The Rise of Modern Slow Psychedelic Rock

A look at how modern psychedelic rock has evolved and the bands leading the charge.

The Birth of Psychedelic Rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that was developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The term is often used interchangeably with “acid rock”. Psychedelic rock is characterized by its use of electronic instruments, distorted guitar sounds, experimental techniques, and unusual song structures.

The Beatles and their influence

Psychedelic rock, also referred to as garage rock, is a genre of rock music that became popular in the mid-1960s and reached its peak in popularity in the mid-1970s. The style is characterized by distorted guitars, psychedelic lyrics, and drug-inspired visuals.

The Beatles were the most influential band of the psychedelic rock genre. Their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released in 1967, was a major turning point for the genre. The album’s iconic artwork and experimental sound helped to popularize psychedelic culture and influences can be heard in later bands such as Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, and The Doors.

While the Beatles are largely credited with innovating the genre, they were not the only ones making psychedelic music at the time. Other notable bands include The Beach Boys, The Kinks, and The Who. These bands all helped to shape what would become one of the most influential genres in rock music history.

The British Invasion

In the early 1960s, Liverpool, England, was the center of the British music scene. The Beatles were followed closely by a number of other popular bands, including the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and the Animals. These bands became known as the “British Invasion” groups. They brought with them a new style of music that was influenced by American blues and rock and roll.

The British Invasion bands introduced a new sound to American audiences that was heavier and more distorted than what had been heard before. This new sound became known as psychedelic rock. Psychedelic rock was characterized by its use of feedback, extended guitar solos, and unusual effects such as echo and phasing.

The first psychedelic rock song is often said to be “I Can See for Miles” by the Who, which was released in 1967. Other early psychedelic rock songs include “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix, “Tomorrow Never Knows” by the Beatles, and “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones.

The popularity of psychedelic rock began to decline in the late 1960s due to a number of factors, including the rise of punk rock and disco. Nonetheless, it has remained an influential genre of music that has been heard in a variety of forms in subsequent decades.

The 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 and behaviors, converged in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. The Summer of Love became associated with psychedelic drugs such as LSD and cannabis, as well as with anti-war demonstrations and the growth of the counterculture movement.

The San Francisco Sound

If the British Invasion brought electric guitars and pop hooks to American shores, then the San Francisco Sound brought them back with a vengeance – and added a heaping helping of mind-expanding psychedelia for good measure.

The San Francisco Sound is often said to have begun with The Charlatans, a band which formed in the city in 1964 and began playing a brand of tunes that blended blues, R&B, folk and country with a healthy dose of trippy lyrics and extended improvisational jams. The Charlatans never achieved widespread commercial success, but they did play an important role in establishing the San Francisco music scene – one which would soon be dominated by such giants as The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Sly & The Family Stone.

The psychedelic sound of the San Francisco bands reached its peak in the late 1960s with the advent of what came to be known as “acid rock.” This style – typified by such classics as The Grateful Dead’s “Dark Star,” Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” and Cream’s “Crossroads” – was characterized by extended jams, mind-bending lyrics and heavy use of feedback, distortion and other sonic effects.

While the acid rockers were jamming away in Haight-Ashbury, another group of San Francisco musicians were hard at work creating what would come to be known as “art rock.” This more cerebral style – exemplified by such bands as Santana, The Doors and Jefferson Airplane – combined elements of jazz, Latin music and classical composition with traditional rock song structures.

The Summer of Love may have ended with the tragic death of Jimi Hendrix in 1970, but the musical legacy of the San Francisco Sound lives on to this day. Thanks to such modern practitioners as The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Tame Impala and Arcade Fire, the spirit of LSD-fueled experimentation that characterized the music of the 60s is very much alive in 21st century psychedelic rock.

The Monterey Pop Festival

The Monterey Pop Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to 18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. Crowd estimates for the festival have ranged from 25,000 to 90,000 people, who congregated on the111-acre (0.45 km2) fairgrounds to hear 33 musical acts perform. The fairgrounds’ 1⁄2-mile (0.80 km) oval race track and 10,000-seat grandstand served as the screening area for six a filmmaker who had been hired by organizers for $10,000 to film the proceedings. The festival is widely regarded as the pivotal moment in the birth of the counterculture of the 1960s and helped make pop music into an art form of personal expression.

The Psychedelic Revival

In recent years, there has been a resurgence in the popularity of psychedelic music. Artists like Tame Impala, MGMT, and The Flaming Lips have brought the psychedelic sound back to the mainstream. Psychedelic music encompasses a wide range of genres, from classic rock to modern pop.

The neo-psychedelia movement

The neo-psychedelia movement emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as a revival of psychedelic rock, specifically that of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Psychedelic music was thought to have been out of fashion since the mid-’70s, but artists like Television, Talking Heads, and Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd were among the pioneers of a new wave of psychedelic bands.

The neo-psychedelia label was coined by British music journalist Simon Reynolds in his 1988 article “Psychedelia: Back from the Brink” to describe this trend. Although “neo-psychedelia” suggests a return to the style’s golden era, many of the groups were inspired by more contemporary punk rock and new wave as much as they were by 60’s psychedelia.

The modern psychedelic rock scene

The modern psychedelic rock scene has its roots in the classic psychedelic rock of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the more experimental and jam-oriented sounds of that era. Psychedelic rock bands of the 1990s and 2000s often incorporated elements of classic psychedelic rock into their sound, while also expanding on the genre in new and innovative ways.

The 1990s saw the formation of many new psychedelic rock bands, as well as the reformation of some classic 1960s and 1970s groups. In the 2000s, psychedelic rock continued to evolve, with bands incorporating elements of other genres like electronica, metal, and even pop.

Today, there is a vibrant global psytrance scene, with psytrance parties and festivals being held all over the world. The music has also crossed over into the mainstream, with many artists incorporating psychedelic influences into their sound.