When people ask me what my favorite genre of music is, I usually stutter and try to think through the plethora of playlists on my Spotify. My music taste is at times hard to pin down, ranging from 90’s Hip-Hop to indie rock like Mac DeMarco. The one genre I rely on the most though is psychedelic rock, with grooves from the days of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury hippies to modern times with artists like Tame Impala.
Psychedelic rock was the product of folk and blues-rock bands from England and the US experimenting with new techniques and effects when recording. In the mid 60’s, when hippie counterculture was influenced by drugs like LSD, psychedelic music became the noise of the hallucinatory decade. Today, musicians are still deriving from the dreamlike sounds of psychedelic rock’s earliest days.
From years of scouring Spotify and figuring out the name of songs played at retro bars in the city, I’ve compiled a list of my favorite psychedelic songs from the 1960’s to now.
- Strange Brew by Cream
- Nights In White Satin by The Moody Blues
- Five To One by The Doors
- Dark Star by The Grateful Dead
- May This Be Love by Jimi Hendrix
- San Francisco Girls (Return of the Native) by Fever Tree
- You’re Gonna Miss Me by The 13th Floor Elevators
- Future Games by Fleetwood Mac
- I Want You (She’s So Heavy) by The Beatles
- Dazed and Confused by Led Zeppelin
- Kinda Bonkers by Animal Collective
-
While psychedelic music today isn’t as rock-centered as it once was, there’s still an abundance of artists with songs that can make your brain feel just as swirly as the oldies do.
- Sense by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
- San Francisco by Shuggie
- When I Get Home by Post Animal
- Warmth of the Sun by levitation room
- Route To Palm by White Williams
- Under The Sun by DIIV
- He’s Heating Up! by HOMESHAKE
- Like Acid Rain by Unknown Mortal Orchestra
- Beverly Laurel by Tame Impala
While this list is only a fraction of my forever extending collection of psychedelic songs, it’s a great place to start to get into the genre that defined an entire decade and continues to influence artists today.
All the songs listed are in a playlist titled “Psychedelics” on my Spotify @samford1228.