Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It often uses new recording techniques and effects and sometimes draws on sources such as the ragas and drones of Indian music.
It was pioneered by musicians including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Byrds, and the Yardbirds, emerging as a genre during the mid-1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in the United Kingdom and United States, such as Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, the Doors and Pink Floyd. It reached a peak in between 1967 and 1969 with the Summer of Love and Woodstock Rock Festival, respectively, becoming an international musical movement and associated with a widespread counterculture, before beginning a decline as changing attitudes, the loss of some key individuals and a back-to-basics movement, led surviving performers to move into new musical areas.
Psychedelic rock influenced the creation of psychedelic pop and psychedelic soul. It also bridged the transition from early blues- and folk music-based rock to progressive rock, glam rock, hard rock and as a result influenced the development of subgenres such as heavy metal. Since the late 1970s it has been revived in various forms of neo-psychedelia.
==Characteristics==
As a musical style, psychedelic rock attempted to replicate the effects of and enhance the mind-altering experiences of hallucinogenic drugs, incorporating new electronic and recording effects, extended solos, and improvisation, and it was particularly influenced by eastern mysticism, reflected in use of exotic instrumentation, particularly from Indian music or the incorporation of elements of eastern music. Major features include:
* electric guitars, often used with feedback, wah wah and fuzzboxes;P. Prown, H. P. Newquist and J. F. Eiche, Legends of Rock Guitar: the Essential Reference of Rock's Greatest Guitarists (London: Hal Leonard Corporation, 1997), ISBN 0-7935-4042-9, p. 48.
* elaborate studio effects, such as backwards tapes, panning, phasing, long delay loops, and extreme reverb;S. Borthwick and R. Moy, Popular Music Genres: an Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), ISBN 0-7486-1745-0, pp. 52–4.
* non-Western instruments, specifically those originally used in Indian classical music such as the sitar and tabla ;R. Rubin and J. P. Melnick, Immigration and American Popular Culture: an Introduction (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2007), ISBN 0-8147-7552-7, pp. 162–4.
* a strong keyboard presence, especially organs, harpsichords, or the Mellotron (an early tape-driven 'sampler');D. W. Marshall, Mass Market Medieval: Essays on the Middle Ages in Popular Culture (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 2007), ISBN 0-7864-2922-4, p. 32.
* extended instrumental solos or jams;M. Hicks, Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions Music in American Life (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000), ISBN 0-252-06915-3, pp. 64–6.
* complex song structures, key and time signature changes, modal melodies and drones;
* electronic instruments such as synthesizers and the theremin;J. DeRogatis, Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock (Milwaukie, Michigan: Hal Leonard, 2003), ISBN 0-634-05548-8, p. 230.R. Unterberger, Samb Hicks, Jennifer Dempsey, "Music USA: the Rough Guide", (Rough Guides, 1999), ISBN 1-85828-421-X, p. 391.
* lyrics that made direct or indirect reference to drugs, as in Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" or Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze";
* surreal, whimsical, esoterically or literary-inspired, lyrics.G. Thompson, Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), ISBN 0-19-533318-7, p. 197.
==Etymology==
The term psychedelic was first coined in 1956 by psychiatrist Humphry Osmond as an alternative descriptor for hallucinogenic drugs in the context of psychedelic psychotherapy.N. Murray, Aldous Huxley: A Biography (Hachette, 2009), ISBN 0-7481-1231-6, p. 419. The first musical use of the term psychedelic is thought to have been by the New York-based folk group The Holy Modal Rounders on their version of Lead Belly's "Hesitation Blues" in 1964.M. Hicks, Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions (University of Illinois Press, 2000), ISBN 978-0-252-06915-4, pp 59–60. The first group to advertise themselves as psychedelic rock were the 13th Floor Elevators from Texas, at the end of 1965. The term was first used in print in the Austin American Statesman in an article about the band titled "Unique Elevators shine with psychedelic rock", dated 10 February 1966, and theirs was the first album to use the term as part of its title, in The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, released in August that year.
As the countercultural scene developed in San Francisco the terms acid rock and psychedelic rock were used in 1966 to describe the new drug-influenced music"Logical Outcome of fifty years of art", LIFE, 9 September 1966, p. 68. and were being widely used by 1967.J. DeRogatis, Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock (Milwaukie, Michigan: Hal Leonard, 2003), ISBN 0-634-05548-8, pp. 8–9. The terms psychedelic rock and acid rock are often used interchangeably, but some commentators have distinguished the former, which generally evoked the effects of psychedelic drugs, and acid rock, which can be seen as a more extreme subgenre that focused more directly on LSD, was often louder, made greater use of distortion and often consisted of long, improvised jams."Acid rock", Allmusic. Retrieved 20 March 2012.Eric V. d. Luft, Die at the Right Time!: A Subjective Cultural History of the American Sixties (Gegensatz Press, 2009), ISBN 0-9655179-2-6, p. 173.
==History==
===Origins===
From the second half of the 1950s, Beat Generation writers like William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen GinsbergJ. Campbell, This is the Beat Generation: New York, San Francisco, Paris (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001), ISBN 0-520-23033-7. wrote about and took drugs, including cannabis and Benzedrine, raising awareness and helping to popularise their use.R. Worth, Illegal Drugs: Condone Or Incarcerate? (Marshall Cavendish, 2009), ISBN 0-7614-4234-0, p. 30. In the same period Lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD, or "acid" (at the time a legal drug), began to be used in the US and UK as an experimental treatment, initially promoted as a potential cure for mental illness.D. Farber, "The Psychologists Psychology:The Intoxicated State/Illegal Nation - Drugs in the Sixties Counterculture", in P. Braunstein and M. W. Doyle (eds), Imagine Nation: The Counterculture of the 1960s and '70s (New York: Routledge, 2002), ISBN 0-415-93040-5, p. 21.
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,Anne Applebaum, "Did The Death Of Communism Take Koestler And Other Literary Figures With It?", The Huffington Post, 26 January 2010. their writings profoundly influenced the thinking of the new generation of youth.L. R. Veysey, The Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Communities in Twentieth-Century America (Chicago IL, University of Chicago Press, 1978), ISBN 0-226-85458-2, p. 437. 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 LSDT. Albright, Art in the San Francisco Bay area, 1945-1980: an Illustrated History (University of California Press, 1985), ISBN 0-520-05193-9, p. 166.) had begun to grow among folk and rock musicians, who also began to include drug references in their songs.J. Shepherd, Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Media, Industry and Society (New York, NY: Continuum, 2003), ISBN 0-8264-6321-5, p. 211.
Two of the most successful and influential acts of the era, Bob Dylan and the Beatles, were among the first to experiment with such references. Dylan's song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (1965), which may have taken its title from a Kerouac novel,M. Gray, Song & Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan (New York, NY: Continuum, 1999, 2000), ISBN 0-8264-5150-0, p. 83. included the line, "Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine", and his "Mr. Tambourine Man" (1965) requested "Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship". Whether this was intended as a drug reference was unclear, but the line would enter rock music when the song was a hit for the Byrds later in the year. Dylan indicated that he had smoked cannabis, but has denied using hard drugs. Nevertheless, his lyrics would continue to contain apparent drug references.
After being introduced to cannabis by Dylan, members of The Beatles began using LSD in 1965. The Beatles introduced audiences to many of the major elements of the psychedelic sound during this period, with guitar feedback in "I Feel Fine" (1964), "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" from their 1965 Rubber Soul album using a sitar, and the employment of reversed audio tapes on their 1966 B-side "Rain".V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, pp. 1322–3. Drug references began to appear in their songs, in "Day Tripper" (1965), and more explicitly in "Tomorrow Never Knows" (1966), from their album Revolver."Though Lennon had yet to launch himself into his fullscale LSD period, he evidently felt sufficiently versed in the "counterculture" associated with the drug to poke fun at those who took it without changing their outlook. The lyric of Day Tripper, he later explained, was an attack on "weekend hippies" - those who donned floral shirts and headbands to listen to "acid rock" between 9-to-5 office-jobs", in I. MacDonald, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (London: Vintage, 3rd edn., 2008), ISBN 978-0-09-952679-7, pp. 167–8.
The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (1966) also contained many elements that would be incorporated into psychedelia, 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.J. DeRogatis, Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock (Milwaukie, Michigan: Hal Leonard, 2003), ISBN 0-634-05548-8, pp. 35–40."Pet Sounds, Revolver and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, relics of the first era of psychedelic rock and shining testaments to what can be accomplished in the recording studio when folks are fueled on the potent drug of rampant imagination" J. DeRogatis, "Milk it!: collected musings on the alternative music explosion of the 90s", ISBN 0-306-81271-1, p. 352.
By the mid-1960s, the psychedelic life-style had already developed in California. This was particularly true in San Francisco, due in part to the first major underground LSD factory, established there by Owsley Stanley. There was also an emerging music scene of folk clubs, coffee houses and independent radio stations catering to a population of students at nearby Berkeley, and to free thinkers that had gravitated to the city.R. Unterberger, Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock's Flight from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock (London: Backbeat Books, 2003), ISBN 0-87930-743-9, pp. 11–13. 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 (supplied by Stanley), accompanied by light shows, film projection and discordant, improvised music known as the psychedelic symphony.M. Hicks, Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions Music in American Life (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000), ISBN 0-252-06915-3, p. 60. 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 Test (1968).J. Mann, Turn on and Tune in: Psychedelics, Narcotics and Euphoriants (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2009), ISBN 1-84755-909-3, p. 87.
The Byrds, emerging from the Californian folk scene, and the Yardbirds from the British blues scene, have been seen as particularly influential on the development of the genre. Drug use and attempts at psychedelic music moved out of acoustic folk-based music towards rock soon after The Byrds "plugged in" to produce a chart topping version of Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man in the summer of 1965, which became a folk rock standard.R. Unterberger, Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock's Flight from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock (London: Backbeat Books, 2003), ISBN 0-87930-743-9, p. 1.W. Ruhlmann, [ "Mr. Tambourine Man: review"], Allmusic. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
A number of Californian-based folk acts followed them into folk-rock, bringing their psychedelic influences with them, to produce the "San Francisco Sound". Particularly prominent products of the scene were The Grateful Dead (who had effectively become the house band of the Acid Tests), Country Joe and the Fish, The Great Society, Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Charlatans, Moby Grape, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane. In 1966, The Byrds moved rapidly away from folk rock with their single "Eight Miles High", which made use of free jazz and Indian ragas, and the lyrics of which were widely taken to refer to drug use. The result of this directness was limited airplay, and there was a similar reaction when Dylan, who had also electrified to produce his own brand of folk rock, released "Rainy Day Women ♯ 12 & 35", with its repeating chorus of "Everybody must get stoned!".R. Unterberger, Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock's Flight from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock (London: Backbeat Books, 2003), ISBN 0-87930-743-9, p. 4.
In Britain, the Yardbirds, with Jeff Beck as their guitarist, increasingly moved into psychedelic territory, adding up-tempo improvised "rave ups", Gregorian chant and world music (in particular Indian) influences to their songs, including "Still I'm Sad" (1965) and "Over Under Sideways Down" (1966), and singles such as "Heart Full of Soul" (1965), "Shapes of Things" (1966) and "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" (1966).R. Unterberger, "British Psychedelic", Allmusic. Retrieved 7 June 2011.Peter Lavezzoli, The Dawn of Indian Music in the West: Bhairavi (New York, NY: Continuum, 2006), ISBN 0-8264-1815-5, p. 154.P. Buckley, The Rough Guide to Rock (London: Rough Guides, 3rd edn., 2003), ISBN 1-84353-105-4, p. 1144. They were soon followed by bands such as Procol Harum, The Moody Blues and The Nice.E. Macan, Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), ISBN 0-19-509888-9, p. 20.
===Development in the USA===
The San Francisco music scene continued to develop as The Fillmore, the Avalon Ballroom, and The Matrix began booking local rock bands on a nightly basis. The first Trips Festival, sponsored by the Merry Pranksters and held at the Longshoremen's Hall in January 1966, saw The Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company play to an audience of 10,000, giving many their first encounter with both acid rock, with its long instrumentals and unstructured jams, and LSD.B. Jackson, Garcia: An American Life (London: Penguin, 2nd edn., 2000), ISBN 0-14-029199-7, pp. 94–5. Also from San Francisco, Blue Cheer played psychedelic-influenced rock in a blues-rock style.
A major figure in the expansion of the genre was promoter Bill Graham, whose first rock concert in 1965 was a benefit that included Allen Ginsberg and the then unknown Jefferson Airplane on the bill. He produced shows attracting most of the major psychedelic rock bands and operated The Fillmore. When this proved too small he took over Winterland and then the Fillmore West (in San Francisco) and the Fillmore East (in New York City), where the major rock artists, from both the US and the UK, came to play.N. Talevski, Knocking on Heaven's Door: Rock Obituaries (Omnibus Press, 2006), ISBN 1-84609-091-1, p. 218.
Although San Francisco was the centre of American psychedelic music scene, many other American cities contributed significantly to the new genre. The first psychedelic single to reach the US top 10 was "Psychotic Reaction" by San Jose band Count Five in July 1966.R. B. Browne and P. Browne, The Guide to United States Popular Culture (Popular Press, 2001), ISBN 0-87972-821-3, p. 8. Los Angeles boasted dozens of important psychedelic bands. Besides The Byrds, these included Iron Butterfly, Love, Spirit, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, The United States of America, The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, and the Electric Prunes;P. Buckley, The Rough Guide to Rock (London: Rough Guides, 3rd edn., 2003), ISBN 1-84353-105-4, p. 65. perhaps the most commercially successful were The Doors.J. E. Perone, Music of the Counterculture Era (London: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004), ISBN 0-313-32689-4, p. 120. Frank Zappa and his group The Mothers of Invention began to incorporate psychedelic influences in their first two albums Freak Out! (1966) and Absolutely Free (1967).U. Adelt, Black, white and blue: Racial politics of blues music in the 1960s (ProQuest, 2007), ISBN 0-549-34196-X, p. 69.
New York City produced its share of psychedelic bands, such as folk pioneers The Fugs, The Godz, and Pearls Before Swine, besides the Blues Magoos, the Blues Project,J. S. Harrington, Sonic Cool: the Life & Death of Rock 'n' Roll (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2002), ISBN 0-634-02861-8, pp. 171–3. Lothar and the Hand PeopleA. M. Ashby, The Pleasure of Modernist Music: Listening, Meaning, Intention, Ideology (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2004), ISBN 1-58046-143-3, p. 228. and the blues-influenced Vanilla Fudge.S. Huey, "Vanilla Fudge", Allmusic. Retrieved 11 February 2012. The Detroit area gave rise to psychedelic bands the Amboy Dukes, and the SRC,D. A. Carson, Grit, Noise, and Revolution: The Birth of Detroit Rock 'n' Roll (University of Michigan Press, 2006), ISBN 0-472-03190-2, pp. 5 and 173. and Chicago produced H. P. Lovecraft.P. Auslander, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006), ISBN 0-472-06868-7, p. 76. Texas (particularly Austin) is often cited for its contributions to psychedelic music: besides the 13th Floor Elevators it produced acts including Bubble Puppy, Lost and Found, The Golden Dawn, The Zakary Thaks, and Red Crayola.J. DeRogatis, Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock (Milwaukie, MI: Hal Leonard, 2003), ISBN 0-634-05548-8, p. 71.
===Development in the UK===
In the UK before 1967 media outlets for psychedelic culture were limited to stations like Radio Luxembourg and pirate radio like Radio London, particularly the programmes hosted by DJ John Peel.Pirate Radio, Ministry of Rock.co.uk. Retrieved 9 February 2010. The growth of underground culture was facilitated by the emergence of alternative weekly publications like IT (International Times) and OZ magazine which featured psychedelic and progressive music together with the counterculture lifestyle, which involved long hair, and the wearing of wild shirts from shops like Mr Fish, Granny Takes a Trip and old military uniforms from Carnaby Street (Soho) and Kings Road (Chelsea) boutiques.P. Gorman, The Look: Adventures in Pop & Rock Fashion (Sanctuary, 2001), ISBN 1-86074-302-1.
Soon psychedelic rock clubs like the UFO Club in Tottenham Court Road, Middle Earth Club in Covent Garden, The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, the Country Club (Swiss Cottage) and the Art Lab (also in Covent Garden) were drawing capacity audiences with psychedelic rock and ground-breaking liquid light shows.C. Grunenberg and J. Harris, Summer of Love: Psychedelic Art, Social Crisis and Counterculture in the 1960s (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005), ISBN 0-85323-919-3, pp. 83–4. A major figure in the development of British psychedelia was the American promoter and record producer Joe Boyd, who moved to London in 1966. He co-founded venues including the UFO Club, produced Pink Floyd's first single, "Arnold Layne", and went on to manage folk and folk rock acts including Nick Drake, the Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention.R. Unterberger, "Nick Drake: biography", Allmusic. Retrieved 7 May 2011.B. Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), ISBN 0-19-515878-4, p. 86.
British psychedelic rock, like its American counterpart, had roots in the folk scene. Blues, drugs, jazz and eastern influences had featured since 1964 in the work of Davy Graham and Bert Jansch.C. Grunenberg and J. Harris, Summer of Love: Psychedelic Art, Social Crisis and Counterculture in the 1960s (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005), ISBN 0-85323-919-3, p. 137. However, the largest strand was a series of bands that emerged from 1966 from the British blues scene, but influenced by folk, jazz and psychedelia, including Pink Floyd, Traffic, Soft Machine, Cream, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience (led by an American, but initially produced and managed in Britain by Chas Chandler of The Animals). The Rolling Stones had drug references and psychedelic hints in their 1966 singles "19th Nervous Breakdown" and "Paint It, Black", the latter featuring drones and sitar. The Small Faces managed to get drug references past the censors with their first single "Here Come the Nice" (1967)B. Eder, "Small Faces: Biography", Allmusic, retrieved 15 August 2013. and introduced phasing on "Itchycoo Park" (1967).D. N. Howard, Sonic Alchemy: Visionary Music Producers and Their Maverick Recordings (Hal Leonard, 2004), ISBN 0-634-05560-7, p. 132.
thumb|left|The Small Faces in 1965
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown added surreal theatrical touches to its dark psychedelic sounds, such as the singer's flaming headdress."The Crazy World of Arthur Brown", Psychedelic Sight. Retrieved 9 February 2010. Existing "British Invasion" acts now joined the psychedelic revolution, including Eric Burdon (previously of The Animals) and The Who, whose The Who Sell Out (1967) included psychedelic influenced tracks "I Can See for Miles" and "Armenia City in the Sky".V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, pp. 29, 1027 and 1220.
===Peak years===
Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the decade. 1967 saw the Beatles release the double A-side "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane", opening a strain of British "pastoral"I. MacDonald, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (London: Vintage, 3rd edn., 2008), ISBN 978-0-09-952679-7, p. 216. or "nostalgic" psychedelia, followed by the release of what is often seen as their definitive psychedelic statement in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, including the controversial track "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".I. MacDonald, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (London: Vintage, 3rd edn., 2008), ISBN 978-0-09-952679-7, pp. 241–2. They continued the psychedelic theme later in the year with the double EP Magical Mystery Tour and the number one single "Hello, Goodbye" with its B-side "I Am the Walrus".I. MacDonald, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (London: Vintage, 3rd edn., 2008), ISBN 978-0-09-952679-7, pp. 263–73. Also enigmatic and surreal was one of the most influential records of 1967, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum, which reached number one in the UK Singles Chart on 8 June 1967, and stayed there for six weeks.S. Whiteley, The Space Between the Notes: Rock and the Counter-Culture (London: Routledge, 1992), ISBN 0-415-06816-9, p. 61.
The Rolling Stones responded to Sgt Pepper later in the year 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.R. Unterberger, "Their Satanic Majesties Request: review", Allmusic. Retrieved 19 November 2007. In 1967 the Incredible String Band's The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion developed their folk music into full blown psychedelia, which would be a major influence on psychedelic rock.J. DeRogatis, Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock (Milwaukie, MI: Hal Leonard, 2003), ISBN 0-634-05548-8, p. 120. From 1967 Fairport Convention became a mainstay of the London Underground scene, producing their eponymous first album of American-inspired folk rock the following year."Unhalfbricking, Fairport Convention", Observer Music Monthly, 20 June 2004, retrieved on 14 January 2009. The Pretty Things' rock opera S.F. Sorrow, released in December 1968, featured both heavy psychedelic songs such as "Old Man Going" and "I See You" and poppy numbers like "S.F.Sorrow Is Born" and "Baron Saturday".N. Strauss, "The Pop Life: The First Rock Opera (No, Not "Tommy")", New York Times, 9 March 1998. Retrieved 18 March 2012.S. Mason, [ Pretty Things: I See You: Review], Allmusic. Retrieved 18 March 2012.S. Mason, [ Pretty Things: S.F.Sorrow Is Born: Review], Allmusic. Retrieved 18 March 2012. The Small Faces' Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake (1968), released soon after, also pioneered the concept album, with the tracks on LP telling a single story.S. Johnstone, "Psychedelic rock" in P. Childs and M. Storry, Encyclopaedia of Contemporary British Culture (London: Routledge, 2013), ISBN 1-134-75555-4, p. 434.
thumb|right|The Redmond Stage at the Woodstock Festival in 1969
In America the Summer of Love of 1967 saw a huge number of young people from across America and the world travel to the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, boosting the population from 15,000 to around 100,000.G. Falk and U. A. Falk, Youth Culture and the Generation Gap (New York, NY: Algora, 2005), ISBN 0-87586-368-X, p. 186. It was prefaced by the Human Be-In event in March and reached its peak at the Monterey Pop Festival in June, the latter helping to make major American stars of Janis Joplin, lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, and The Who.W. E. Studwell and D. F. Lonergan, The Classic Rock and Roll Reader: Rock Music from its Beginnings to the mid-1970s (London: Routledge, 1999), ISBN 0-7890-0151-9, p. 223. Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow, the first album to come out of San Francisco during this era, which sold well enough to bring the city's music scene to the attention of the record industry: from it they took two of the earliest psychedelic hit singles: "White Rabbit" (1967) and "Somebody to Love" (1967).P. Frame, Rock Family Trees (London: Omnibus Press, 1980), ISBN 0-86001-414-2, p. 9. The Doors' first hit single "Light My Fire" (1967), running for over seven minutes, became one of the defining records of the genre, although their follow up album Strange Days only enjoyed moderate success.J. E. Perone, Music of the Counterculture Era (London: Greenwood, 2004), ISBN 0-313-32689-4, p. 24. Santana, led by guitarist Carlos Santana, used Latin rhythms as the basis for their psychedelic music.
These trends climaxed in the 1969 Woodstock festival, which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts, including Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and the Grateful Dead.A. Bennett, Remembering Woodstock (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), ISBN 0-7546-0714-3. Psychedelic rock was glamorized on screen in Easy Rider (1969), which used songs including Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild" as part of its soundtrack.
===International expansion===
The US and UK were the major centres of psychedelic music, but in the late 1960s scenes began to develop across the world, including continental Europe, Australasia, Asia and south and Central America.S. Borthwick and R. Moy, Popular Music Genres: an Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), ISBN 0-7486-1745-0, p. 44.
In the later 1960s psychedelic scenes developed in a large number of countries in continental Europe, including the Netherlands with bands like The Outsiders,R. Unterberger, Unknown Legends of Rock 'n' Roll: Psychedelic Unknowns, Mad Geniuses, Punk Pioneers, Lo-fi Mavericks & More (Miller Freeman, 1998), ISBN 0-87930-534-7, p. 411. Denmark where it was pioneered by Steppeulvene,P. Houe and S. H. Rossel, Images of America in Scandinavia (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998), ISBN 90-420-0611-0, p. 77. and Germany, where musicians began to fuse music of psychedelia and the electronic avant-garde. 1968 saw the first major German rock festival in Essen,P. Buckley, The Rough Guide to Rock, (Rough Guides , 1999), ISBN 1-85828-457-0, p.26 and the foundation of the Zodiak Free Arts Lab in Berlin by Hans-Joachim Roedelius, and Conrad Schnitzler, which helped bands like Tangerine Dream and Amon Düül achieve cult status.P. Stump, Digital Gothic: a Critical Discography of Tangerine Dream (Wembley, Middlesex: SAF, 1997), ISBN 0-946719-18-7, p. 33.
The fledgling Australian and New Zealand rock scenes that formed in wake of Beatlemania were most influenced by British psychedelia, often with bands of first generation immigrants, who returned to further their musical careers.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, pp. 1341–3. Among the most successful were The Easybeats, formed in Sydney but who recorded their international hit "Friday on My Mind" (1966) in London and remained there for their forays into psychedelic-tinged pop until they disbanded in 1970.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, pp. 349–50. A similar path was pursued by the Bee Gees, formed in Brisbane, but whose first album Bee Gees' 1st (1967), recorded in London, gave them three major hit singles and contained folk, rock and psychedelic elements, heavily influenced by the Beatles.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, pp. 85–6. The Twilights, formed in Adelaide, also made the trip to London, recording a series of minor hits, absorbing the psychedelic scene, to return home to produce covers of Beatles' songs, complete with sitar, and the concept album Once upon a Twilight (1968).T. Rawlings, Then, Now and Rare British Beat 1960–1969 (London: Omnibus Press, 2002), ISBN 0-7119-9094-8, p. 191. The most successful New Zealand band, The La De Das, produced the psychedelic pop concept album The Happy Prince (1968), based on the Oscar Wilde children's classic, but failed to break through in Britain and the wider world.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, pp. 635–6.
A thriving psychedelic music scene in Cambodia, influenced by psychedelic rock and soul broadcast by US forces radio in Vietnam,M. Wood, "Dengue Fever: Multiclti Angelanos craft border-bluring grooves" Spin, January 2008, p. 46. was pioneered by artists such as Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Sereysothea.R. Unterberger, "Various Artists: Cambodian Rocks Vol. 1: review", Allmusic retrieved 1 April 2012. In South Korea, Shin Jung-Hyeon, often considered the godfather of Korean rock, played psychedelic-influenced music for the American soldiers stationed in the country. Following Shin Jung-Hyeon, the band San Ul Lim (Mountain Echo) often combined psychedelic rock with a more folk sound. In Turkey, Anatolian rock artist Erkin Koray blended classic Turkish music and Middle Eastern themes into his psychedelic-driven rock, helping to found the Turkish rock scene with artists such as Cem Karaca, Mogollar and Baris Manco.V. Karaege, Erkin Koray Allmusic. Retrieved 1 April 2012.
Latin America proved a particularly fertile ground for psychedelic rock. The Brazilian psychedelic rock group Os Mutantes formed in 1966, although little known outside Brazil at the time, have since accrued a substantial international cult following.John Bush, "Os Mutantes", Allmusic. Retrieved 2 February 2010. In the late 1960s, a wave of Mexican rock, heavily influenced by psychedelia and funk emerged, especially in northern border Mexican states, in particular, Tijuana, Baja California. Among the most recognized bands from this "Chicano Wave" (Onda Chicana in Spanish) were Three Souls in my Mind, Love Army, El RitualG. M. Joseph and T. J. Henderson, ed., The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), ISBN 0-8223-3042-3, p. 605. and Los Dug Dug's.J. Ankeny, "Dug Dug: Biography", Allmusic, retrieved 6 December 2013. In Chile from 1967 to 1973, between the ending of the government of President Frei Montalva and the government of President Allende, a cultural movement was born from a few Chilean bands that emerged playing a unique fusion of folkloric music with heavy psychedelic influences. The 1967 release of Los Mac's album Kaleidoscope Men (1967) inspired bands such as Los Jaivas and Los Blops, the latter going on to collaborate with the iconic Chilean singer-songwriter Victor Jara on his 1971 album El derecho de vivir en paz.B. Keen and K. Haynes, A History of Latin America (Andover: Cengage Learning, 8th ed., 2008), ISBN 0-618-78318-0, p. 592. Meanwhile, in the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires, a burgeoning psychedelic scene gave birth to three of the most important bands in Argentine rock: Los Gatos, Manal and Almendra.S. Bao, Buenos Aires (Footscray, Victoria: Lonely Planet, 5th ed., 2008), ISBN 1-74104-699-8, p. 248.
===Decline===
By the end of the 1960s, psychedelic rock was in retreat. LSD had been made illegal in the US and UK in 1966.I. Inglis, The Beatles, Popular Music and Society: a Thousand Voices (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), ISBN 0-312-22236-X, p. 46. In 1969, the murders of Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca by Charles Manson and his "family" of followers, claiming to have been inspired by Beatles' songs such as "Helter Skelter", has been seen as contributing to an anti-hippie backlash.D. A. Nielsen, Horrible Workers: Max Stirner, Arthur Rimbaud, Robert Johnson, and the Charles Manson Circle: Studies in Moral Experience and Cultural Expression (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2005), ISBN 0-7391-1200-7, p. 84. At the end of the same year, the Altamont Free Concert in California, headlined by the Rolling Stones, became notorious for the fatal stabbing of black teenager Meredith Hunter by Hells Angel security guards.J. Wiener, Come Together: John Lennon in his Time (Chicago IL: University of Illinois Press, 1991), ISBN 0-252-06131-4, pp. 124–6. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys (whose much anticipated Smile project would not emerge until 2004),R. Unterberger, "SMiLE The Beach Boys: review", Allmusic. Retrieved 15 March 2012.J. DeRogatis, Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock (Milwaukie, MI: Hal Leonard, 2003), ISBN 0-634-05548-8, pp. 35–9. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd were early "acid casualties", helping to shift the focus of the respective bands of which they had been leading figures."Garage rock", Billboard, 29 July 2006, 118 (30), p. 11. Some groups, such as the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream, broke up.D. Gomery, Media in America: the Wilson Quarterly Reader, (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2nd edn., 1998), ISBN 0-943875-87-0, pp. 181–2. Jimi Hendrix died in London in September 1970, shortly after recording Band of Gypsys (1970), Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose in October 1970 and they were closely followed by Jim Morrison of the Doors, who died in Paris in July 1971.S. Whiteley, Too Much Too Young: Popular Music, Age and Gender (London: Routledge, 2005), ISBN 0-415-31029-6, p. 147. Many surviving acts moved away from psychedelia into either more back-to-basics "roots rock", traditional-based, pastoral or whimsical folk, the wider experimentation of progressive rock, or riff-based heavy rock.
In 1966, even while psychedelic rock was becoming dominant, Bob Dylan spearheaded the back-to-basics roots revival when he went to Nashville to record the album Blonde on Blonde.R. Unterberger, S. Hicks and J. Dempsey, Music USA: the Rough Guide (London: Rough Guides, 1999), ISBN 1-85828-421-X, p. 31. This, and the subsequent more clearly country-influenced albums, John Wesley Harding (1967) and Nashville Skyline (1969), have been seen as creating the genre of country folk.K. Wolff and O. Duane, Country Music: The Rough Guide (London: Rough Guides, 2000), ISBN 1-85828-534-8, p. 392. Dylan's lead was also followed by The Byrds, joined by Gram Parsons to record Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968), helping to define the genre of country rock,V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, p. 1327. which became a particularly popular style in the California music scene of the late 1960s, and was adopted by former folk rock artists including Hearts and Flowers, Poco and New Riders of the Purple Sage. Other acts that followed the back to basics trend in different ways were the Canadian group The Band and the Californian-based Creedence Clearwater Revival.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, pp. 61 and 265. The Grateful Dead also had major successes with the more reflective and stripped back Workingman's Dead and American Beauty in 1970.B. Jackson, Garcia: An American Life (London: Penguin, 2000), ISBN 0-14-029199-7, pp. 196–200. The super-group Crosby, Stills and Nash, formed in 1968 from members of The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and The Hollies, were joined by Neil Young for Deja Vu in 1970, which moved away from many of what had become the "clichés" of psychedelic rock and placed an emphasis on political commentary and vocal harmonies.F. W. Hoffmann, Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound, Volume 1 (London: CRC Press, 2nd edn., 2005), ISBN 0-415-93835-X, p. 253.
After the death of their manager Brian Epstein and the unpopular surreal television film, Magical Mystery Tour, the Beatles returned to a raw style with The Beatles (1968), Abbey Road (1969) and Let It Be (1970), before their eventual break up. The back to basics trend was also evident in The Rolling Stones' albums starting from Beggar's Banquet (1968) to Exile on Main St. (1972). Fairport Convention released Liege and Lief in 1969, turning away from American-influenced folk rock toward a sound based on traditional British music and founding the subgenre of electric folk, to be followed by bands like Steeleye Span and Fotheringay.B. Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), ISBN 0-19-515878-4, pp. 45–9. The psychedelic-influenced and whimsical strand of British folk continued into the 1970s with acts including Comus, Mellow Candle, Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band, Forest and Trees and with Syd Barrett's two solo albums.
==Influence==
===Other genres===
As psychedelia emerged as a mainstream and commercial force, particularly through the work of the Beatles, it began to influence pop music, which incorporated hippie fashions, as well as the sounds of sitars, fuzz guitars, and tape effects.[ "Psychedelic pop"], Allmusic. Retrieved 27 June 2010. The Beach Boys' hit single "Good Vibrations" was one of the first pop songs to incorporate psychedelic lyrics and sounds.T. Holmes, Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture (London: Taylor & Francis, 3rd edn., 2008), ISBN 0-415-95781-8. Scottish folk singer Donovan's transformation to 'electric' music gave him a series of pop hits, beginning with "Sunshine Superman", which reached number one in both Britain and the US, to be followed by "Mellow Yellow" (1966) and "Atlantis" (1968).C. Grunenberg and J. Harris, Summer of Love: Psychedelic Art, Social Crisis and Counterculture in the 1960 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005), ISBN 0-85323-919-3, p. 140. American pop-oriented bands that followed in this vein included the Electric Prunes, the Blues Magoos and the Strawberry Alarm Clock.Bruce Eder. Strawberry Alarm Clock - biography. allmusic. retrieved 16-2-2014 International acts such as the Bee Gees and the Easybeats were also prominent in the development of psychedelic pop. Psychedelic sounds were also incorporated into the output of early bubblegum pop acts like The Monkees and The Lemon Pipers.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, pp. 646 and 754-5.
Following the lead of Hendrix in rock, psychedelia began to have an impact on African American musicians, particularly the stars of the Motown label.[ "Psychedelic soul"], Allmusic. Retrieved 27 June 2010. This psychedelic soul was influenced by the civil rights movement, giving it a darker and more political edge than much acid rock. Building on the funk sound of James Brown, it was pioneered from about 1968 by Sly and the Family Stone and The Temptations. Acts that followed them into this territory included the Supremes, The Chambers Brothers, The 5th Dimension,G. Case, Out of Our Heads: Rock 'n' Roll Before the Drugs Wore Off (Milwaukie, MI: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2010), ISBN 0-87930-967-9, pp. 70–1. Edwin Starr and the Undisputed Truth. George Clinton's interdependent Funkadelic and Parliament ensembles and their various spin-offs took the genre to its most extreme lengths making funk almost a religion in the 1970s,J. S. Harrington, Sonic Cool: the Life & Death of Rock 'n' Roll (Milwaukie, MI: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2002), ISBN 0-634-02861-8, pp. 249–50. producing over forty singles, including three in the US top ten, and three platinum albums.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, p. 226. While psychedelic rock began to waver at the end of the 1960s, psychedelic soul continued into the 1970s, peaking in popularity in the early years of the decade, and only disappearing in the late 1970s as tastes began to change. Acts like Earth, Wind and Fire, Kool and the Gang and Ohio Players, who began as psychedelic soul artists, incorporated its sounds into funk music and eventually the disco which partly replaced it.A. Bennett, Rock and Popular Music: Politics, Policies, Institutions (Abingdon: Routledge, 1993), ISBN 0-203-99196-6, p. 239.
===Rock music===
Many of the British musicians and bands that had embraced psychedelia went on to create progressive rock in the 1970s, including Pink Floyd, Soft Machine and members of Yes. King Crimson's album In the Court of the Crimson King (1969) has been seen as an important link between psychedelia and progressive rock.J. DeRogatis, Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock (Milwaukie, MI: Hal Leonard, 2003), ISBN 0-634-05548-8, p. 169. While bands such as Hawkwind maintained an explicitly psychedelic course into the 1970s, most dropped the psychedelic elements in favour of wider experimentation.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, p. 515. The incorporation of jazz into the music of bands like Soft Machine and Can also contributed to the development of the jazz rock of bands like Colosseum.A. Blake, The Land Without Music: Music, Culture and Society in Twentieth-Century Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), ISBN 0-7190-4299-2, pp. 154–5. As they moved away from their psychedelic roots and placed increasing emphasis on electronic experimentation, German bands like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Can and Faust developed a distinctive brand of electronic rock, known as kosmische musik, or in the British press as "Kraut rock".P. Bussy, Kraftwerk: Man, Machine and Music (London: SAF, 3rd end., 2004), ISBN 0-946719-70-5, pp. 15–17. The adoption of electronic synthesisers, pioneered by Popol Vuh from 1970, together with the work of figures like Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music), would be a major influence on subsequent electronic rock.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, pp. 1330–1. In Japan, Osamu Kitajima's 1974 psychedelic rock album Benzaiten utilized electronic equipment such as a synthesizer and drum machine, and one of the record's contributors was Haruomi Hosono,"Osamu Kitajima: Benzaiten", Discogs. Retrieved 24 February 2012. who later started the electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra (as "Yellow Magic Band") in 1977."Harry Hosono And The Yellow Magic Band: Paraiso", Discogs. Retrieved 24 February 2012.
Psychedelic rock, with its distorted guitar sound, extended solos and adventurous compositions, has been seen as an important bridge between blues-oriented rock and later heavy metal. American bands whose loud, repetitive psychedelic rock emerged as early heavy metal included the Amboy Dukes and Steppenwolf. From England, two former guitarists with the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, moved on to form key acts in the genre, The Jeff Beck Group and Led Zeppelin respectively.B. A. Cook, Europe Since 1945: an Encyclopedia, Volume 2 (London: Taylor & Francis, 2001), ISBN 0-8153-1336-5, p. 1324. Other major pioneers of the genre had begun as blues-based psychedelic bands, including Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Judas Priest and UFO.J. DeRogatis, Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock (Milwaukie, MI: Hal Leonard, 2003), ISBN 0-634-05548-8, p. 212. Psychedelic music also contributed to the origins of glam rock, with Marc Bolan changing his psychedelic folk duo into rock band T. Rex and becoming the first glam rock star from 1970.P. Auslander, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006), ISBN 0-472-06868-7, p. 196. From 1971 David Bowie moved on from his early psychedelic work to develop his Ziggy Stardust persona, incorporating elements of professional make up, mime and performance into his act.P. Auslander, "Watch that man David Bowie: Hammersmith Odeon, London, July 3, 1973" in I. Inglis, ed., Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), ISBN 0-7546-4057-4, p. 72.
==Neo-psychedelia==
===1970s and 1980s===
There were occasional mainstream acts that dabbled in neo-psychedelia, including Prince's mid-1980s work and some of Lenny Kravitz's 1990s output, but it has mainly been an influence on alternative and indie-rock bands. Psychedelic rock began to be revived in the late 1970s/early 1980s by bands of the post-punk scene, including the work of The Teardrop Explodes, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Church, the Soft Boys,[ "Neo-psychedelia"], Allmusic. Retrieved 2 July 2010. Siouxsie and the Banshees,J. Marszalek, "Siouxsie & the Banshees reissues", Thequietus.com, 10 April 2009. Retrieved 19 July 2011.S. Reynolds, Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984 (London: Faber and Faber, 2005), p. 428. The Cure,C. True, "The Cure: The Top: review", Allmusic. Retrieved 23 March 2012. The Glove,B. Swift, "The Glove: Blue Sunshine: review", Allmusic. Retrieved 23 March 2012. and The Legendary Pink Dots.S. Huey, "The Legendary Pink Dots: Biography", Allmusic. Retrieved 23 March 2012. In the US in the early 1980s these bands were joined by the Paisley Underground movement, based in Los Angeles, with acts like Dream Syndicate, The Bangles and Rain Parade.R. Unterberger, S. Hicks and J. Dempsey, Music USA: the Rough Guide (London: Rough Guides, 1999), ISBN 1-85828-421-X, p. 401. New wave band XTC published records under the pseudonym The Dukes of Stratosphear from 1985.J. Leckie, Producer John Leckie On The Ten Essential Records He's Worked On Thequietus.com. Retrieved 19 July 2011 Even Gothic rock band The Damned incorporated psychedelic music into their sound.N. Raggett, Phantasmagoria Allmusic. Retrieved 22 March 2012. The late 1980s saw the birth of shoegazing in the UK, which, among other influences, took inspiration from 1960s psychedelia.P. Sisson, "Vapour Trails: Revisiting Shoegaze", XLR8R no. 123, December 2008. Critic Simon Reynolds described this movement as "a rash of blurry, neo-psychedelic bands". With loud walls of sound, where individual instruments and even vocals were often indistinguishable, they followed the lead of noise pop and dream pop bands such as My Bloody Valentine (often considered as the earliest shoegaze act),S. Reynolds, "It's the Opposite of Rock 'n' Roll", SPIN, August 2008, pp. 78–84. The Jesus and Mary Chain, and the Cocteau Twins.N. Raggett, "Cocteau Twins: Echoes in a Shallow Bay: review", Allmusic. Retrieved 23 March 2012. Major acts included Ride, Lush, Chapterhouse, and The Boo Radleys, who enjoyed considerable attention in the UK, but largely failed to break through in the US."Shoegaze", Allmusic. Retrieved 26 January 2011.
===1990s to the present===
In the 1990s the Elephant 6 collective, including acts like The Apples in Stereo, The Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, Elf Power and of Montreal, produced eclectic psychedelic rock and folk.D. Walk, "The Apples in Stereo: Smiley Smile", CMJ New Music, Sep 1995 (25), p. 10. Other alternative acts to pursue psychedelia from the 1990s included The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Porno For Pyros and Super Furry Animals. Stoner rock also emerged, combining elements of psychedelic rock, blues-rock and doom metal. Typically using a slow-to-mid tempo and featuring low-tuned guitars in a bass-heavy sound,G. Sharpe-Young, "Kyuss biography", MusicMight. Retrieved 10 December 2007. with melodic vocals, and 'retro' production,[ "Stoner Metal"], Allmusic. Retrieved 22 May 2009. it was pioneered by the Californian bands KyussE. Rivadavia [ "Kyuss"], Allmusic. Retrieved 10 December 2007. and Sleep.E. Rivadavia, [ "Sleep"], Allmusic. Retrieved 22 May 2009. In the UK the Madchester scene influenced the early sound of 1990s Britpop bands like Blur.S. Erlewine, [ "Blur"] Allmusic. Retrieved 6 July 2011. The Verve mixed on 1960s psychedelia with the shoegazing aesthetic.J. Ankeny, "The Verve: biography", retrieved 30 November 2013. Oasis also drew on 1960s psychedelic pop and rock, particularly on the album Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (2000).S. Erlewine, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, Allmusic. Retrieved 7 July 2010. In the immediate post-Britpop era Kula Shaker incorporated swirling, guitar-heavy sounds of late-'60s psychedelia with Indian mysticism and spirituality.S. Erlewine, [ "Kula Shaker"] Allmusic. Retrieved 6 July 2011. In the new millennium neo-psychedelia was continued by bands directly emulating the sounds of the 60s such as The Black Angels,J. Macgregor, "The Black Angels", Allmusic. Retrieved 26 January 2011. Tame Impala,J. Macgregor, "Tame Impala", Allmusic. Retrieved 26 January 2011. Pond,J. Lymangrover, "Pond", Allmusic. Retrieved 15 April 2013. and The Essex Green,J. Ankeny, "The Green Essex", Allmusic. Retrieved 26 January 2011. while bands like Animal Collective and The Bright Light Social Hour applied an experimental approach that combined genres from the 1960s and the present.J. C. Monger, "Animal Collective: biography", Allmusic. Retrieved 13 March 2012.M. Deming, "The Bright Light Social Hour: biography", Allmusic. Retrieved 4 September 2015. Modern festivals focusing on psychedelic music include Austin Psych Fest in Texas, founded in 2008E. Gossett, "Austin Psych Fest announces 2014 lineup", Paste, 4 December 2013, retrieved 7 December 2013. and Liverpool Psych Fest."Liverpool Psych Fest", NME, 30 September 2013, retrieved 7 December 2013.
==See also==
* List of electric blues musicians
* List of psychedelic rock artists
==References==
Category:Pages stolen off Wikipedia