Psychedelic music (sometimes called psychedelia) is a wide range of
popular music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...
styles and genres influenced by 1960s
psychedelia
Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic ...
, a
subculture
A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...
of people who used
psychedelic drug
Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips").Pollan, Michael (2018). ''How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science o ...
s such as
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
,
psilocybin mushroom
Psilocybin mushrooms, commonly known as magic mushrooms, are a polyphyletic informal group of mushroom, fungi that contain psilocybin which turns into psilocin upon ingestion. Biological genera containing psilocybin mushrooms include ''Psilocyb ...
s,
mescaline
Mescaline or mescalin (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a naturally occurring psychedelic protoalkaloid of the substituted phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin.
Biological sou ...
, and
cannabis
''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...
to experience
synesthesia
Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who re ...
and
altered states of consciousness. Psychedelic music may also aim to enhance the experience of using these drugs and has been found to have a significant influence on
psychedelic therapy
Psychedelic therapy (or psychedelic-assisted therapy) refers to the proposed use of psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, and ayahuasca, to treat mental disorders. As of 2021, psychedelic drugs are controlled substances in most countrie ...
.
Psychedelia embraces visual art, movies, and literature, as well as music. Psychedelic music emerged during the 1960s among
folk
Folk or Folks may refer to:
Sociology
*Nation
*People
* Folklore
** Folk art
** Folk dance
** Folk hero
** Folk music
*** Folk metal
*** Folk punk
*** Folk rock
** Folk religion
* Folk taxonomy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Folk Plus or Fol ...
and
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
bands in the United States and the United Kingdom, creating the subgenres of
psychedelic folk
Psychedelic folk (sometimes acid folk or freak folk) is a loosely defined form of psychedelia that originated in the 1960s. It retains the largely acoustic instrumentation of folk, but adds musical elements common to psychedelic music.
Chara ...
,
psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...
,
acid rock, and
psychedelic pop
Psychedelic pop (or acid pop) is pop music that contains musical characteristics associated with psychedelic music. Developing in the late 1960s, elements included " trippy" features such as fuzz guitars, tape manipulation, backwards recording, ...
before declining in the early 1970s. Numerous spiritual successors followed in the ensuing decades, including
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
,
krautrock
Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock
Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments ...
, and
heavy metal. Since the 1970s, revivals have included
psychedelic funk
Psychedelic funk (also called P-funk or funkadelia, and sometimes conflated with psychedelic soul) is a music genre that combines funk music with elements of psychedelic rock. It was pioneered in the late 1960s and early 1970s by American acts li ...
,
neo-psychedelia
Neo-psychedelia is a diverse genre of psychedelic music that draws inspiration from the sounds of 1960s psychedelia, either updating or copying the approaches from that era. Originating in the 1970s, it has occasionally seen mainstream pop su ...
, and
stoner rock
Stoner rock, also known as stoner metal or stoner doom, is a rock music fusion genre that combines elements of doom metal with psychedelic rock and acid rock. The genre emerged during the early 1990s and was pioneered foremost by Kyuss and Sleep. ...
as well as psychedelic
electronic music
Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...
genres such as
acid house
Acid house (also simply known as just "acid") is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago. The style is defined primarily by the squelching sounds and basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic bass synthesiz ...
,
trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from the British new-age music scene and the early 1990s German techno and hardcore scenes.
Trance music is characterized by a tempo generally lying between 135–150 beats per minute ( ...
, and
new rave
New rave (also typeset as nu-rave, nu rave or neu rave) is a genre of music described by ''The Guardian'' as "an in-yer-face, DIY disco riposte to the sensitive indie rock touted by bands like Bloc Party." It is most commonly applied to a British ...
.
Characteristics
"Psychedelic" as an adjective is often misused, with many acts playing in a variety of styles. Acknowledging this, author Michael Hicks explains:
A number of features are quintessential to psychedelic music. Exotic instrumentation, with a particular fondness for the
sitar
The sitar ( or ; ) is a plucked stringed instrument, originating from the Indian subcontinent, used in Hindustani classical music. The instrument was invented in medieval India, flourished in the 18th century, and arrived at its present form in ...
and
tabla
A tabla, bn, তবলা, prs, طبلا, gu, તબલા, hi, तबला, kn, ತಬಲಾ, ml, തബല, mr, तबला, ne, तबला, or, ତବଲା, ps, طبله, pa, ਤਬਲਾ, ta, தபலா, te, తబలఠ...
are common. Songs often have more disjunctive song structures,
key
Key or The Key may refer to:
Common meanings
* Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm
* Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock
* Key (map ...
and
time signature
The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value ...
changes,
modal melodies and
drones than contemporary pop music.
[ ]Surreal
Surreal may refer to:
*Anything related to or characteristic of Surrealism, a movement in philosophy and art
* "Surreal" (song), a 2000 song by Ayumi Hamasaki
* ''Surreal'' (album), an album by Man Raze
*Surreal humour, a common aspect of humor
...
, whimsical, esoterically or literary-inspired lyrics are often used.[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), , pp. 1322–3.] There is often a strong emphasis on extended instrumental segments or jams
Jams or JAMS may refer to:
*Plural form of jam, a type of fruit preserve
*Jams (clothing line)
*JAMS (organization), United States organization that provides alternative dispute resolution services
*The JAMs, former name of The KLF, a British band ...
. There is a strong keyboard presence, in the 1960s especially, using electronic organs, harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecÃn; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
s, or the Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...
, an early tape-driven 'sampler' keyboard.
Elaborate studio effects are often used, such as backwards tapes, panning the music from one side to another of the stereo track, using the "swooshing" sound of electronic phasing
A phaser is an electronic sound processor used to filter a signal, and it has a series of troughs in its frequency-attenutation graph. The position (in Hz) of the peaks and troughs are typically modulated by an internal low-frequency oscillat ...
, long delay loops and extreme reverb
Reverberation (also known as reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound, after a sound is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is abso ...
. In the 1960s there was a use of electronic instruments such as early synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
s and the theremin
The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...
. Later forms of electronic psychedelia also employed repetitive computer-generated beats.
1960s: Original psychedelic era
From the second half of the 1950s, Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...
writers like William Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultu ...
, Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Of French-Canadian a ...
and Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
wrote about and took drugs, including cannabis
''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...
and Benzedrine
Amphetamine (contracted from alpha- methylphenethylamine) is a strong central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is used in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), narcolepsy, and obesity. It is also commonly used a ...
, raising awareness and helping to popularise their use. In the early 1960s the use of LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
and other psychedelics was advocated by new proponents of consciousness expansion such as Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...
, Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley and Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler, (, ; ; hu, Kösztler Artúr; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was a Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. In 1931, Koestler join ...
, and, according to Laurence Veysey
Laurence Russ Veysey (1932–2004) was a historian best known for his history of higher education, ''The Emergence of the American University''. He also wrote ''The Communal Experience
''The Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Counter ...
, they profoundly influenced the thinking of the new generation of youth.
The psychedelic lifestyle had already developed in California, particularly in San Francisco, by the mid-1960s, with the first major underground LSD factory established by Owsley Stanley
Augustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 – March 12, 2011) was an American-Australian audio engineer and clandestine chemist. He was a key figure in the San Francisco Bay Area hippie movement during the 1960s and played a pivotal role ...
.[J. DeRogatis, ''Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock'' (Milwaukie, Michigan: Hal Leonard, 2003), , pp. 8–9.] From 1964 the Merry Pranksters
The Merry Pranksters were comrades and followers of American author Ken Kesey in 1964.
Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters lived communally at Kesey's homes in California and Oregon, and are noted for the sociological significance of a lengthy roa ...
, a loose group that developed around novelist Ken Kesey
Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.
Kesey was born in ...
, sponsored the Acid Tests
The Acid Tests were a series of parties held by author Ken Kesey primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area during the mid-1960s, centered on the use of and advocacy for the psychedelic drug LSD, commonly known as "acid". LSD was not made illegal ...
, a series of events involving the taking of LSD (supplied by Stanley), accompanied by light shows, film projection and discordant, improvised music by the Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...
(financed by Stanley), then known as the Warlocks, 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), , p. 60.] The Pranksters helped popularise LSD use, through their road trips across America in a psychedelically decorated converted 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
''The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'' is a 1968 nonfiction book by Tom Wolfe. The book is a popular example of the New Journalism literary style. Wolfe presents a firsthand account of the experiences of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, ...
'' (1968).[J. Mann, ''Turn on and Tune in: Psychedelics, Narcotics and Euphoriants'' (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2009), , p. 87.]
San Francisco had an emerging music scene of folk clubs, coffee houses and independent radio stations that catered to the population of students at nearby Berkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
and the 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), , pp. 11–13.] There was already a culture of drug use among jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
and blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
musicians, and in the early 1960s use of drugs including cannabis, peyote
The peyote (; ''Lophophora williamsii'' ) is a small, spineless cactus which contains psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline. ''Peyote'' is a Spanish word derived from the Nahuatl (), meaning "caterpillar cocoon", from a root , "to gl ...
, mescaline
Mescaline or mescalin (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a naturally occurring psychedelic protoalkaloid of the substituted phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin.
Biological sou ...
and LSD began to grow among folk and rock musicians. One of the first musical uses of the term "psychedelic" in the folk scene was by the New York-based folk group The Holy Modal Rounders
The Holy Modal Rounders was an American folk music group, originally the duo of Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber, who began performing together on the Lower East Side of New York City in the early 1960s. Their unique blend of folk music revival ...
on their version of Lead Belly
Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...
's 'Hesitation Blues
"Hesitation Blues" is a popular song adapted from a traditional tune. One version was published by Billy Smythe, Scott Middleton, and Art Gillham. Another was published by W.C. Handy as "Hesitating Blues". Because the tune is traditional, man ...
' in 1964. Folk/avant-garde guitarist John Fahey recorded several songs in the early 1960s experimented with unusual recording techniques, including backwards tapes, and novel instrumental accompaniment including flute and sitar. His nineteen-minute "The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party" "anticipated elements of psychedelia with its nervy improvisations and odd guitar tunings". Similarly, folk guitarist Sandy Bull
Alexander "Sandy" Bull (February 25, 1941 – April 11, 2001) was an American folk musician and composer. Bull was an accomplished player of many stringed instruments, including guitar, pedal steel guitar, banjo, and oud. His early work blends no ...
's early work "incorporated elements of folk, jazz, and Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
and Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
-influenced dronish modes". His 1963 album ''Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo
''Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo'' is the debut album of the folk guitarist Sandy Bull, released in 1963 through Vanguard Records.
Recording
Bull recorded the album accompanied by Billy Higgins, a session jazz drummer who had previously appear ...
'' explores various styles and "could also be accurately described as one of the very first psychedelic records".
Soon musicians began to refer (at first indirectly, and later explicitly) to the drug and attempted to recreate or reflect the experience of taking LSD in their music, just as it was reflected in psychedelic art
Psychedelic art (also known as psychedelia) is art, graphics or visual displays related to or inspired by psychedelic experiences and hallucinations known to follow the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, and DMT. The word "p ...
, literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
and film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
. This trend ran in parallel in both America and Britain and as part of the interconnected folk and rock scenes. As pop music began incorporating psychedelic sounds, the genre emerged as a mainstream and commercial force.[ "Psychedelic pop" ''Allmusic'', retrieved 27 June 2010.] Psychedelic rock reached its peak in the last years of the decade.[ From 1967 to 1968, it was the prevailing sound of rock music, either in the whimsical British variant, or the harder American West Coast acid rock. In America, the 1967 ]Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. ...
was prefaced by the Human Be-In
The Human Be-In was an event held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture and i ...
event and reached its peak at the Monterey Pop Festival
The Monterey International Pop Festival was a three-day music festival held June 16 to 18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix ...
. These trends climaxed in the 1969 Woodstock festival
Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...
, which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts, including Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
, Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer and musician. One of the most successful and widely known Rock music, rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage ...
, Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, that became one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to ac ...
, and Santana
Santana may refer to:
Transportation
* Volkswagen Santana, an automobile
* Santana Cycles, manufacturer of tandem bicycles
* Santana Motors, a former Spanish automobile manufacturer
Boats
* Santana 20, an American sailboat design by W. D. Sch ...
.
By the end of the 1960s, the trend of exploring psychedelia in music was largely in retreat. LSD was declared illegal in the US and UK in 1966. The linking of the murders of Sharon Tate
Sharon Marie Tate Polanski (January 24, 1943 – August 9, 1969) was an American actress and model. During the 1960s, she played small television roles before appearing in films and was regularly featured in fashion magazines as a model and cover ...
and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca
James Douglas Muir Leno (; born April 28, 1950) is an American television host, comedian, writer, and actor. After doing stand-up comedy for years, he became the host of NBC's ''The Tonight Show'' from 1992 to 2009. Beginning in September 2009 ...
by The Manson Family to Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developme ...
songs such as " Helter Skelter" contributed to an anti-hippie backlash. The Altamont Free Concert in California, headlined by The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...
and Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, that became one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to ac ...
on December 6, 1969, did not turn out to be a positive milestone in the psychedelic music scene, as was anticipated; instead, it became notorious for the fatal stabbing of a black teenager Meredith Hunter by Hells Angels security guards.
Revivals and successors
Rock and pop
Post-psychedelic era: Progressive rock and hard rock
By the end of the 1960s, many rock musicians had returned to the rootsy sources of rock and roll's origins, leading to what Barney Hoskyns called a "retrogressive, post-psychedelic music" development; he cited the country rock
Country rock is a genre of music which fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal s ...
and blues/soul-inspired rock of the Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...
, The Band, Delaney & Bonnie, Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards.
As a teenager in t ...
, and Leon Russell
Leon Russell (born Claude Russell Bridges; April 2, 1942 – November 13, 2016) was an American musician and songwriter who was involved with numerous bestselling records during his 60-year career that spanned multiple genres, including rock and ...
. At the same time, a more avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
development came with the contingent of artists associated with Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experimen ...
, including The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention (also known as The Mothers) was an American rock band from California. Formed in 1964, their work is marked by the use of sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows.
Originally an R&B band ...
, Captain Beefheart
Don Van Vliet (; born Don Glen Vliet; January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. Conducting a rotating ensemble known as Th ...
, Wild Man Fischer
Lawrence Wayne "Wild Man" Fischer (November 6, 1944 – June 16, 2011) was an American street performer known for offering erratic, a cappella performances of "new kinds of songs" for a dime on the beaches and the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. ...
, The GTOs
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
, and Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer whose career spans over five decades. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusions, including pyrotechnics, guillot ...
. According to musicologist Frank Hoffman, post-psychedelic hard rock emerged from the varied rock scene, distinguished by more "cinematic guitar stylings and evocative lyric imagery", as in the music of Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are ci ...
, Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath were an English rock music, rock band formed in Birmingham in 1968 by guitarist Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward (musician), Bill Ward, bassist Geezer Butler and vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. They are often cited as pioneers of heavy met ...
, and Robin Trower
Robin Leonard Trower (born 9 March 1945) is an English rock guitarist who achieved success with Procol Harum throughout 1967–1971, and then again as the bandleader of his own power trio known as the Robin Trower Band.
Biography
Robin Trowe ...
. Music scholar Edward Macan notes that the "post-psychedelic hard rock/ heavy metal styles" that emerged had "a weaker connection to the hippie ethos" and "strongly emphasized the blues progression
The 12-bar blues (or blues changes) is one of the most prominent chord progressions in popular music. The blues progression has a distinctive form in lyrics, phrase, chord structure, and duration. In its basic form, it is predominantly based on ...
". Psychedelic rock, with its distorted guitar sound, extended solos, and adventurous compositions, had been an important bridge between blues-oriented rock and the later emergence of metal. Two former guitarists with the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page
James Patrick Page (born 9 January 1944) is an English musician who achieved international success as the guitarist and founder of the rock band Led Zeppelin. Page is prolific in creating guitar riffs. His style involves various alternative ...
, moved on to form key acts in the new blues rock-heavy metal genre, The Jeff Beck Group
The Jeff Beck Group was a British rock band formed in London in January 1967 by former Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck. Their innovative approach to heavy-sounding blues, rhythm and blues and rock was a major influence on popular music.
First ...
and Led Zeppelin, respectively.[B. A. Cook, ''Europe Since 1945: an Encyclopedia, Volume 2'' (London: Taylor & Francis, 2001), , p. 1324.] Other major pioneers of the heavy metal genre had begun as blues-based psychedelic bands, including Black Sabbath, Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in London in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal music, heavy metal and modern hard rock music, but their musical style has changed over the course of its existence. Ori ...
, Judas Priest
Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band formed in Birmingham in 1969. They have sold over 50 million albums and are frequently ranked as one of the greatest metal bands of all time. Despite an innovative and pioneering body of work in th ...
and UFO
An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...
.[
According to American academic Christophe Den Tandt, many musicians during the post-psychedelic era adopted a stricter sense of professionalism and elements of ]classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...
, as evinced by the concept albums of Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...
and the virtuosic instrumentation of Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Yes
Yes or YES may refer to:
* An affirmative particle in the English language; see yes and no
Education
* YES Prep Public Schools, Houston, Texas, US
* YES (Your Extraordinary Saturday), a learning program from the Minnesota Institute for Talente ...
. "Early-1970s post-psychedelic rock was hatched in small or medium-sized structures", he adds, naming record labels such as Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...
, Island Records
Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...
, and Obscure Records
Obscure Records was a U.K. record label which existed from 1975 to 1978. It was created and curated by Brian Eno. Ten albums were issued in the series. Most have detailed liner notes on their back covers, analyzing the compositions and providin ...
. Many of the British musicians and bands that had embraced psychedelia moved into creating the progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
genre in the 1970s. King Crimson
King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England. The band draws inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, industrial, electronic, experime ...
's album ''In the Court of the Crimson King
''In the Court of the Crimson King'' (subtitled ''An Observation by King Crimson'') is the debut studio album by English rock band King Crimson, released on 10 October 1969 by Island Records. The album is one of the earliest and most influentia ...
'' (1969), has been seen as an important link between psychedelia and progressive rock. While some bands such as Hawkwind maintained an explicitly psychedelic course into the 1970s, most bands dropped the psychedelic elements in favour of embarking on 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), , p. 515.] As German bands from the psychedelic movement moved away from their psychedelic roots and placed increasing emphasis on electronic instrumentation, these groups, including Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize the ...
, Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup ...
, Can
Can may refer to:
Containers
* Aluminum can
* Drink can
* Oil can
* Steel and tin cans
* Trash can
* Petrol can
* Metal can (disambiguation)
Music
* Can (band), West Germany, 1968
** ''Can'' (album), 1979
* Can (South Korean band)
Other
* C ...
and Faust, developed a distinctive brand of electronic rock, known as kosmische musik
Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in West Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electronic music, a ...
, or in the British press as "Krautrock". Their adoption of electronic synthesisers, along with the musical styles explored by Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...
in his keyboard playing with Roxy Music
Roxy Music are an English rock music, rock band formed in 1970 by Bryan Ferry—who became the band's lead vocalist and principal songwriter—and bassist Graham Simpson (musician), Graham Simpson. The other longtime members are Phil Manzanera ...
, had a major influence on subsequent development of 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), , pp. 1330–1.] The incorporation of jazz styles into the music of bands like Soft Machine and Can, also contributed to the development of the emerging jazz rock
Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...
sound of bands such as Colosseum
The Colosseum ( ; it, Colosseo ) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world to ...
.
Another development of the post-psychedelic era was more freedom with marketing of the artist and their records, such as with album artwork. Tandt identifies a recording artist's preference for anonymity in the economic market through the design of record sleeves having limited information about the musician or the record; he cites Pink Floyd's early 1970s albums, the Beatles' 1968 album (unofficially known as The White Album
''The Beatles'', also referred to colloquially as the White Album, is the ninth studio album and only double album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 22 November 1968. Featuring a plain white sleeve, the cover contains no graph ...
), and Led Zeppelin's 1971 album, for which "there is up to this day no consensus about the title". According to him, post-psychedelic musicians like Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...
and Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is a British musician, songwriter, record producer, and author, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest-lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He has worked extensively as a session ...
"explicitly advocated" this disconnection between the artist and their work or stardom. "In so doing", he adds, "they laid the foundations for a central tendency of post-punk
Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...
" in the late 1970s, as evinced by the first four albums by The Cure
The Cure are an English Rock music, rock band formed in 1978 in Crawley, Crawley, West Sussex. Throughout numerous lineup changes since the band's formation, guitarist, lead vocalist, and songwriter Robert Smith (musician), Robert Smith has re ...
(featuring blurry photographs of the band members) and Factory Records
Factory Records was a Manchester-based British independent record label founded in 1978 by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus.
The label featured several important acts on its roster, including Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio, the Durutt ...
' dark-colored covers with serial numbers.
By the mid-1970s, post-psychedelic music's emphasis on musicianship had "laid itself bare to an iconoclastic rebellion", as Tandt described: "Mid-1970s punk rock, with its genuine or feigned ethos of musical crudeness, reinscribed rock's autonomy through cultural means opposite to those developed 10 years earlier." Along with the psychedelic, folk rock, and British rhythm and blues styles that preceded it, the music of the post-psychedelic era later became associated with the classic rock
Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, primar ...
category.
Stoner rock, also known as stoner metal or stoner doom, is a rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
fusion genre that combines elements of heavy metal and/or doom metal
Doom metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other heavy metal genres.K. Kahn-Harris, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'' ...
with psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...
and acid rock. The name references cannabis
''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...
consumption. The term desert rock is often used interchangeably with the term "stoner rock" to describe this genre; however, not all stoner rock bands would fall under the descriptor of "desert rock". Stoner rock is typically slow-to-mid tempo
In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...
and features a heavily distorted, groove-laden bass
Bass or Basses may refer to:
Fish
* Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species
Music
* Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range:
** Bass (instrument), including:
** Acoustic bass gui ...
-heavy sound, melodic vocals, and "retro" production. The genre emerged during the early 1990s and was pioneered foremost by Monster Magnet
Monster Magnet is an American rock band. Hailing from Red Bank, New Jersey, the group was founded in 1989 by Dave Wyndorf (vocals and guitar), John McBain (guitar) and Tim Cronin (vocals and drums); they have since gone through several lineup c ...
and the California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
bands Fu Manchu
Dr. Fu Manchu () is a supervillain who was introduced in a series of novels by the English author Sax Rohmer beginning shortly before World War I and continuing for another forty years. The character featured in cinema, television, radio, comic ...
, Kyuss
Kyuss ( ) was an American rock band, formed in Palm Desert, California, in 1987. The band disbanded in 1995, and since then, members of Kyuss have gone on to form or play in several notable bands including Queens of the Stone Age, Fu Manchu, D ...
and Sleep
Sleep is a sedentary state of mind and body. It is characterized by altered consciousness, relatively inhibited sensory activity, reduced muscle activity and reduced interactions with surroundings. It is distinguished from wakefulness by a de ...
.
Post-punk, indie rock and alternative rock
Neo-psychedelia (or "acid punk") is a diverse style of music that originated in the 1970s as an outgrowth of the British post-punk
Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...
scene. Its practitioners drew from the unusual sounds of 1960s psychedelic music, either updating or copying the approaches from that era. Neo-psychedelia may include forays into psychedelic pop, jangly guitar rock, heavily distorted free-form jams, or recording experiments.[
] Some of the scene's bands, including the Soft Boys
The Soft Boys were an English rock band led by Robyn Hitchcock primarily during the 1970s, whose initially old-fashioned music style of psychedelic/folk-rock became part of the neo-psychedelia scene with the release of '' Underwater Moonlight''. ...
, the Teardrop Explodes
The Teardrop Explodes were an English post-punk/neo-psychedelic band formed in Liverpool in 1978. Best known for their Top Ten UK single "Reward", the group originated as a key band in the emerging Liverpool post-punk scene of the late 1970s. T ...
, and Echo & the Bunnymen, became major figures of neo-psychedelia.[
The early 1980s ]Paisley Underground
Paisley Underground is a musical genre that originated in California. It was particularly popular in Los Angeles, reaching a peak in the mid-1980s. Paisley Underground bands incorporated psychedelia, rich vocal harmonies and guitar interplay, owin ...
movement followed neo-psychedelia. Originating in Los Angeles, the movement saw a number of young bands who were influenced by the psychedelia of the late 1960s and all took different elements of it. The term "Paisley Underground" was later expanded to include others from outside the city.
Madchester
Madchester was a musical and cultural scene that developed in the English city of Manchester in the late 1980s, closely associated with the indie dance scene. Indie-dance (sometimes referred to as indie-rave) saw artists merging indie music w ...
was a music and cultural scene that developed in the Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
area of North West England
North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...
in the late 1980s, in which artists merged alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
with acid house
Acid house (also simply known as just "acid") is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago. The style is defined primarily by the squelching sounds and basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic bass synthesiz ...
and dance culture as well as other sources, including psychedelic music and 1960s pop. The label was popularised by the British music press in the early 1990s, and its most famous groups include the Stone Roses
The Stone Roses were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Manchester in 1983. One of the pioneering groups of the Madchester movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the band's classic and most prominent lineup consisted of vocalist I ...
, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets
Inspiral Carpets are an English rock band, part of the late-1980s/early-1990s Madchester movement. Formed in Oldham in 1980, the band's most successful lineup featured frontman Tom Hingley, drummer Craig Gill, guitarist Graham Lambert, bassist ...
, the Charlatans and 808 State
808 State are an English electronic music group formed in 1987 in Manchester, taking their name from the Roland TR-808 drum machine. They were formed by Graham Massey, Martin Price and Gerald Simpson. They released their debut album, '' New ...
. The rave
A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...
-influenced scene is widely seen as heavily influenced by drugs, especially ecstasy (MDMA
3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), commonly seen in Tablet (pharmacy), tablet form (ecstasy) and crystal form (molly or mandy), is a potent empathogen–entactogen with stimulant properties primarily used for Recreational dru ...
). At that time, the Haçienda
The Haçienda was a nightclub and music venue in Manchester, North West England, which became famous during the Manchester years of the 1980s and early 1990s. It was run by the record label Factory Records.
The club opened in 1982, eventually ...
nightclub, co-owned by members of New Order, was a major catalyst for the distinctive musical ethos in the city that was called the Second Summer of Love
The Second Summer of Love was a late 1980s social phenomenon in the United Kingdom which saw the rise of acid house music and unlicensed rave parties. Although primarily referring to the summer of 1988, it lasted into the summer of 1989, when e ...
. ''Screamadelica
''Screamadelica'' is the third studio album by Scottish rock band Primal Scream. It was first released on 23 September 1991 in the United Kingdom by Creation Records and on 8 October 1991 in the United States by Sire Records. The album marked a ...
'' is the third studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
by Scottish rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band Primal Scream
Primal Scream are a Scottish rock band originally formed in 1982 in Glasgow by Bobby Gillespie (vocals) and Jim Beattie. The band's current lineup consists of Gillespie, Andrew Innes (guitar), Simone Butler (bass), and Darrin Mooney (drums) ...
released in 1991. The album marked a significant departure from the band's early indie rock
Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...
sound, drawing inspiration from the blossoming house music
House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute. It was created by Disc jockey, DJs and music producers from Chicago metropolitan area, Chicago' ...
scene and associated drugs such as LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
and MDMA
3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), commonly seen in Tablet (pharmacy), tablet form (ecstasy) and crystal form (molly or mandy), is a potent empathogen–entactogen with stimulant properties primarily used for Recreational dru ...
. It won the first Mercury Music Prize
The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album released in the United Kingdom by a British or Irish act. It was created by Jon Webster and Robert Chandler in association with the B ...
in 1992, and has sold over three million copies worldwide.
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
states: "Aside from the early-'80s Paisley Underground movement and the Elephant 6 collective
The Elephant 6 Recording Company is a loosely defined musical collective from the United States. Notable bands associated with the collective include the Apples in Stereo, Beulah, Circulatory System, Elf Power, the Minders, Neutral Milk Hotel, ...
of the late 1990s, most subsequent neo-psychedelia came from isolated eccentrics and revivalists, not cohesive scenes." They go on to cite what they consider some of the more prominent artists: the Church, Nick Saloman
The Bevis Frond is an English rock band formed in 1986 in Walthamstow, London, England. The band is fronted by Nick Saloman and has recorded many singles and albums on various independent labels.
Information
Saloman was originally in a band kn ...
's Bevis Frond
The Bevis Frond is an English rock band formed in 1986 in Walthamstow, London, England. The band is fronted by Nick Saloman and has recorded many singles and albums on various independent labels.
Information
Saloman was originally in a band kn ...
, Spacemen 3
Spacemen 3 were an English neo-psychedelia space rock band, formed in 1982 in Rugby, Warwickshire, by Peter Kember and Jason Pierce, known respectively under their pseudonyms Sonic Boom and J Spaceman. Their music is known for its brand of "tr ...
, Robyn Hitchcock
Robyn Rowan Hitchcock (born 3 March 1953) is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano, and bass guitar. After leading the Soft Boys in the late 1970s and releasing the ...
, Mercury Rev
Mercury Rev is an American indie rock band formed in 1989 in Buffalo, New York.
Original personnel were the Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1983 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The band currently consists of Wayne Coyne (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Steven Drozd (guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, vocals), Derek Brown (keyb ...
, and Super Furry Animals
Super Furry Animals are a Welsh rock band formed in Cardiff in 1993. For the duration of their professional career, the band consisted of Gruff Rhys (lead vocals, guitar), Huw Bunford (lead guitar, vocals), Guto Pryce (bass guitar), Cian Ciaran ...
. According to Treblezines Jeff Telrich: "Primal Scream
Primal Scream are a Scottish rock band originally formed in 1982 in Glasgow by Bobby Gillespie (vocals) and Jim Beattie. The band's current lineup consists of Gillespie, Andrew Innes (guitar), Simone Butler (bass), and Darrin Mooney (drums) ...
made eo-psychedeliadancefloor ready. The Flaming Lips and Spiritualized
Spiritualized (stylised as Spiritualized®) are an English rock band formed in 1990 in Rugby, Warwickshire, by Jason Pierce (often known as J. Spaceman), formerly of Spacemen 3. After several line up-changes, in 1999, the band centered on Pierc ...
took it to orchestral realms. And Animal Collective
Animal Collective is an American experimental pop band formed in Baltimore, Maryland. Its members consist of Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Geologist (Brian Weitz), and Deakin (Josh Dibb). The band's work is characterized ...
—well, they kinda did their own thing."
Hypnagogic pop, chillwave, and glo-fi
''The Atlantic'' writer Llewellyn Hinkes Jones identified a variety of music styles from the 2000s characterized by mellow beats, vintage synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
s, and lo-fi melodies, including chillwave, glo-fi, and hypnagogic pop
Hypnagogic pop (often abbreviated as h-pop) is pop or psychedelic music that evokes cultural memory and nostalgia for the popular entertainment of the past (principally the 1980s). It emerged in the mid to late 2000s as American lo-fi and noise ...
. These three terms were described as interchangeable by ''the Quietus
''The Quietus'' is a British online music and pop culture magazine founded by John Doran and Luke Turner. The site is an editorially independent publication led by Doran with a group of freelance journalists and critics.
Content
''The Quiet ...
'', along with other terms "dream-beat" and "hipster-gogic pop." Altogether, they may be viewed as a type of synth-based psychedelic music.
The term "chillwave" was coined in July 2009 on the Hipster Runoff blog by Carles (the pseudonym used by the blog's author) on his accompanying "blog radio" show of the same name. Carles invented the genre name for a host of similarly sounding up-and-coming bands. In August 2009, "hypnagogic pop" was coined by journalist David Keenan
David Keenan (born April 1971) is a Scottish writer and author of four novels. Career
He used to run the Glasgow record shop, distribution company and record label Volcanic Tongue.
Journalism
His work for ''The Wire'' (who he wrote for from ...
to refer to a developing trend of 2000s lo-fi
Lo-fi (also typeset as lofi or low-fi; short for low fidelity) is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate choice. The ...
and post-noise music
Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise within a musical context. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical ...
in which artists from varied backgrounds began to engage with elements of cultural nostalgia
Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word ''nostalgia'' is a learned formation of a Greek language, Greek compound, consisting of (''nóstos''), meaning "homecoming", ...
, childhood memory, and outdated recording technology.
By 2010, albums by Ariel Pink
Ariel Marcus Rosenberg ( ; born June 24, 1978), professionally known as Ariel Pink, is an American musician, singer, and songwriter whose work draws heavily from the popular music of the 1960s–1980s. His lo-fi music, lo-fi aesthetic and home ...
and Neon Indian
Neon Indian is an American electronic music band from Denton, Texas. The music is composed by Mexican-born Alan Palomo (born July 24, 1988), who is also known for his work with the band Ghosthustler, and as the solo artist VEGA. The project has b ...
were regularly hailed by publications like ''Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...
'' and ''The Wire
''The Wire'' is an American Crime film, crime drama Television show, television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The ...
''. The terms "hypnagogic pop", "chillwave", and "glo-fi" were soon adopted to describe the evolving sound of such artists, a number of which had songs of considerable success within independent music
Independent music (also commonly known as indie music or simply indie) is music that is produced independently from commercial record labels or their subsidiaries, a process that may include an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording a ...
circles. Originally, it was common for the three terms to be used interchangeably, but chillwave later distinguished itself as a combination of dream pop
Dream pop (also typeset as dreampop) is a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychedelia that emphasizes atmosphere and sonic texture as much as pop melody. Common characteristics include breathy vocals, dense productions, and effects such as ...
, new age
New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...
, muzak
Muzak is an American brand of background music played in retail stores and other public establishments. The name has been in use since 1934, and has been owned by a division or subsidiary of one or another company ever since. In 1981, Westingh ...
, and synth-pop
Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...
. A 2009 review by ''Pitchfork''s Marc Hogan for Neon Indian
Neon Indian is an American electronic music band from Denton, Texas. The music is composed by Mexican-born Alan Palomo (born July 24, 1988), who is also known for his work with the band Ghosthustler, and as the solo artist VEGA. The project has b ...
's album ''Psychic Chasms
''Psychic Chasms'' is the debut studio album by American electronic music band Neon Indian, released on October 13, 2009, by Lefse Records. ''Pitchfork'' placed the album at number 14 on its list of Top 50 Albums of 2009, while Rhapsody ranked i ...
'' referenced "dream-beat", "chillwave", "glo-fi", "hypnagogic pop", and "hipster-gogic pop" as interchangeable terms for "psychedelic music that's generally one or all of the following: synth-based, homemade-sounding, 80s-referencing, cassette-oriented, sun-baked, laid-back, warped, hazy, emotionally distant, slightly out of focus."
Funk, soul, and hip hop
Following the late 1960s work of Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
, psychedelia
Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic ...
began to have a widespread impact on African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
musicians.["Psychedelic soul"]
''Allmusic'', retrieved 27 February 2017. Black funk artists such as Sly and the Family Stone
Sly and the Family Stone was an American band from San Francisco. Active from 1966 to 1983, it was pivotal in the development of funk, soul, rock, and psychedelic music. Its core line-up was led by singer-songwriter, record producer, and multi-i ...
borrowed techniques from psychedelic rock music, including wah pedal
A wah-wah pedal, or simply wah pedal, is a type of electric guitar effects pedal that alters the tone and frequencies of the guitar signal to create a distinctive sound, mimicking the human voice saying the onomatopoeic name "wah-wah". The ped ...
s, fuzz boxes, echo chambers, and vocal distorters, as well as elements of blues rock
Blues rock is a fusion music genre that combines elements of blues and rock music. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock (electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums, sometimes w ...
and jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
. In the following years, groups such as Parliament-Funkadelic
Parliament-Funkadelic (abbreviated as P-Funk) is an American music collective of rotating musicians headed by George Clinton, primarily consisting of the funk bands Parliament and Funkadelic, both active since the 1960s. Their distinctive fu ...
continued this sensibility, employing synthesizers and rock-oriented guitar work into open-ended funk jams. Producer Norman Whitfield
Norman Jesse Whitfield (May 12, 1940 – September 16, 2008) was an American songwriter and producer, who worked with Berry Gordy's Motown labels during the 1960s.allmusic Biography/ref> He has been credited as one of the creators of the Motow ...
would draw on this sound on popular Motown
Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''moto ...
recordings such as the Temptations
The Temptations are an American vocal group from Detroit, Michigan, who released a series of successful singles and albums with Motown Records during the 1960s and 1970s. The group's work with producer Norman Whitfield, beginning with the Top ...
' "Cloud Nine
Cloud Nine, cloud 9 or cloud nine is a name colloquially given to the state of euphoria, and may refer to:
Books and comics
* Cloud 9 (comics), a Marvel Comics superhero that debuted in ''Avengers: The Initiative''
* ''Cloud Nine'' (novel), a 19 ...
" (1968) and Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., who also spelled his surname as Gaye (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), was an American singer and songwriter. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo ar ...
's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is a song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for Motown Records in 1966. The first recording of the song to be released was produced by Whitfield for Gladys Knight & the Pips and released as a ...
" (1969).
Influenced by the civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
, psychedelic soul
Psychedelic soul (originally called black rock or conflated with psychedelic funk) is a music genre that emerged in the late 1960s and saw Black soul musicians embrace elements of psychedelic rock, including its production techniques, instrumenta ...
had a darker and more political edge than much psychedelic rock.[ Psychedelic soul was pioneered by ]Sly and the Family Stone
Sly and the Family Stone was an American band from San Francisco. Active from 1966 to 1983, it was pivotal in the development of funk, soul, rock, and psychedelic music. Its core line-up was led by singer-songwriter, record producer, and multi-i ...
with songs like ""I Want to Take You Higher
"I Want to Take You Higher" is a song by the soul/rock/funk band Sly and the Family Stone, the B-side to their Top 30 hit "Stand!". Unlike most of the other tracks on the ''Stand!'' album, "I Want to Take You Higher" is not a message song; instea ...
" (1969), and The Temptations
The Temptations are an American vocal group from Detroit, Michigan, who released a series of successful singles and albums with Motown Records during the 1960s and 1970s. The group's work with producer Norman Whitfield, beginning with the Top ...
with "Cloud Nine", "Runaway Child, Running Wild
"Runaway Child, Running Wild" (shown as "Run Away Child, Running Wild" on the label of the original single) is a 1969 hit single for the Gordy (Motown) label, performed by The Temptations and produced by Norman Whitfield. The single was both the s ...
" (1969) and "Psychedelic Shack
''Psychedelic Shack'' is the twelfth studio album by The Temptations for the Gordy (Motown) label released in 1970. Completely written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong and produced by Whitfield, ''Psychedelic Shack'' almost completely abando ...
" (1969).
Psychedelic hip hop emerged at the end of the 1980s as rappers began to sample mellower grooves, with De La Soul
De La Soul () is an American hip hop trio formed in 1988 in the Amityville area of Long Island, New York. They are best known for their eclectic sampling, quirky lyrics, and their contributions to the evolution of the jazz rap and alternative ...
's debut album ''3 Feet High and Rising
''3 Feet High and Rising'' is the debut studio album by American hip hop group De La Soul, released on March 3, 1989 by Tommy Boy Records. It is the first of three collaborations with producer Prince Paul, which would become the critical and ...
'' (1989).
Electronic
Synthedelia
Synthedelia is the fusion of Psychedelia
Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic ...
, electronic music
Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...
, and Avant-Garde music
Avant-garde music is music that is considered to be at the forefront of innovation in its field, with the term "avant-garde" implying a critique of existing aesthetic conventions, rejection of the status quo in favor of unique or original elemen ...
, originating in the 1960s.
House, techno, and trance
The rave
A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...
scene emphasized house
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...
, acid house
Acid house (also simply known as just "acid") is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago. The style is defined primarily by the squelching sounds and basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic bass synthesiz ...
and techno
Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often ch ...
. The rave genre "hardcore" first appeared amongst the UK acid movement during the late 1980s at warehouse parties and other underground
Underground most commonly refers to:
* Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth
Underground may also refer to:
Places
* The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston
* The Underground (S ...
venues, as well as on UK pirate radio stations. The genre would develop into oldschool hardcore, which led to newer forms of rave music such as drum and bass
Drum and bass (also written as drum & bass or drum'n'bass and commonly abbreviated as D&B, DnB, or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by fast breakbeats (typically 165–185 beats per minute) with heavy bass and sub-ba ...
and 2-step
Two-step or two step may refer to:
Dance
*Two-step (dance move), a dance move used in a wide range of dancing genres
*Country-western two-step, also known as the Texas Two-step
* Nightclub Two Step, also known as the California Two-step
*2-step ( ...
, as well as other hardcore techno genres, such as gabber
Gabber (; ) is a style of electronic dance music and a subgenre of hardcore techno, as well as the surrounding subculture. The music is more commonly referred to as Hardcore, which is characterised by fast beats, distorted & heavier kickdrums, ...
, hardstyle and happy hardcore. In the late 1980s, rave culture began to filter through from English expatriates
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and disc jockey
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music f ...
s who would visit Continental Europe
Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...
. American raves began in the 1990s in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
Acid house originated in the mid-1980s in the house music
House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute. It was created by Disc jockey, DJs and music producers from Chicago metropolitan area, Chicago' ...
style of Chicago DJs like DJ Pierre, Adonis, Farley Jackmaster Funk and Phuture
Phuture is an American house music group from Chicago, founded in 1985 by Earl Smith Jr., Earl "Spanky" Smith Jr., Nathaniel Pierre Jones aka DJ Pierre, and Herbert "Herb J" Jackson. The group is famous for inventing and defining the sound of acid ...
, the last of which coined the term on his " Acid Trax" (1987). It mixed elements of house with the "squelchy" sounds and deep basslines produced by the Roland TB-303
The Roland TB-303 Bass Line (also known as the 303) is a bass synthesizer released by Roland Corporation in 1981. Designed to simulate bass guitars, it was a commercial failure and was discontinued in 1984. However, cheap second-hand units were ...
synthesizer. As singles began to reach the UK the sound was re-created, beginning in small warehouse parties held in London in 1986–87. During 1988 in the Second Summer of Love
The Second Summer of Love was a late 1980s social phenomenon in the United Kingdom which saw the rise of acid house music and unlicensed rave parties. Although primarily referring to the summer of 1988, it lasted into the summer of 1989, when e ...
it hit the mainstream as thousands of clubgoers travelled to mass raves. The genre then began to penetrate the British pop charts with hits for M/A/R/R/S
MARRS (stylised M, A, R, R, S) were a 1987 recording collective formed by the groups A.R. Kane and Colourbox, which only released one commercial disc. It became "a one-hit wonder of rare influence" because of their international hit " Pump Up t ...
, S'Express
S'Express (pronounced ''ess-express''; sometimes spelled S'Xpress or S-Express) were a British dance music act from the late 1980s, who had one of the earliest commercial successes in the acid house genre.
"Theme from S'Express", which containe ...
, and Technotronic
Technotronic was a Belgian electronic music project formed in 1987 by Jo Bogaert, who originally gained popularity in Europe as a solo artist with various new beat projects, including Acts of Madmen and Nux Nemo. Together with rapper Manuela K ...
by the early 1990s, before giving way to the popularity of trance music.
Trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from the British new-age music scene and the early 1990s German techno and hardcore scenes.
Trance music is characterized by a tempo generally lying between 135–150 beats per minute ( ...
originated in the German techno
Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often ch ...
and hardcore scenes of the early 1990s. It emphasized brief and repeated synthesizer lines with minimal rhythmic changes and occasional synthesizer atmospherics, with the aim of putting listeners into a trance-like state. A writer for Billboard magazine
''Billboard'' (stylized as ''billboard'') is an American music and entertainment magazine published weekly by Penske Media Corporation. The magazine provides music charts, news, video, opinion, reviews, events, and style related to the music ...
writes, "Trance music is perhaps best described as a mixture of 70s disco and 60s psychedelia". Derived from acid house and techno music, it developed in Germany and the Netherlands with singles including "Energy Flash" by Joey Beltram
Joey Beltram (born 6 September 1971) is an American DJ and music producer, best known for his pioneering singles "Energy Flash" and "Mentasm" and for remixing Human Resource (band), Human Resource's "Dominator (Human Resource song), Dominator".
...
and "The Ravesignal" by CJ Bolland
Christian Jay "C. J." Bolland (born 18 June 1971, Stockton-on-Tees, England) is an English-Belgian electronic music producer and remixer with British roots.
Born in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, Bolland's family moved to Antwerp in Flanders ...
. This was followed by releases by Robert Leiner, Sun Electric, Aphex Twin
Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), best known as Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born British musician, composer and DJ. He is known for his idiosyncratic work in electronic music, electronic styles such as techno, ambient music, ambient, and jun ...
and most influentially the techno-trance released by the Harthouse label, including the much emulated "Acperience 1" (1992) by duo Hardfloor
Hardfloor is a German electronic music duo, consisting of Oliver Bondzio and Ramon Zenker. Their most famous track is "Acperience 1" (often titled more simply as "Acperience" on many compilation albums) and chosen by Feargal Sharkey as one of h ...
. Having gained some popularity in the UK in the early 1990s it was eclipsed by the appearance of new genres of electronic music such as trip hop
Trip hop (sometimes used synonymously with "downtempo") is a musical genre that originated in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom, especially Bristol. It has been described as a psychedelic music, psychedelic fusion of hip hop music, hip hop ...
and jungle
A jungle is land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation, usually in tropical climates. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past recent century.
Etymology
The word ''jungle'' originates from the Sanskrit word ''jaá¹… ...
, before taking off again towards the end of the decade and beginning to dominate the clubs.
It soon began to fragment into a number of subgenres, including progressive trance
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from the British new-age music scene and the early 1990s German techno and hardcore scenes.
Trance music is characterized by a tempo generally lying between 135–150 beats per minute ( ...
, acid trance, goa trance
Goa trance is an electronic dance music style that originated in the early 1990s in the Indian state of Goa. Goa trance often has drone-like basslines, similar to the techno minimalism of 21st century psychedelic trance (psytrance). Psychedelic ...
, psychedelic trance
Psychedelic Trance, Psytrance or Psy is a subgenre of trance music characterized by arrangements of rhythms and layered melodies created by high tempo riffs. The genre offers variety in terms of mood, tempo, and style. Some examples include full ...
, hard trance
Hard trance is a subgenre of trance music which originated in Western Europe (Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands) in the early 1990s as the Breakbeat hardcore production community began to diversify into new and different styles of electronic m ...
and uplifting trance
Uplifting trance (often synonymous with epic trance, energetic trance, anthem trance, emotional trance, or euphoric trance) is a broad subgenre of trance music. The name, which emerged in the wake of progressive trance in 1996, is derived from ...
.[ "Trance" ''Allmusic'', retrieved 27 June 2010.]
In the 2010s, artists such as Bassnectar, Tipper
Tipper can refer to:
People
* Alfred Tipper (1867–1944), Australian showman, competitive and endurance cyclist and outsider artist
* Benjamin Tipper (1896–1970), English cricketer
* Constance Tipper (1894–1995), English metallurgist and crys ...
and Pretty Lights
Derek Vincent Smith (born November 25, 1981), known by his stage name Pretty Lights, is an American electronic music producer. Pretty Lights was originally a music project consisting of Smith and Michal Menert, who left after the release of their ...
dominated the more mainstream psychedelic cultures. "Raves" became much larger and grew to mainstream appeal.
New rave
In Britain in the 2000s (decade), the combination of indie rock
Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...
with dance-punk
Dance-punk (also known as disco-punk, punk-funk or techno-punk) is a post-punk subgenre that emerged in the late 1970s, and is closely associated with the disco, post-disco and new wave movements.Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984 ...
was dubbed "new rave" in publicity for Klaxons
Klaxons were an English rock band, based in London. Following the release of several 7-inch singles on different independent record labels, as well as the success of previous singles " Magick" and " Golden Skans", the band released their debu ...
, and the term was picked up and applied by the NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
to a number of bands.[K. Empire]
"Rousing rave from the grave"
''The Observer'', 5 October 2006, retrieved 9 January 2008. It formed a scene with a similar visual aesthetic to earlier rave music, emphasizing visual effects: glowsticks
A glow stick, also known as a light stick, chem light, light wand, light rod, and rave light, is a self-contained, short-term light-source. It consists of a translucent plastic tube containing isolated substances that, when combined, make light ...
, neon
Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...
and other lights were common, and followers of the scene often dressed in extremely bright and fluorescent
Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, tha ...
coloured clothing.[''The Guardian'', 3 February 2007.]
The Future's Bright ..."
retrieved 31 March 2007.
See also
*List of psychedelic folk artists
The following is a list of psychedelic folk artists.
Artists
*The Accidental
* Akron/Family
* Animal Collective
*Arborea
* August Born
*Bread, Love and Dreams
*Vashti Bunyan
* Nick Castro
* Circulus
*Circus Maximus
*Comus
*Current 93
* Buck Curra ...
* List of psychedelic pop artists
*List of psychedelic rock artists
The following is a list of artists considered to be general purveyors of the psychedelic rock genre.
1960s–early 1970s 0–E
*The 13th Floor Elevators
* Aguaturbia
*Daevid Allen
*The Amboy Dukes
* Andromeda
* Apple Pie Motherhood Band
*Syd Ba ...
References
Further reading
*
* Echard, William (2017). ''Psychedelic Popular Music: A History through Musical Topic Theory.'' Indiana University Press
*
*
{{Counterculture of the 1960s
Pop music genres
Counterculture of the 1960s