Psychedelic Rock is possibly the most crucial genre in Rock history. Bred coming from a 1960’s counterculture centered on taking psychedelic drugs in order to experience a heightened sense of reality through distortions, vibrations, vivid colorizations and lucid dreaming, the culture tried to replicate LSD effects through vibrant pictures and sounds.
Psychedelic Rock is characterized by heavily effected instrumentation. Reverb echoes incessantly, tremolo takes the place of standard lead guitar lines, while distortion buzzes throughout. Lyrics attemptedto relay visions and feelings produced over these cosmic inner journeys.
The sound was pioneered with the Beatles, and brought up by such bands because the Yardbirds, Cream, Pink Floyd and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. This rock band primarily due to inventing the definition of Psychedelic Rock is the Austin, TX based The 13th Floor Elevators.
The movement hit its peak with The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Rolling Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request, Pink Floyd’s The Piper with the Gates of Dawn, all eventually climaxing in 1969 at Woodstock, where psychedelic acts for example Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Santana played.
Numerous events brought about the loss of availability of Psychedelic Rock. LSD had been declared illegal, the url between Sharon Tate’s murder by Chapman and The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” led to a “hippie backlash”. “Acid casualties”, or people negatively afflicted with hallucinogens and medicines generally speaking, became posters for avoiding psychedelic experiences: Syd Barrett’s insanity, the deaths of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin generated a far more raw “back to basics” trend in Rock.
However, due to selling point of Psychedelic Rock, new genres were being formed, including Progressive Rock and Heavy Metal. Musicians who was raised playing Psychedelia still planned to take elements from the movement, and included their best aspects to their respective sounds.
From the late 1970’s, bands primarily in the Post-Punk scene strived to regenerate Psychedelia, blending the distortions, reverb and phaser (et al) with all the upbeat dance beats of New Wave. Bands including Siouxsie along with the Banshees, Echo as well as the Bunnymen, The Soft Boys, and The Church utilized the 60’s nuances to full 80’s effect.Hence, Neo-Psychedelia was.
The buzz of such bands bled in the 90’s, with the Shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine and also the Jesus of Mary Chain carrying over through the 80’s, the emergence from the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Dandy Warhols, and the Electric 6 Collective such as the Apples in Stereo, of Montreal, and Neutral Milk Hotel. Neo-Psychedelia can basically be summed up as any form of music incorporating Psychedelic elements within its songs.
True Psychedelic Rock is untouchable, having ended together with the decline with the counterculture. If one could write original songs inside the Psychedelic Rock style those songs would be Neo-Psychedelic.
Psychedelic Music am powerful rolling around in its statement, primarily through its commitment of experiencing heightened art, which it will continue to dominate our musical trends even today. And i am prepared to bet that it will never fizzle out entirely.
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