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Psychedelic music (sometimes calledpsychedelia)[1] is a wide range ofpopular music styles and genres influenced by 1960spsychedelia, asubculture of people who usedpsychedelic drugs such asDMT,LSD,mescaline, andpsilocybin mushrooms, to experiencesynesthesia andaltered 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 onpsychedelic therapy.[2][3]
Psychedelia embraces visual art, movies, and literature, as well as music. Psychedelic music emerged during the 1960s amongfolk androck bands in the United States and the United Kingdom, creating the subgenres ofpsychedelic folk,psychedelic rock,acid rock, andpsychedelic pop before declining in the early 1970s. Numerous spiritual successors followed in the ensuing decades, includingprogressive rock,krautrock, andheavy metal. Since the 1970s, revivals have includedpsychedelic funk,neo-psychedelia, andstoner rock as well as psychedelicelectronic music genres such asacid house,trance music, andnew rave.
"Psychedelic" as an adjective is often misused, with many acts playing in a variety of styles. Acknowledging this, author Michael Hicks explains:
To understand what makes music stylistically "psychedelic," one should consider three fundamental effects of LSD: dechronicization,depersonalization, and dynamization.Dechronicization permits the drug user to move outside of conventional perceptions of time.Depersonalization allows the user to lose the self and gain an "awareness of undifferentiated unity."Dynamization, as[Timothy] Leary wrote, makes everything from floors to lamps seem to bend, as "familiar forms dissolve into moving, dancing structures"... Music that is truly "psychedelic" mimics these three effects.[4]
A number of features are quintessential to psychedelic music. Eastern instrumentation, with a particular fondness for thesitar andtabla, is common.[5] Songs often have more disjunctive song structures,key andtime signature changes,modal melodies, anddrones than contemporary pop music.[4]Surreal, whimsical, esoterically or literary-inspired lyrics are often used.[6][7] There is often a strong emphasis on extended instrumental segments orjams.[8][irrelevant citation] There is a strong keyboard presence, in the 1960s especially, using electronic organs,harpsichords, or theMellotron, an early tape-driven 'sampler' keyboard.[9]
Elaborate studio effects are often used, such asbackwards tapes,panning the music from one side to another of the stereo track, using the "swooshing" sound of electronicphasing, longdelay loops and extremereverb.[10] In the 1960s there was a use of electronic instruments such as earlysynthesizers and thetheremin.[11][12] Later forms of electronic psychedelia also employed repetitive computer-generated beats.[13]
From the second half of the 1950s,Beat Generation writers likeWilliam Burroughs,Jack Kerouac andAllen Ginsberg[14] wrote about and took drugs, includingcannabis andBenzedrine, raising awareness and helping to popularise their use.[15] In the early 1960s the use ofLSD and other psychedelics was advocated by new proponents of consciousness expansion such asTimothy Leary,Alan Watts,Aldous Huxley andArthur Koestler,[16][17] and, according toLaurence Veysey, they profoundly influenced the thinking of the new generation of youth.[18]
The psychedelic lifestyle had already developed in California, particularly in San Francisco, by the mid-1960s, with the first major underground LSD factory established byOwsley Stanley.[19] From 1964, theMerry Pranksters, a loose group that developed around novelistKen Kesey, sponsored theAcid Tests, a series of events involving the taking of LSD (supplied by Stanley), accompanied by light shows, film projection and discordant, improvised music by theGrateful Dead (financed by Stanley),[20] then known as the Warlocks, known as thepsychedelic symphony.[21][22] 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 asTom Wolfe'sThe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test in 1968.[23]
San Francisco had an emerging music scene of folk clubs, coffee houses and independent radio stations that catered to the population of students at nearbyBerkeley and the free thinkers that had gravitated to the city.[24] There was already a culture of drug use amongjazz andblues musicians, and in the early 1960s use of drugs including cannabis,peyote,mescaline and LSD[25] began to grow among folk and rock musicians.[26] One of the first musical uses of the term "psychedelic" in the folk scene was by the New York-based folk groupThe Holy Modal Rounders on their version ofLead Belly's "Hesitation Blues" in 1964.[27] Folk/avant-garde guitaristJohn Fahey recorded several songs in the early 1960s experimented with unusual recording techniques, including backwards tapes, and novel instrumental accompaniment including flute and sitar.[28] His nineteen-minute "The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party" "anticipated elements of psychedelia with its nervy improvisations and odd guitar tunings".[28] Similarly, folk guitaristSandy Bull's early work "incorporated elements of folk, jazz, andIndian andArabic-influenced dronish modes".[29] His 1963 albumFantasias for Guitar and Banjo explores various styles and "could also be accurately described as one of the very first psychedelic records".[30]
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 inpsychedelic art,literature andfilm.[31] This trend ran in parallel in both America and Britain and as part of the interconnected folk and rock scenes.[32] As pop music began incorporating psychedelic sounds, the genre emerged as a mainstream and commercial force.[33] Psychedelic rock reached its peak in the last years of the decade.[7] From 1967 to 1968, it was the prevailing sound of rock music, either in the whimsical British variant, or the harder American West Coastacid rock.[34] In America, the 1967Summer of Love was prefaced by theHuman Be-In event and reached its peak at theMonterey International Pop Festival.[35] These trends climaxed in the 1969Woodstock Festival, which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts, includingJimi Hendrix,Janis Joplin,Jefferson Airplane andSantana.[36]
By the end of the 1960s, the trend of exploring psychedelia in music was largely in retreat. LSD was declared illegal in the United States and the United Kingdom in 1966.[37] The linking of the murders ofSharon Tate andLeno and Rosemary LaBianca by theManson Family toThe Beatles songs such as "Helter Skelter" contributed to an anti-hippie backlash.[38] TheAltamont Free Concert in California, headlined bythe Rolling Stones andJefferson Airplane 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 teenagerMeredith Hunter byHells Angels security guards.[39]
By the end of the 1960s, many rock musicians had returned to therootsy sources of rock and roll's origins, leading to whatBarney Hoskyns called a "retrogressive, post-psychedelic music" development; he cited thecountry rock and blues/soul-inspired rock ofthe Rolling Stones,The Band,Delaney & Bonnie,Van Morrison, andLeon Russell. The first mention of LSD on a rock record wasthe Gamblers' 1960 surf instrumental "LSD 25".[40]The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, released in October 1966,[41] was one of the first rock albums to include the word "psychedelic" in its title.[42] Two other bands also used the word in titles of LPs released in November 1966: TheBlues Magoos'Psychedelic Lollipop, andthe Deep'sPsychedelic Moods. At the same time, a moreavant-garde development came with the contingent of artists associated withFrank Zappa, includingThe Mothers of Invention,Captain Beefheart,Wild Man Fischer,The GTOs, andAlice Cooper.[43] 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 ofLed Zeppelin,Black Sabbath, andRobin Trower.[44] 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 theblues progression".[45] 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 theYardbirds, Jeff Beck andJimmy Page, moved on to form key acts in the new blues rock-heavy metal genre,The Jeff Beck Group and Led Zeppelin, respectively.[46] Other major pioneers of the heavy metal genre had begun as blues-based psychedelic bands, including Black Sabbath,Deep Purple,Judas Priest andUFO.[46][47]
According to American academic Christophe Den Tandt, many musicians during the post-psychedelic era adopted a stricter sense of professionalism and elements ofclassical music, as evinced by the concept albums ofPink Floyd and the virtuosic instrumentation ofEmerson, Lake and Palmer andYes. "Early-1970s post-psychedelic rock was hatched in small or medium-sized structures", he adds, naming record labels such asVirgin Records,Island Records, andObscure Records.[48] Many of the British musicians and bands that had embraced psychedelia moved into creating theprogressive rock genre in the 1970s.King Crimson's albumIn the Court of the Crimson King (1969), has been seen as an important link between psychedelia and progressive rock.[49] While some bands such asHawkwind maintained an explicitly psychedelic course into the 1970s, most bands dropped the psychedelic elements in favour of embarking on wider experimentation.[50] As German bands from the psychedelic movement moved away from their psychedelic roots and placed increasing emphasis on electronic instrumentation, these groups, includingKraftwerk,Tangerine Dream,Can andFaust, developed a distinctive brand ofelectronic rock, known askosmische musik, or in the British press as "Krautrock".[51] Their adoption of electronic synthesisers, along with the musical styles explored byBrian Eno in his keyboard playing withRoxy Music, had a major influence on subsequent development ofelectronic rock.[52] The incorporation of jazz styles into the music of bands like Soft Machine and Can, also contributed to the development of the emergingjazz rock sound of bands such asColosseum.[53]
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 asThe White Album), andLed Zeppelin's 1971 album, for which "there is up to this day no consensus about the title". According to him, post-psychedelic musicians likeBrian Eno andRobert Fripp "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 ofpost-punk" in the late 1970s, as evinced by the first four albums byThe Cure (featuring blurry photographs of the band members) andFactory Records' dark-colored covers with serial numbers.[48]
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."[48] Along with the psychedelic, folk rock, andBritish rhythm and blues styles that preceded it, the music of the post-psychedelic era later became associated with theclassic rock category.[48]
Stoner rock, also known as stoner metal[54] or stoner doom,[55][56] is arock music fusion genre that combines elements ofheavy metal and/ordoom metal withpsychedelic rock andacid rock.[57] The name referencescannabis consumption. The termdesert 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".[58][59] Stoner rock is typically slow-to-midtempo and features a heavilydistorted,groove-ladenbass-heavy sound,[60] melodic vocals, and "retro" production.[61] The genre emerged during the early 1990s and was pioneered foremost byMonster Magnet and theCalifornia bandsFu Manchu,Kyuss[62] andSleep.[63][64]
Neo-psychedelia (or "acid punk")[65] is a diverse style of music that originated in the 1970s as an outgrowth of the Britishpost-punk 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.[66] Some of the scene's bands, includingthe Soft Boys,the Teardrop Explodes, andEcho & the Bunnymen, became major figures of neo-psychedelia.[66] The early 1980sPaisley Underground movement followed neo-psychedelia.[66] 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.[67]
Madchester was a music and cultural scene that developed in theManchester area ofNorth West England in the late 1980s, in which artists mergedalternative rock withacid house anddance culture as well as other sources, including psychedelic music and 1960s pop.[68][69] The label was popularised by the British music press in the early 1990s,[70] and its most famous groups includethe Stone Roses,Happy Mondays,Inspiral Carpets,the Charlatans and808 State. Therave-influenced scene is widely seen as heavily influenced by drugs, especially ecstasy (MDMA). At that time,the Haçienda nightclub, co-owned by members ofNew Order, was a major catalyst for the distinctive musical ethos in the city that was called theSecond Summer of Love.[71]Screamadelica is the thirdstudio album by Scottishrock bandPrimal Scream released in 1991. The album marked a significant departure from the band's earlyindie rock sound, drawing inspiration from the blossominghouse music scene and associated drugs such asLSD andMDMA. It won the firstMercury Music Prize in 1992,[72] and has sold over three million copies worldwide.
AllMusic states: "Aside from the early-'80s Paisley Underground movement and theElephant 6 collective 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'sBevis Frond,Spacemen 3,Robyn Hitchcock,Mercury Rev,the Flaming Lips, andSuper Furry Animals.[66] According to Treblezine's Jeff Telrich: "Primal Scream made [neo-psychedelia] dancefloor ready. The Flaming Lips andSpiritualized took it to orchestral realms. AndAnimal Collective—well, they kinda did their own thing."[73]
The Atlantic writer Llewellyn Hinkes Jones identified a variety of music styles from the 2000s characterized by mellowbeats, vintagesynthesizers, and lo-fi melodies, includingchillwave,glo-fi, andhypnagogic pop.[74] These three terms were described as interchangeable bythe Quietus, along with other terms "dream-beat" and "hipster-gogic pop."[75] Altogether, they may be viewed as a type of synth-based psychedelic music.[75]
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.[76] In August 2009, "hypnagogic pop" was coined by journalistDavid Keenan to refer to a developing trend of 2000slo-fi and post-noise music in which artists from varied backgrounds began to engage with elements of culturalnostalgia, childhood memory, and outdated recording technology.[77]
By 2010, albums byAriel Pink andNeon Indian were regularly hailed by publications likePitchfork andThe Wire. 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 withinindependent music circles.[74] Originally, it was common for the three terms to be used interchangeably, but chillwave later distinguished itself as a combination ofdream pop,new age,muzak, andsynth-pop.[78] A 2009 review byPitchfork's Marc Hogan forNeon Indian's albumPsychic Chasms 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."[75]
Following the late 1960s work ofJimi Hendrix,psychedelia began to have a widespread impact onAfrican American musicians.[79] Black funk artists such asSly and the Family Stone borrowed techniques from psychedelic rock music, includingwah pedals,fuzz boxes,echo chambers, and vocal distorters, as well as elements ofblues rock andjazz.[80] In the following years, groups such asParliament-Funkadelic continued this sensibility, employing synthesizers and rock-oriented guitar work into open-ended funk jams.[81][80] ProducerNorman Whitfield would draw on this sound on popularMotown recordings such asthe Temptations' "Cloud Nine" (1968) andMarvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (1969).[81]
Influenced by thecivil rights movement,psychedelic soul had a darker and more political edge than much psychedelic rock.[79] Psychedelic soul was pioneered bySly and the Family Stone with songs like ""I Want to Take You Higher" (1969), andThe Temptations with "Cloud Nine", "Runaway Child, Running Wild" (1969) and "Psychedelic Shack" (1969).[82]
Psychedelic rap is amicrogenre which fuseship hop music with psychedelia.[83] Pioneers included New York'sNative Tongues collective, headlined byDe La Soul,Jungle Brothers andA Tribe Called Quest,[83] andShock G.[84] Though the "trip" intrip hop was more linked todub music than psychedelia,[85] the genre combined psychedelic rock with hip hop.[86]
Cloud rap is asubgenre ofrap that has several sonic characteristics oftrap music and is known for its hazy, dreamlike and relaxed production style.[87][88] RapperLil B and producerClams Casino have been identified as the early pioneers of the style.[87][88] The term "cloud rap" is derived from itsinternet origins and ethereal style.[89]
Therave scene emphasizedhouse,acid house andtechno. The rave genre "hardcore" first appeared amongst the UK acid movement during the late 1980s at warehouse parties and otherunderground venues, as well as onUK pirate radio stations.[90] The genre would develop intooldschool hardcore, which led to newer forms of rave music such asdrum and bass and2-step, as well as otherhardcore techno genres, such asgabber,hardstyle andhappy hardcore. In the late 1980s, rave culture began to filter through fromEnglish expatriates anddisc jockeys who would visitContinental Europe. American raves began in the 1990s inNew York City.[citation needed]
Acid house originated in the mid-1980s in thehouse music style of Chicago DJs likeDJ Pierre,Adonis,Farley Jackmaster Funk andPhuture, the last of which coined the term on his "Acid Tracks" (1987). It mixed elements of house with the "squelchy" sounds and deep basslines produced by theRoland TB-303 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 theSecond Summer of Love it hit the mainstream as thousands of clubgoers travelled to mass raves. The genre then began to penetrate the British pop charts with hits forM/A/R/R/S,S'Express, andTechnotronic by the early 1990s, before giving way to the popularity of trance music.[91]
Trance music originated in the Germantechno andhardcore 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 forBillboard magazine writes, "Trance music is perhaps best described as a mixture of 70s disco and 60s psychedelia".[92] Derived from acid house and techno music, it developed in Germany and the Netherlands with singles including "Energy Flash" byJoey Beltram and "The Ravesignal" byCJ Bolland. This was followed by releases by Robert Leiner,Sun Electric,Aphex Twin and most influentially the techno-trance released by theHarthouse label, including the much emulated "Acperience 1" (1992) by duoHardfloor. 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 andjungle, 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, includingprogressive trance,acid trance,goa trance,psychedelic trance,hard trance anduplifting trance.[93]
In the 2010s, artists such asBassnectar,Tipper andPretty Lights dominated the more mainstream psychedelic cultures. "Raves" became much larger and grew to mainstream appeal.
In Britain in the 2000s (decade), the combination ofindie rock withdance-punk was dubbed "new rave" in publicity forKlaxons, and the term was picked up and applied by theNME to a number of bands.[94] It formed a scene with a similar visual aesthetic to earlier rave music, emphasizing visual effects:glowsticks,neon and other lights were common, and followers of the scene often dressed in extremely bright andfluorescent coloured clothing.[94][95]
Synthedelia is the fusion ofpsychedelia,electronic music, andavant-garde music, originating in the 1960s.[96]
Set and setting are critical in the design of psychiatric facilities and modalities ofpsychedelic-assisted psychotherapies.[97] Research has shown that a curatedmusic playlist can be part of a favourable setting.[98][99][100]
[Kyuss] almost single handed invented the phrase 'Stoner Rock'. They achieved this by tuning way down and summoning up a subterranean, organic sound...
Stoner metal could be campy and self-aware, messily evocative, or unabashedly retro.
...they are widely acknowledged as pioneers of the booming stoner rock scene of the 1990s...
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