What is "psychedelic rock"

n. a musical style that emerged in the mid-1960s; rock music inspired by or related to drug-induced experience [syn: acid rock]

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs, most notably LSD. It often uses new recording techniques and effects and sometimes draws on sources such as the ragas and drones of Indian music.

It was pioneered by pop and rock musicians including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds, emerging as a genre during the mid-1960s among folk-, blues-, and jazz-based bands in the United Kingdom and United States. Its peak years were between 1966 and 1969 with milestone events such as the 1967 Summer of Love and the 1969 Woodstock Rock Festival, becoming an international musical movement and associated with a widespread counterculture, before beginning a decline as changing attitudes, the loss of some key individuals and a back-to-basics movement, led surviving performers to move into new musical areas.

In the 1960s, there were two types of psychedelic rock: the whimsical British variant, and the harder American West Coast acid rock. The terms "psychedelic rock" and "acid rock" are often deployed interchangeably, but "acid rock" sometimes refers to the more extreme ends of the genre. Psychedelic rock influenced the creation of psychedelic soul and bridged the transition from early blues- and folk music-based rock to progressive rock, glam rock, hard rock and as a result influenced the development of subgenres such as heavy metal. Since the late 1970s it has been revived in various forms of neo-psychedelia.