"California Sound" meaning in English

See California Sound in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proper name

Forms: the California Sound [canonical], California sound [alternative]
Head templates: {{en-proper noun|def=1|head=California Sound}} the California Sound
  1. (music) A popular music aesthetic engendered by 1960s pop and rock recording artists from the California area, associated with optimistic youth culture. Related terms: sunshine pop
    Sense id: en-California_Sound-en-name-~wwFFPPm Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Music Topics: entertainment, lifestyle, music

Alternative forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "the California Sound",
      "tags": [
        "canonical"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "California sound",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "def": "1",
        "head": "California Sound"
      },
      "expansion": "the California Sound",
      "name": "en-proper noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "name",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Music",
          "orig": "en:Music",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              159,
              175
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 June 14, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, “Obituary: Visionary who grew from Surfin' to audacious experimenter”, in FT Weekend, page 10:",
          "text": "The Beach Boys struck gold with swoony choral harmonies, twangy surf-music guitars and beats cresting like waves on an eternally sunny Pacific shoreline: the “California sound”, as it was dubbed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A popular music aesthetic engendered by 1960s pop and rock recording artists from the California area, associated with optimistic youth culture."
      ],
      "id": "en-California_Sound-en-name-~wwFFPPm",
      "links": [
        [
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          "music"
        ],
        [
          "popular music",
          "popular music"
        ],
        [
          "aesthetic",
          "aesthetic"
        ],
        [
          "pop",
          "pop"
        ],
        [
          "rock",
          "rock"
        ],
        [
          "California",
          "California"
        ],
        [
          "optimistic",
          "optimistic"
        ],
        [
          "youth",
          "youth"
        ],
        [
          "culture",
          "culture"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(music) A popular music aesthetic engendered by 1960s pop and rock recording artists from the California area, associated with optimistic youth culture."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "sunshine pop"
        }
      ],
      "topics": [
        "entertainment",
        "lifestyle",
        "music"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "California Sound"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "the California Sound",
      "tags": [
        "canonical"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "California sound",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "def": "1",
        "head": "California Sound"
      },
      "expansion": "the California Sound",
      "name": "en-proper noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "name",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "sunshine pop"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English proper nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "en:Music"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
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              159,
              175
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 June 14, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, “Obituary: Visionary who grew from Surfin' to audacious experimenter”, in FT Weekend, page 10:",
          "text": "The Beach Boys struck gold with swoony choral harmonies, twangy surf-music guitars and beats cresting like waves on an eternally sunny Pacific shoreline: the “California sound”, as it was dubbed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A popular music aesthetic engendered by 1960s pop and rock recording artists from the California area, associated with optimistic youth culture."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "music",
          "music"
        ],
        [
          "popular music",
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        ],
        [
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          "aesthetic"
        ],
        [
          "pop",
          "pop"
        ],
        [
          "rock",
          "rock"
        ],
        [
          "California",
          "California"
        ],
        [
          "optimistic",
          "optimistic"
        ],
        [
          "youth",
          "youth"
        ],
        [
          "culture",
          "culture"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(music) A popular music aesthetic engendered by 1960s pop and rock recording artists from the California area, associated with optimistic youth culture."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "entertainment",
        "lifestyle",
        "music"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "California Sound"
}

Download raw JSONL data for California Sound meaning in English (1.7kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (05c257f and 9d9a410). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.