Mr. Tambourine Man is the debut
album by the American
folk rock band The Byrds and was released in June 1965 on
Columbia Records (
see 1965 in music). The
album, along with the
single of the same name, established the band as an internationally successful
rock act and was also influential in originating the musical style known as folk rock. The term "folk rock" was, in fact, first coined by the U.S.
music press to describe the band's sound in mid-1965, at around the same time that the "
Mr. Tambourine Man" single reached the top of the
Billboard chart. The single and album also represented the first effective American challenge to the dominance of
The Beatles and the
British Invasion during the mid-1960s.