While writing this past weekend, I found myself in need of headphones and music.
Between the kids and Elysha, the house had grown loud, and I needed to drone out the distractions.
For reasons I don’t fully understand, I opened Spotify and chose the “Sister Hazel” playlist. An hour later, I was surprised to realize that I loved the music. Comprised mostly of alternative rock from the 1990’s, I found myself loving almost every song.
Bands like Barenaked Ladies, Dave Matthews Band, Matchbox Twenty, Gin Blossoms, Fastball. Live. Counting Crows.
I had no idea. I knew I liked some of these bands, but I ended up enjoying the whole playlist more than I could’ve ever expected.
Curious about what makes a song land on the Sister Hazel playlist, I researched the most commonly listed genres from the bands on the playlist. Not surprising, alternative rock came up a lot, as did post-grunge, but then I found genres that I had never heard of before:
Comedy rock. Geek rock. Folk rock.
Though I hadn’t really thought of these as genres of music before, context clues made it easy to understand what these labels meant, and yes, it made sense. These were all musical stylings that I had enjoyed in the past.
Then there was a genre that made no sense to me:
Jangle
Other than alternative rock, it was the genre listed most often on the playlist. So what the hell is jangle?
Jangle, according to academic/musician Matthew Bannister, “can be understood as a subspecies of drone: trebly, relatively clean (undistorted) guitar sound played in (often) a chordal style: either strummed or arpeggiated (sounding each string in a chord separately) but generally repeating notes (pedal) over the top of a chord sequence. Pedals are normally open strings that also resonate overtones … This style was strongly identified with 1960s guitar bands, especially the Byrds [and has since] characterized the sound of acts like R.E.M. and The Smiths.”
This made sense to me. The songs that I tend to enjoy most sound the least produced and contain lots of clean guitar sounds. Simple rock songs where the instrumentation is easy to identify and supports the lyrics rather than dominating them.
Jangle. Now I know what I like.
This may seem like an exercise in navel gazing, but armed with this information, I now find myself searching for new music using these genres, souring lists like “The 100 Beast Jangle Bands of All Time” and “10 Other Geek Rock Bands You Should Know” for new bands and musicians who I may unknowingly adore.
I’m finding bands on these lists that I already know and love, of course, but I’m also discovering bands whose names I’ve seen before in my life.
Bands like The Feelies, Field Mice, Teenage Fan Club, Spaghetti Vabune, The Cleaners from Venus, and more.
Will I like any of this music? No idea. But I love the hunt, and finding a new band or new song to love is a joyous thing.
Can I recommend you take a moment and look at the genre labels for the music that you love? Maybe you’ll find something new, too, and with it, perhaps some new music to fill your days with joy.
