Psychedelic pop (oracid pop)[3] is a genre ofpop music that contains musical characteristics associated withpsychedelic music.[1] Developing in the mid-to-late 1960s, elements included "trippy" features such asfuzz guitars, tape manipulation, backwards recording,sitars, andBeach Boys-style harmonies, wedded to melodic songs with tight song structures.[1] The style lasted into the early 1970s.[1] It has seen revivals in subsequent decades byneo-psychedelic artists.[2]
According toAllMusic, psychedelic pop was not too "freaky", but also not very "bubblegum" either.[1] It appropriated the effects associated with straight psychedelic music, applying their innovations to concise pop songs.[1] The music was occasionally confined to the studio, but there existed more organic exceptions whose psychedelia was bright and melodic.[1] AllMusic adds: "What's [strange] is that some psychedelic pop is more interesting than average psychedelia, since it had weird, occasionally awkward blends of psychedelia and pop conventions –the Neon Philharmonic's 1969 albumThe Moth Confesses is a prime example of this."[1]
Pet Sounds bythe Beach Boys – The album came as an indirect result of bandleaderBrian Wilson's experimentation withpsychedelic drugs. Music journalist Mike McPadden credits it with sparking a psychedelic pop revolution. He says that while psychedelic rock had existed beforePet Sounds, mainly amonggarage bands like the13th Floor Elevators,Pet Sounds inspired mainstream pop acts to take part in the psychedelic culture.[3][nb 1]
Revolver bythe Beatles – According to AllMusic, the album ensured that psychedelia emerged from its underground roots and presented in the mainstream as psychedelic pop.[1] BiographerIan MacDonald wrote that the album "had initiated a second pop revolution – one which, while galvanising their existing rivals and inspiring many new ones, left all of them far behind".[4]
"Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys – Proclaimed by journalistBarney Hoskyns as the "ultimate psychedelic pop record" from Los Angeles in its time.[5]Popmatters added: "Its influence on the ensuing psychedelic and progressive rock movements can't be overstated ... [it] changed the way a pop record could be made, the way a pop record could sound, and the lyrics a pop record could have."[6]
Evolution was a transitional album betweenThe Hollies' conventional pop sound and what the Oxford 'Encyclopedia of Popular Music' described as the "full-blown psychedelic glory ofButterfly."[8]
Odessey and Oracle bythe Zombies – AllMusic's Bruce Eder characterizes the album as "some of the most powerful psychedelic pop/rock ever heard out of England".[10] According toRecord Bin's Joshua Packard, the album was a "psychedelic pop spectacle". "Care of Cell 44", its opening track, "presents the band as bearers of a new kind of psychedelia, one that relied less on psychotropics and more on the natural abilities of the band. ... [the album] has gained a well-deserved reputation for being one of the greatest pop records of the '60s."[11]
By the end of the 1960s, psychedelic folk and rock were in retreat. Many surviving acts moved away from psychedelia into either more back-to-basics "roots rock", traditional-based, pastoral or whimsical folk, the wider experimentation ofprogressive rock, or riff-laden heavy rock.[12][verification needed] Psychedelic influences lasted a little longer in pop music, stretching into the early 1970s.[1]
Psychedelic pop became a component of theneo-psychedelic style. There were occasional mainstream acts that dabbled in the genre, includingPrince's mid-1980s work and some ofLenny Kravitz's 1990s output, but it has mainly been the domain of alternative and indie rock bands.[2]Animal Collective saw commercial success in the 2000s; their 2009 albumMerriweather Post Pavilion featured a reverb-heavy psychedelic pop sound that exerted a wide influence on music of the subsequent decade.[13]
