The Bangles, who are listed in that Wikipedia article as a Jangle pop band!  Who knew?  Certainly not me (until just a little while ago).

Spooks/MI5 - Lucas North by KatSw3
Hazy Shade of Winter / The Bangles

Had you ever heard of the term "Jangle Pop" before?  How do you feel about that sound?