Talk:Jangle pop

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History Section Biased?

The History section seems to be focused on New Zealand and American acts, many of whom are very obscure. Perhaps this section needs to be re-written to include both acts from equally influential countries (UK, Canada, etc.) and more mainstream acts? Michaeljm1964 (talk) 14:41, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

These were the only areas were there was a real use of the term "jangle-pop" was as a genre. for a specific set of bands.

This page was overgrown with entries by people who confused the term "jangle-pop" as a specific genre (i.e. about half a dozen or so US/Georgia based, REM adjacent bands, and a few New Zealand bands) with "jangly" as a description of any band playing guitars without distortion, including just about every band from the early 60s, usually using shitty content farm sources like Paste or About.com

There is no pre 80s history to Jangle-Pop other than "REM and some other band were really influenced by 60s folk-rock and 70s power pop." Verlaine76 (talk) 11:55, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Removal of irrelevant and blacklisted soures.

After just doing a small update I was informed that about.com has been blacklisted as a source by wikipedia and so have removed those references from the article. This means some extremely vague and tendentious claims left over from previous edit wars are now unsupported including the rather meaningless statement in the infobox statement that the genre had its "cultural origins" in the 1950s/60s.

If no proper authoritative sources (i.e. ones that give proper context to these claims, not just clickbait listicles or passing mentions in gig/album reviews) they should be removed too. Verlaine76 (talk) 13:08, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Origin of the term.

The origin of the term "jangle pop" is not supported by any online evidence. The Denise Sullivan article referenced appears to have been removed from the Wayback Machine and I can't find another copy of it online. All other sources making this claim seem to be non-authoritative.

As it is, the claim was always tendentious, presented as just a known fact without any actual research or evidence. It seems it should be taken out unless someone can find a decent original source tracing the origins of the term. Verlaine76 (talk) 15:31, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Yeah. I even went back to early 2011 in the page history to see if that link had been modified along the way. Unfortunately, I'm working on adding/expanding a set of almost 90 articles, so I don't have the inclination to spend time on this. There is no deadline, and the citation for that paragraph is marked as dead. Assuming good faith, we can hope that the cited source did support the content, while acknowledging that we need to find an accessible reliable source that does support it. Donald Albury 17:05, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I've searched around and cannot find anything authoritative. Almost all sites that make the claim are content farms or low quality sources informal, and none of them offer any evidence, they simply state this "origin" as an accepted fact. Verlaine76 (talk) 09:12, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I did search a little for 'Denise Sullivan jangle pop', but found nothing useful. While I'm willing to wait a while to see if anyone else knows of a reliable source, I won't object if the statement is removed as 'unsourced'. It can always be restored if someone does provide a reliable source. Donald Albury 17:44, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Even if the statement can be verified, its probably confused, the point should be that the movement was influenced by the Byrds who only really took off after their Dylan cover, which really was revolutionary, but really pi%^ed off a lot of Dylan fans (pop!) but maybe lead to him going electric so he wouldn't be outflanked. As a side point, I think the article should use Big Star as the starting point of the revival, and emphasise more the early Bangles key role. Ceoil (talk) 06:24, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

IOW, have removed the claim, as think the words Jingle and Jangle in the Dylan song is coincidence, and even if the source can be found, its bullshit. Ceoil (talk) 08:49, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello Ceoil. If you can find sources that support such a claim, sure go ahead and add them, but make sure the sources that do more than simply describe the band in one sentence as "Jangle pop". Additionally it would help if they were authoritative historical sources written by acknowledged specialists in the field of music, specifically pop music, and not merely listicles of "songs that some blogger likes".

The issue is that really there was no "jangle pop" movement beyond a few bands in Athens Georgia in the early 80s and a little bit later in New Zealand. The spurious attempt to create some sort of coherent musical movement out of any band that sometimes use jangly guitars (which prior to about 1965 meant pretty much every band that used electric guitars in pop) is one of the problems that has plagued this page. People have conflated the idea of a genre or even a coherent musical wave with bands that sound a bit the same and have some similar guitar techniques, if you want to use the term jangle pop to describe bands that sound this way that's fine, but that is not appropriate, for an encyclopedia which tracks and relates histories of specific phenomena, concepts, people and events, not simply give useful definitions to terms. That is the difference between an encyclopedia and a dictionary.

Verlaine76 (talk) 14:28, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm in awe of the hubris displayed here. Mr. Tambourine Man originated "jangle pop" in connection with McGuinn's guitar technique? "Bullshit"! That's right: the original pop-jangle band singing "jangle" on the jangliest pop record that ever jangled — totally unrelated to the bands they influenced and were compared with twenty years later. Mere "coincidence", and sources stating the contrary should be disregarded. Just incredible. And strangely, I can access the Denise Sullivan write-up just fine. ili (talk) 03:21, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

All the creditable sources on this page place "jangle pop " as a genre label for the 1980s This has been gone over endless between this page and the "jangle" page. Ther is no strong evidence that Jangle pop as a genre was a term used at beyond the Athens and Dunedin sound bands prior to the 2000s. Stop trying to jam Folk Rock, Merseybeat and British invasion. Just because you think a band sound "Jangly" (or just becuase they sue Rickenbackers or electric 12 strings) does not make them "Jangle Pop".

The Byrds were acknowledged as an influence on subsequent bands that were an accepted and named part of the genre.

Also please stop trying to re-insert the rubbish paste.comn listicle as if it is a reliable source. Steve LaBate is not a creditable writer or researcher on this topic. As discussed elsewhere, he was just a content provider, and his material was largely cribbed from an earlier unsourced version of this page. Verlaine76 (talk) 14:57, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

Also, yes, the Denise Sullivan article does seem to have returned to archive.org. But her claims regarding the nomenclature are tenuous at best, and really she only connects to the the more general term "Jangle", before going on to discuss "jangle pop" exclusively in terms of North American bands of the '80s.

It's a worthwhile source to include and Denise Sullivan is a credible source on these topics, but she overall supported the article as it currently stands regarding the use of the term to describe '80s Athens, Georgia bands, and ironically (contra the lead someone else put in here) actually says The Smiths, were not really a jangle pop band, merely one that jangled. Verlaine76 (talk) 12:21, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

60s influences missing

Why were the 1960s/early-1970s bands, such as The Beatles, removed from this article? The Beatles definitely had a few songs with jangly guitar sound (Ticket to Ride is one of those) as did other bands. It makes no sense to ignore those bands when the modern jangle pop artists since the late-1970s harkended back to those bands. Maybe a separate, old-school jangle pop article should be crafted to contain these bands if they don't fit in here. Moline1 (talk) 19:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Everything needs to be verifiable from reliable sources. Find reliable sources that discuss (substantially, not just a passing mention) how the Beatles and other bands were involved in the development of jangle pop (not just having a "jangly" sound) and you can add them back. Donald Albury 20:29, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Ahh, ok. That makes sense. These bands are probably best suited, then, for the main "Jangle" article, since it seems any references to Jangle with these bands is to the guitar sound, not the genre itself. Moline1 (talk) 02:27, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Hyphens

Look, I hate to be so nitpicky, but I really think I'm in the right here. I read the guide you referred me to: "Adjectives should not be hyphenated (the late 1950s, the early 1970s)." This is true, except that in that case, the decade is functioning as the noun; in this article, "bands" is functioning as the noun, so it would be "late-1970s/early-1980s bands". I even looked it up to be sure: "When acting as a compound modifier before a noun: You would hyphenate "late-1970s bands" if the phrase describes a noun directly preceding it. For instance: 'The late-1970s bands often experimented with new wave sounds'." Heck, even the author of the post above this one understands this: "Why were the 1960s/early-1970s bands..."

Thanks for being patient with me. But again, I think I'm in the right here. Benny the Bouncer (talk) 06:56, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Personally, I always hyphenate centuries (eg 15th-century Jangle pop) but not so much decades. And would use more spaces eg late 1970s / early 1980s, rather than late-1970s/early-1980s, which is a headache to look at. Ceoil (talk) 08:00, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Returning to old arguments

(Apologies. In my rage yesterday I posted this to "jangle" rather than here, apologies, but you can see why this is getting confusing. I have reposted by comments here for clarity.)

So I have tried my best to put back was was messed up. A clear consensus through a lot of discussion on this and what became the Jangle page was that authoritative sources clearly indicate that historically the term "jangle pop" was applied largely to early '80s Athens George and Dunedin bands. I accept I'm probably never going to get rid of The Smiths or Big Star despite the fact that they're only referred to as Jangle Pop in retrospect apart from the most fleeting of references and not as any explication of the genre. All the "It comes from a Bob Dylan Lyric" stuff belongs in the "Jangle" page, unless you can come up with better sources than someone just asserting (as sullivan does) "Bob Dylan used the word Jangle in a song in the 60s", otherwise it's just an assertion based on vibes." Verlaine76 (talk) 15:19, 11 May 2026 (UTC) Verlaine76 (talk) 11:57, 12 May 2026 (UTC)