{
  "slug": "psychedelic-rock",
  "name": "Psychedelic Rock",
  "aliases": [
    "psych rock",
    "acid rock",
    "freakbeat",
    "psychedelia"
  ],
  "description": "Rock reorganised around the studio and the drug, from 1966: backwards tape, modal drones, guitars through everything available, and songs allowed to run as long as they liked. The permission slip krautrock and shoegaze both cashed.",
  "origin": {
    "place": "San Francisco and London",
    "year": 1966
  },
  "lineage": [
    {
      "genre": "rock-and-roll",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/rock-and-roll/",
      "inherited": "The instrumentation and the format, taken somewhere it was not designed to go. Every band here started out playing Chuck Berry covers, then discovered the studio was an instrument and the three-minute single was optional."
    },
    {
      "genre": "blues",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/blues/",
      "inherited": "The material underneath the effects. Strip the phasing off most of these records and a twelve-bar structure is still holding them up, which is why the guitar solos go where they go."
    },
    {
      "genre": "merseybeat",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/merseybeat/",
      "inherited": "The bands themselves, three years older. Psychedelia in Britain is largely beat groups who could suddenly afford studio time and had stopped touring — the same players, the same producers, an entirely different brief."
    }
  ],
  "bpm": {
    "min": 80,
    "max": 150
  },
  "updated": "2026-08-30",
  "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/psychedelic-rock/",
  "trackCount": 9,
  "curatedBy": [],
  "playlists": {},
  "tracks": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "trackKey": "the-beatles--tomorrow-never-knows",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/the-beatles--tomorrow-never-knows/",
      "title": "Tomorrow Never Knows",
      "artist": "The Beatles",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/the-beatles/",
      "year": 1966,
      "label": "Parlophone",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "One chord, five tape loops, a drum pattern lifted from nowhere and a vocal sent through a rotating speaker. The most radical thing on any pop record of the decade, at the end of side two.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "twice-over",
          "name": "Twice Over",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/twice-over/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/The%20Beatles%20Tomorrow%20Never%20Knows",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=m4BuziKGMy4",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "trackKey": "pink-floyd--interstellar-overdrive",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/pink-floyd--interstellar-overdrive/",
      "title": "Interstellar Overdrive",
      "artist": "Pink Floyd",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/pink-floyd/",
      "year": 1967,
      "label": "Columbia",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Nine minutes that begin as a riff and disintegrate into pure texture before reassembling. Barrett's Floyd were a genuinely improvising band and this is the surviving evidence.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Pink%20Floyd%20Interstellar%20Overdrive",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=UFdn7LA56uE",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 3,
      "trackKey": "the-jimi-hendrix-experience--purple-haze",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/the-jimi-hendrix-experience--purple-haze/",
      "title": "Purple Haze",
      "artist": "The Jimi Hendrix Experience",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/the-jimi-hendrix-experience/",
      "year": 1967,
      "label": "Track",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The tritone intro, the Octavia on the solo, and a guitarist who had obviously arrived from somewhere the rest of them had not. Still sounds like an event.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/The%20Jimi%20Hendrix%20Experience%20Purple%20Haze",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=WGoDaYjdfSg",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 4,
      "trackKey": "the-byrds--eight-miles-high",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/the-byrds--eight-miles-high/",
      "title": "Eight Miles High",
      "artist": "The Byrds",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/the-byrds/",
      "year": 1966,
      "label": "Columbia",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Coltrane's Impressions played on a twelve-string Rickenbacker, on a single, before anyone else had thought of it. Banned by American radio for a lyric about a flight.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/The%20Byrds%20Eight%20Miles%20High",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=NxyOhFBoxSY",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 5,
      "trackKey": "the-velvet-underground--venus-in-furs",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/the-velvet-underground--venus-in-furs/",
      "title": "Venus in Furs",
      "artist": "The Velvet Underground",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/the-velvet-underground/",
      "year": 1967,
      "label": "Verve",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "An ostrich-tuned guitar, a viola drone and a subject nobody was putting on records. New York's answer to California, and considerably less interested in enjoying itself.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/The%20Velvet%20Underground%20Venus%20in%20Furs",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=YoUx3fiyiGM",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 6,
      "trackKey": "jefferson-airplane--white-rabbit",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/jefferson-airplane--white-rabbit/",
      "title": "White Rabbit",
      "artist": "Jefferson Airplane",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/jefferson-airplane/",
      "year": 1967,
      "label": "RCA Victor",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A boléro that only ever gets louder, with a lyric that dares broadcasters to work out what it is about. Grace Slick's delivery is pure controlled threat.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Jefferson%20Airplane%20White%20Rabbit",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=pnJM_jC7j_4",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 7,
      "trackKey": "the-rolling-stones--2000-light-years-from-home",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/the-rolling-stones--2000-light-years-from-home/",
      "title": "2000 Light Years from Home",
      "artist": "The Rolling Stones",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/the-rolling-stones/",
      "year": 1967,
      "label": "Decca",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "From the album everyone agrees was a mistake, and it is superb — a Mellotron drifting over a rhythm section that has clearly stopped caring about the blues.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/The%20Rolling%20Stones%202000%20Light%20Years%20from%20Home",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=nRc0yaMW7Mw",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 8,
      "trackKey": "cream--sunshine-of-your-love",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/cream--sunshine-of-your-love/",
      "title": "Sunshine of Your Love",
      "artist": "Cream",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/cream/",
      "year": 1967,
      "label": "Reaction",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The heaviest riff of the era and a drummer playing against it rather than with it. The point where psychedelia starts turning into something louder and less interested in colour.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "sung-to-someone",
          "name": "Sung to Someone",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/sung-to-someone/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Cream%20Sunshine%20of%20Your%20Love",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=f3y8jf01UY8",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 9,
      "trackKey": "grateful-dead--dark-star",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/grateful-dead--dark-star/",
      "title": "Dark Star",
      "artist": "Grateful Dead",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/grateful-dead/",
      "year": 1969,
      "label": "Warner Bros.",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Twenty-three minutes on record and considerably longer in a hall. A band treating a song as a location to be explored, which is either the best or the worst idea in this list.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Grateful%20Dead%20Dark%20Star",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=AlWqitKLnfs",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}