Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock
Liquid oil projections: a popular visual accompaniment for live psychedelic rock performances
Stylistic origins	Rock psychedelia folk jazz blues electronic novelty
Cultural origins	Mid-1960s, United States and United Kingdom
Typical instruments	Electric guitars keyboards harpsichord Mellotron electronic organ synthesizers sitar tabla theremin
Derivative forms	Hard rock heavy metal krautrock neo-psychedelia progressive rock proto-prog shoegazing space rock
Subgenres
Acid rock
Fusion genres
Psychedelic soul psychedelic funk stoner rock
Regional scenes
Australia Latin America New Zealand
Local scenes
Canterbury scene San Francisco Sound
Other topics
British underground freak scene Haight-Ashbury hippies psychedelic folk psychedelic pop raga rock

Psychedelic rock is a diverse style of rock music inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelic culture, or intended to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs, most notably LSD. Many psychedelic groups differ in style, and the label is often used indiscriminately. A term used interchangeably with "psychedelic rock" is "acid rock", which can also refer to the more extreme ends of the genre.

Originating in the mid 1960s among British and American musicians, psychedelic rock invokes three core effects of LSD: depersonalization, dechronicization, and dynamization; all of which detach the user from reality. Musically, the effects may be represented via novelty studio tricks, electronic or non-Western instrumentation, disjunctive song structures, and extended instrumental segments. In the 1960s, there existed two main variants of the genre: the whimsical British pop-psychedelia, and the harder American West Coast acid rock. Some musicians were based in folk, jazz, and the blues. Others showcased an explicit Indian classical influence called "raga rock".

The peak years of psychedelic rock were between 1966 and 1969, with milestone events including the 1967 Summer of Love and the 1969 , becoming an international musical movement 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. The genre bridged the transition from early blues- and folk-based rock to progressive rock and hard rock, and as a result informed the development of subgenres such as heavy metal. Since the late 1970s it has been revived in various forms of neo-psychedelia.