Sunshine Pop

Sunshine pop is a retrospective term for a more cheerful or wistful style of Pop which emerged in the mid 1960s as "soft pop". Influenced by Easy Listening, Jingles, and Psychedelia, the genre largely consisted of lesser-known artists who imitated more popular groups like The Association, The Mamas & The Papas, and The 5th Dimension. The music usually contains light production, catchy melodies, and prominent vocal harmonies. Common instruments are acoustic guitars and/or piano accompanied by Western Classical Music instruments like harpsichord, glockenspiel, and flute. The style should not be conflated with "sunshine/happy music" or "Beach Boys-esque music" — though influential, the Beach Boys almost never worked in the genre. Sunshine pop is typically inflected with jazzy chords and soft Bossa nova rhythms, and despite its name, may inspire melancholy and a sense of longing for the past. Fruits, colors, and/or cosmic concepts were also recurrent subject matter. Sometimes, the music may resemble Psychedelic Pop with less surreal atmospherics, Bubblegum with more sophistication, or a merge of Folk Pop and Psychedelic Folk. Some song examples are "Windy", "Monday, Monday", and "Up, Up and Away", those of which served as a template for artists like The Free Design, The Peppermint Rainbow, The Sugar Shoppe, Harmony Grass, and The Yellow Balloon. Los Angeles-based songwriters/producers like Roger Nichols, Jimmy Webb, and Paul Williams had a major hand in shaping many sunshine pop acts. Building on the "California Sound" formulated by the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson and the Mamas and the Papas' John Phillips, Curt Boettcher became one of the most pivotal figures of sunshine pop, producing quintessential psyche pop crossover albums like Eternity's Children, Begin, and Present Tense. More of the genre can be heard on such compilations as The Get Easy! Sunshine Pop Collection, Come to the Sunshine: Soft Pop Nuggets From the WEA Vaults, and the series Sunshine Days. In the 1980s and 1990s, sunshine pop found a resurgence in Japan, strongly influencing many prime Shibuya-kei players. This revitalized interest in sunshine pop eventually reached Europe and the United States, and the genre was revived among indie musicians. Compilations which showcase this revival include él Records' Sunshine Pop 99, Jetset Records' Songs for the Jet Set, and Louis Philippe's Simultaneous Ice Cream: A Sunshine Children's Fantasy. Since the 2000s, sunshine pop has occasionally been invoked by artists like The High Llamas, The Explorers Club, and Brent Cash. AKA: Soft Pop