The Bangles

The Bangles combine bright guitar pop with close vocal harmonies and a shared songwriting and singing approach that gives the group more than one center of gravity. Their early records connect jangle pop, garage rock and the Los Angeles Paisley Underground, while the mid-1980s albums move toward cleaner production and bigger singles without losing the band’s melodic identity. Later releases revisit the group’s roots through chiming guitars and layered voices, but with the perspective of musicians returning to a sound they helped shape. Ranking the albums means balancing concise pop craft against the rawer ensemble feel of the debut, and deciding how much polish strengthens or softens their distinctive harmonies.