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'Psychedelic' Rock |
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Listen To The Beatles
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds 
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Pink Floyd - The Dark Side Of The Moon
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RM Radio
Coming Soon 
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Quite simply, 'Psychedelic Rock' is the sub genre of Rock wherein, artists influenced
by the developing drug culture of the late 1960s, attempted to reflect hallucinogenic
experiences within their music. While still persisting today, the main period of
Psychedelic Rock was largely in the years 1967 - 1970.
by the developing drug culture of the late 1960s, attempted to reflect hallucinogenic
experiences within their music. While still persisting today, the main period of
Psychedelic Rock was largely in the years 1967 - 1970.
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Inspired or influenced by psychedelic drug culture, Psychedelic Rock (PR) attempted
to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs within
music. At the time it used new recording techniques and effects and also included non-
Western influences and instruments, such as the ragas and drones of Indian music.
to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs within
music. At the time it used new recording techniques and effects and also included non-
Western influences and instruments, such as the ragas and drones of Indian music.
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Moody Blues - Legend Of A Mind
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PR was pioneered by musicians including The Beatles, The Byrds, and The Yardbirds. It largely emerged as a Rock genre during the mid-1960s among Folk Rock and Blues bands in the United Kingdom and United States. |
Top 10 Psychedelic Songs
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Other bands influencing and being influenced by PR, included the Grateful Dead,
Jefferson Airplane, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, The Doors and Pink Floyd.
PR reached a peak in between 1967 and 1969 with the Summer of Love and
Woodstock Rock Festival, becoming an international musical movement and associated
with a widespread counter-culture. However it soon went into a decline as attitudes to
drugs changed, some key artists died or were negatively affected by drugs, and a back-
to-basics movement, led surviving by performers emerged to steer Rock into new
musical areas.
Jefferson Airplane, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, The Doors and Pink Floyd.
PR reached a peak in between 1967 and 1969 with the Summer of Love and
Woodstock Rock Festival, becoming an international musical movement and associated
with a widespread counter-culture. However it soon went into a decline as attitudes to
drugs changed, some key artists died or were negatively affected by drugs, and a back-
to-basics movement, led surviving by performers emerged to steer Rock into new
musical areas.
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PR & Its Drugs
Main Drugs: Cannabis, Benzedrine and Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) – or 'Acid'. 'Acid' began to be used in the UK and the US in the 1950s. It was a hallucinogen, and often used for mental illness as an experimental treatment. To quote Wikipedia: 'In the early 1960s the use of LSD and other hallucinogens was advocated by proponents of the new "consciousness expansion", such as Timothy Leary, Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley and Arthur Koestler. Their writings profoundly influenced the thinking of the new generation of youth.' There had long been a culture of drug use among Jazz and Blues musicians, and, in the early 1960s, use of drugs (including cannabis, peyote, mescaline and LSD) grew among folk and rock musicians, who also started to include drug references in their songs. |
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit
The Beatles - I Am The Walrus
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The Beatles & Bob Dylan |
The Beatles & Bob Dylan
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Two Famous Originators
Two of the most successful acts in Rock history were also major early instigators of
PR. The Beatles and Bob Dylan both experimented with and made mention of drug use
and its effects in their music. Bob Dylan released "Subterranean Homesick Blues" in
1965, and included the line, "Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine", and
also in his "Mr. Tambourine Man" he stated "Take me on a trip upon your magic
swirling ship". The Beatles, influenced by Dylan (who also apparently introduced them
to cannabis), soon followed suit with drug references and seemingly drug influenced
'psychedelic' sounds in their music. Some such early songs included 'Norwegian Wood',
'Day Tripper', and then many more on Sgt Pepper's and other albums. Some of the
most famous included Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Magical Mystery Tour And
others, and perhaps the greatest attempt at psychedelic music was 'A Day In The Life''.
Two of the most successful acts in Rock history were also major early instigators of
PR. The Beatles and Bob Dylan both experimented with and made mention of drug use
and its effects in their music. Bob Dylan released "Subterranean Homesick Blues" in
1965, and included the line, "Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine", and
also in his "Mr. Tambourine Man" he stated "Take me on a trip upon your magic
swirling ship". The Beatles, influenced by Dylan (who also apparently introduced them
to cannabis), soon followed suit with drug references and seemingly drug influenced
'psychedelic' sounds in their music. Some such early songs included 'Norwegian Wood',
'Day Tripper', and then many more on Sgt Pepper's and other albums. Some of the
most famous included Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Magical Mystery Tour And
others, and perhaps the greatest attempt at psychedelic music was 'A Day In The Life''.
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Beach Boys - Good Vibrations
Donovan
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As psychedelia emerged
into a mainstream, commercial force, it increasingly influenced pop music, which incorporated hippie fashions, and the sounds of sitars, fuzz guitars, and tape effects. The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" broke such new PR ground by incorporating psychedelic lyrics and sounds. Donovan soon followed in PR such hits, as "Sunshine Superman" and "Mellow Yellow" (1966) among others. |
Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
The Small Faces
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Other British PR bands soon followed such as
Cream, Jimmy Hendrix, Traffic, The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Small Faces, and many more as steadily the Psychedelic influence became the core of the counterculture. Soon most of the major British bands became influenced by this sub-drug hallucinogenic culture. The Yardbirds in particular, increasingly moved into psychedelic territory, adding up-tempo improvised "rave ups", Gregorian chant and world music (in particular Indian) influences to their songs. They were soon followed by bands such as Procol Harum, The Moody Blues and The Nice. The PR Drug Culture Scene in the US
The popular PR drug culture among musos and their fans really took off in the US in the mid 1960s, much of it in San Francisco centered around LSD and its ‘associated psychedelic effects. Wikipedia writes: ‘From 1964, the Merry Pranksters, a loose group that developed around novelist Ken Kesey, sponsored the Acid Tests, a series of events based around the taking of LSD accompanied by light shows, film projection and discordant, improvised music known as the psychedelic symphony. The Pranksters helped popularize LSD use through their road trips across America in a psychedelically- decorated school bus, which involved distributing the drug and meeting with major figures of the beat movement, and through publications about their activities such as Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool- Aid Acid.’ Many other bands became influential in the hallucenogentic, PR scene in the US including the Byrds. The San Francisco sound soon developed which mixed Folk Rock with psychedelic influences. The Grateful Dead were prominent, as were Country Joe and the Fish, The Great Society, Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Charlatans, Moby Grape, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane. Also add Blue Cheer, Count Five, Iron Butterfly, Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, and of course The Doors. The Beach Boys topped it off with their ‘Pet Sounds’ album which in many ways heralded the psychedelia movement in America, with its artful experiments, psychedelic lyrics based on emotional longings and self-doubts, elaborate sound effects and new sounds on both conventional and unconventional instruments.' |
Cream - Strange Brew
Jimmy Hendrix - Purple Haze
Small Faces - Itchycoo Park
The Doors - Light My Fire
Blue Cheer - Peace of Mind
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Traffic - Hole In My Shoe
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Rolling Stones - 2000 Light Years
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The PR High Point
Psychedelic Rock reached its high point in the last years of the 1960s. In 1967, The
Beatles led the way with many PR hits, topping it off with the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band album, largely seen as their definitive psychedelic statement,
followed up by The magical Mystery Tour. Procul Harum then released, the enigmatic
but extremely popular 'Whiter Shade of Pale', followed by the Rolling Stones answer to
them all with 'Their Satanic Majesties Request, and Pink Floyd produced what is
usually seen as their best psychedelic work 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.' Other
lesser bands released similarly quality filled PR albums, marking 1967 as perhaps the
high point of this whole sub-genre.
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Procul Harum - A Whiter Shade Of Pale
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Pink Floyd - The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
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Demise of Psychedelic Rock (Well Almost)
PR was in steep decline by the end of the 1960s. LSD was criminalised in the US and
UK in 1966. In 1969, the Manson 'Family' murdered Sharon Tate and others, claiming
to have been inspired by Beatles' songs such as "Helter Skelter", in turn thus inspiring
an enormous anti-Hippie backlash. Also in that year the Altamont Free Concert in
California, headlined by The Rolling Stones, turned into a debacle when the Hells
Angels acting as security for the concert stabbed a black fan to death. Also many major
Rock Gods of the era, soon became drug casualties to varying extents- including Brian
Wilson, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac, Jimi Hendrix
and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. Their subsequent bands soon shifted focus. Others such
as Cream broke up, Janis Joplin also died followed by Jim Morrison of the Doors.
Many surviving acts moved away from psychedelia back into more back-to basics
"roots rock", or traditional-based, whimsical Folk, Progressive Rock and Heavy Rock.
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(Older) Cream - Pressed Rat & Warthog
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Psychedelic
Rock, with its distorted guitar sound, extended solos and adventurous compositions, has been seen as an important bridge between blues-oriented |
(Newer) Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
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Rock and later Heavy Metal. And today it still remains an important, though perhaps
less powerful and morally acceptable influence on Modern Western Rock music.
less powerful and morally acceptable influence on Modern Western Rock music.
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