Neo-psychedelia (or simplyneo-psych) is a genre ofpsychedelic music that draws inspiration from the music production approaches and songwriting of1960s psychedelia, either exploring emulations of the sounds of the era^[1] or applying its ethos to new styles of music.^[5] It has occasionally seen mainstreampop success but is typically explored withinalternative music,indie music andunderground scenes.^[6]

Neo-psychedelia first developed in the late-1970s as an outgrowth of the Britishpost-punk scene. In the United Kingdom, the "psychedelic revival" was referred to as "the New Psychedelia" or "acid punk". A neo-psychedelic wave of British alternative rock in the 1980s spawned the subgenres ofdream pop andshoegaze.^[4] Mainstream artists likePrince andLenny Kravitz explored the style in the 1980s and 1990s.

Neo-psychedelic artists primarily borrow a variety of musical, visual and aesthetic elements from 1960s and 1970spsychedelic music. Artists such asthe Soft Boys,Spacemen 3 andthe Church mergedpost-punk andjangle pop withpsychedelic rock,pop,acid andfolk music. According toAllMusic:^[1]

Whether they played trippy psychedelic pop (à lathe Beatles, earlyPink Floyd, and countless others),janglyByrds-influenced guitar rock, distortion-drenchedfree-form jams, or mind-bending sonic experiments, these groups looked to psychedelia as a wellspring of evocative, unusual sounds, and either updated or unabashedly copied the original artists' approaches.

Some neo-psychedelic bands were explicitly focused on drug use and experiences,^[1] and like theacid house movement of the same era, evoked transitory, ephemeral, andtrance-like experiences.^[7] Several bands have used neo-psychedelic elements, or perform neo-psychedelia, to accompany surreal or political lyrics.^[1] In the view of authorErik Morse, "the sounds of American neo-psychedelia emphasized the cryptic margins ofavant-rock, incorporating evanescent textures over an immutable bassline, producing a 'heavy' metallic ambience, contra-distinct to the sing-song filigree of British psychedelia".^[8]

According to David Luhrssen and Michael Larson's bookEncyclopedia of Punk Rock and New Wave (2025), the resurgence of 1960spsychedelic culture was already influencing music in the 1970s, stating:^[9]

However, fascination with music associated with late '60s acid culture, especiallythe Doors, was already a pervasive if unacknowledged undercurrent. Rock critic and entrepreneurGreg Shaw, through hisBomp! magazine and record label, was another source of inspiration for the revival through his tireless promotion of obscure '60sgarage and psychedelic bands from around the world. He proposed a cyclical theory of rock music history, with primitivism giving birth to greater sophistication before sophistication reached a dead-end of pretentiousness. He promoted the idea that the simplicity ofpunk rock, like earlyrock and roll, would give way to the more expansive potential of psychedelia. Many aspiring musicians also turned for inspiration toNuggets (1972),Lenny Kaye's compilation of '60s US garage bands, many of them infused with elements that could be heard as psychedelic.

Additionally, Luhrssen and Larson citeNew York punk bandTelevision as the "One contemporary point of inception for many neo-psychedelic bands," further stating the band drew from '60s acts such asQuicksilver Messenger Service andJimi Hendrix.^[9]

Psychedelic rock declined towards the end of the 1960s as bands broke up or moved into new forms of music, includingheavy metal music andprogressive rock.^[10] Like the psychedelic developments of the late 1960s,punk rock andnew wave in the 1970s challenged the rock music establishment.^[11] At the time, "new wave" was a term used interchangeably with the nascent punk rock explosion.^[12] In 1978, journalistGreg Shaw categorized a subset of new wave music as "neo-psychedelia", citingDevo, "to an extent ... [its] first major indication ... [they are] the new darling of the new wave press and opinion-makers, yet nothing about it is remotely 'punk'".^[2] Shaw wrote that in England, neo-psychedelia was known as "acid punk", noting that the "self-advertised 'psychedelic punk' band,the Soft Boys, [was] being hotly pursued by several major labels."^[2] The San Francisco bandChrome labelled themselves "acid punk" during this era.^[13] According to Chrome memberHelios Creed, music journalists at the time considered about ten bands – including Chrome,Devo, andPere Ubu – to be acid punk groups: "They didn't want to call it psychedelia, it was New Wave psychedelia".^[14][15]

By 1978–1979, new wave was considered independent from punk andpost-punk (the latter was initially known as "new musick").^{[16][nb 1]} AuthorClinton Heylin marks the second half of year 1977 and the first half of year 1978 as the "true starting-point for English post-punk".^{[18][nb 2]} Some of theindie music scene's bands, including the Soft Boys,the Teardrop Explodes, Wah!, andEcho & the Bunnymen, became major figures of neo-psychedelia.^{[1][nb 3]} According to writers David Luhrssen and Michael Larson, the movement was referred to as "'the New Psychedelia' in the UK or 'neo-psychedelia' by rock critics".^[9] In the early 1980s,Siouxsie and the Banshees crafted an "exotic neo-psychedelic pop" with the arrival of guitaristJohn McGeoch.^[21] The early 1980sPaisley Underground movement followed neo-psychedelia.^[1] 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, and the term "Paisley Underground" was later expanded to include others from outside the city who explored the same songwriting techniques and influences.^[22]

In the 1980s and 1990s there were occasional mainstream acts that dabbled in neo-psychedelia, includingPrince's mid-1980s work and some ofLenny Kravitz's 1990s output, but neo-psychedelia has mainly been the domain of alternative and indie rock bands.^[1] The late 1980s would see the birth ofshoegaze, which, among other influences, took inspiration from 1960s psychedelia.^[23] Reynolds referred to this movement as "a rash of blurry, neo-psychedelic bands" in a 1992 article inThe Observer.^[23]

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,the Vines andSuper Furry Animals.^[1] 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."^[5]

During the 2000s and 2010s, Southern California'shypnagogic pop andchillwave scenes further developed neo-psychedelia through artists such asAriel Pink andJames Ferraro.^[24][25] Other artists include indie bands such asMGMT and Animal Collective. Around the same time, Australia's neo-psychedelic rock scene emerged which included acts such asTame Impala,Psychedelic Porn Crumpets,Babe Rainbow,Pond,the Morning After Girls andKing Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.^[26]

By the late 2010s and early 2020s,underground rapmicrogenres such ascloud rap^[27] andHexD would incorporate influences from psychedelia.^[28]

• Dunedin sound
• Madchester

• Cateforis, Theo (2011).Are We Not New Wave?: Modern Pop at the Turn of the 1980s. University of Michigan Press.ISBN 978-0-472-03470-3.
• Morse, Erik (2009).Spacemen 3 and the Birth of Spiritualized.Omnibus Press.ISBN 978-0-85712-104-2.
• Reynolds, Simon (2005).Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984. London:Faber and Faber.ISBN 978-0-571-21570-6.
• Smith, Paul (1997).Millennial Dreams: Contemporary Culture and Capital in the North. Verso.ISBN 978-1-85984-918-7.
• Trainer, Adam (2016)."From Hypnagogia to Distroid: Postironic Musical Renderings of Personal Memory".The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality. Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-932128-5.
• Luhrssen, David; Larson, Michael (2025).Encyclopedia of Punk Rock and New Wave, 1975–1985. Bloomsbury Publishing.

• Neo-psychedelia
• Alternative rock genres
• Rock music genres
• American styles of music
• British styles of music
• Psychedelic music

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