Psychedelic Rock

Overall, the psychedelic rock music genre is a bridge that has formed over the rock that is based on early blues to heavy metal and progressive rock but it also incorporated sources that were non-western like sitars and ragas of Indian music. Unlike the acid rock music genre, which is known to relate to overlapping styles with heavy metal or hard rock, this genre of music is mellower generally. From the exact same roots, there were other different forms of the psychedelic music genre that began and diverged from what was considered the rather prevalent style of rock into the electronic music genre.

History of Psychedelic Rock:
The very first musicians to ever be influenced by these types of drugs, psychedelic drugs, were in folk and jazz scenes. In popular music, the usage of the term was by “The Holy Modal Rounders”, an acid-folk group during ’64, with the song entitled “Hesitation Blues”. The very first usage of the term in context of rock music is normally given credit to “The Deep”.  The very first time of the word’s appearance in print was in the title “The Psychedelic Moods of the Deep”, which was their ’96 album.

“The 13th Floor Elevators” lead singer Roky Erickson, coined the term in a ’66 interview. During this time, British Rock was able to embark on a frenetic race of different ideas that spread back to the United States along with the British Invasion. The scene of folk music was also experimented with using outside influences. In the blues and jazz tradition, there were many musicians that started to take drugs, and they include references to drugs in their songs.

By the latter part of ’65, the album by the Beatles featured the first paean to universal love by John Lennon, as well as a sitar laden tale of the hippy hedonism attempt.  “The Yardbirds” was a British rock act in ’66, with the single “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” which is commonly cited as being the very first song of this genre because of its frantic evocation that bordered on paranoia that was induced by drugs.

Psychedelic rock has stylistic origins in folk, British invasion, tape music, blues, folk rock, ragas and garage rock. It has cultural origins in the United States during the mid sixties. The typical instruments that are involved in psychedelic rock are guitar effects, electric guitar, bass guitar, mellotron, drums, moog synthesizer, Theremin and Hammond organ. This genre experienced mainstream popularity in the late sixties. The subgenres of psychedelic rock music genre include stoner rock, acid rock, psychedelic pop, desert rock and neo-psychedelia.