Tag: Psychedelic Rock
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Thee Oh Sees ‘Floating Coffin’ (2013)
Thee Oh Sees play a really fun brand of psychadelic garage rock and they have a mystique about them that fits their eclectic style. They might be one of the only bands I’ve ever seen that have gone through multiple name changes for the sole purpose of pissing people off. The band has been known…
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Nazz ‘Nazz’ (1968)
We’ve talked about Todd Rundgren’s solo career before but his musical journey began with Nazz, a Philadelphia-based band he co-founded in 1967. Nazz was sort of a band in name-only based off what I’ve seen. Put another way, it was essentially a showcase for a young Rundgren to wield full creative control as songwriter, arranger,…
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Big Brother & the Holding Company ‘Self-Titled’ (1967)
Big Brother & the Holding Company’s self-titled debut album is best known as Janis Joplin’s first band before she went solo and blew up as “The Queen of Rock” before her untimely passing at the age of 27 years old. The whole thing was recorded in a mere three days following an appearance at the…
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Wolfmother ‘Wolfmother’ (2005)
Doing the whole “turn back the clock to 1973 and sound like Led Zeppelin” thing was very much in vogue during the mid-2000’s, but few bands did it better and with more chutzpah than Wolfmother. Their debut album was an absolute banger that not only put them on the map but also solidified vintage classic…
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SKATERS ‘Rock and Roll Bye Bye’ (2017)
SKATERS’ Rock and Roll Bye Bye sounds like a scrappier, sunnier cousin to early 2000s New York garage rock, sort of like what The Strokes Is This It would have sounded like if they spent less time in dive bars and more time riding skateboards by the beach. There’s a loose, surfy charm running through…
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MGMT ‘Oracular Spectacular’ (2007)
There was a time—somewhere between the collapse of the MySpace Top 8 and the rise of ironic mustaches (guilty)—when my generation went off to college and experienced our first real taste of freedom. You know the moments. BitTorrent running 24/7 on your laptop, skinny jeans that had lived three lifetimes, bedsheets that hadn’t been washed…
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Pink Floyd ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ (1973)
Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon stands as one of the most profound explorations of human fragility ever captured. It’s one of my favorite albums of all-time for literally a hundred reasons, an introspective and powerful concoction of musical genius mixed with thematic brilliance. This is an album that makes you think and…
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Todd Rundgren ‘Something/Anything?’ (1972)
Todd Rundgren’s career was a tightrope walk between pop stardom and cult icon status, a balancing act that began in the late 1960s and reached its zenith with the 1972 magnum opus Something/Anything?. Emerging with the Nazz, a psych-rock band steeped in Beatlesque melodies, Rundgren quickly set his sights on a broader canvas as a…
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Tame Impala ‘Currents’ (2015)
With Currents, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker takes a bold step away from the introspective isolation that characterized his earlier albums, marking a profound evolution in his artistry. It manifests itself in many ways– the lyrical themes, the musical structure, and the instrumentation. Parker’s approach to this album reflects a desire to explore the complexities of…
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Can ‘Tago Mago’ (1971)
Krautrock was an experimental genre of music that developed in West Germany during the late 1960’s, combining elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electronic music. One thing the genre was especially known for was the usage of musique concrète, which basically describes the process of taking a typical sound recording (instrument or voice), modifying…
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Funkadelic ‘Maggot Brain’ (1971)
Parliament and Funkadelic, both spearheaded by George Clinton, represented two intertwined facets of his unique musical vision. Parliament, originally the name of Clinton’s doo-wop group in the 60’s, eventually evolved into a more mainstream, funk-oriented band known for its vibrant and theatrical style (their 1975 album Mothership Connection is a favorite of mine). Funkadelic on…
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Jefferson Airplane ‘Surrealistic Pillow’ (1967)
Jefferson Airplane played a pivotal role in shaping San Francisco’s psychedelic rock scene during the mid-1960s, serving at the forefront of the counterculture movement that dominated the city and embodying the experimental shift that was happening in popular music at the time. Their complex compositions, soulful vocals, innovative guitar work, and hazy reverb-drenched production helped…
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David Bowie ‘Space Oddity’ (1969)
Before David Bowie was a transformational rock star whose ability to effortlessly shapeshift between baroque pop, psychedelic rock, electronic rock, neo-soul, and dance music had fully taken shape he was a struggling artist whose career was very much at the crossroads. After his self-titled dance hall record David Bowie was a flop commercially, Bowie showed…
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Buffalo Springfield ‘Buffalo Springfield’ (1966)
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s 1970 album Deja Vu is one of my favorite albums of all-time, and its genesis can be found with Buffalo Springfield and their 1966 debut self-titled album. The band featured Neil Young and Stephen Stills who would go on to have legendary careers both as part of supergroups and solo…
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The Velvet Underground ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ (1967)
Sexual deviancy and drug abuse have been the hallmarks of rock and roll since its inception, and The Velvet Underground were one of the first bands to really lean into those motifs as a core tenet of what they stood for. Upon its release The Velvet Underground & Nico was controversial and critically panned, both…
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The Nice ‘The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack’ (1968)
In the summer of 1968 prog-rock’s foundation was still being laid. Using elements of psychedelic pop that came to prominence off the heels of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and combining it with Cream’s affinity for blues-rock jamming found on Disraeli Gears, The Nice wedged themselves between the two and in the…
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My Morning Jacket ‘It Still Moves’ (2003)
Well before My Morning Jacket turned the corner from underground darling into a mainstream adjacent band that your mom saw perform on the Jimmy Fallon show (she enjoyed it), they were a group of reverb-lovin’ good ole boys from Lousville, Kentucky that loved to get out there and crank out 8-minute meandering folk rock rock…
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Ween ‘Quebec’ (2003)
Ween’s eclectic discography isn’t for the faint of heart– described as “bratty deconstructionists of alternative rock”, Ween’s brand of rock took on various forms over the course of two decades, traversing from R&B to pop to rock to lo-fi Indie to country, effortlessly incorporating all of those disparate elements in every single album they released.…
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The Jimi Hendrix Experience ‘Axis: Bold As Love’ (1967)
Jimi Hendrix’s contributions to the world of guitar players is unparalleled– as perhaps the most celebrated guitarist in the history of rock and roll, he pioneered the use of overdriven high-gain amplifiers, used guitar feedback as a tool (not an undesired element), and altered his tone with fuzz distortion, Uni-Vibe, and wah-wah pedals. These contributions…
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Mahavishnu Orchestra ‘Birds of Fire’ (1973)
Led by jazz fusion legend John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra was one of the pre-eminent jazz fusion groups operating in the early 70’s. Prior to the band’s formation McLaughlin had played in jazz icon Miles Davis’ band during the bulk of the 1960’s, and after going out on his own to form a solo career, formed…
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The Doors ‘The Doors’ (1967)
Long considered one of the best debut albums of all-time, The Doors self-titled 1967 debut had a nearly immediate impact on the formation of psychedelic music that was beginning to dominate in the late 60’s. The Doors had it all in the grab bag of eclectic rock– drummer John Densmore’s feverish jazz-influenced syncopated rhythms that…
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Santana ‘Abraxas’ (1970)
Carlos Santana is one of history’s most respected guitar players, known for his psychadelic take on Latin music that he effortlessly transposed into the explosion of psychedelic rock that swept across Great Britain and the United States in the late 60’s/early 70’s. The band which bears his last name first played at Woodstock in 1969…
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Goose ‘Dripfield’ (2022)
It’s rare that a jam band can translate what makes them special throughout the course of an entire studio album. There’s something that is indelible about witnessing a live performance from a band like Goose or Grateful Dead that transcends the experience of listening of music through headphones– the buzz of spontaneity that permeates the…
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Cream ‘Disraeli Gears’ (1967)
Cream’s Disraeli Gears has stood the test of time as a key album in the late 60’s psychedelic era. The legendary three piece featured Eric Clapton (vocals/guitar), Jack Bruce (vocals/bass), and the iconic Ginger Baker (percussion/vocals). It’s almost hard to imagine a three-piece could create a sound so heavy and big as Cream, but the…
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Steve Miller Band ‘Greatest Hits 1974-78’ (1978)
When I made the decision at the beginning of this year to listen to one album per day I set up a handful of self-imposed guiding principles to guide the process. The primary one was (and remains) to avoid Greatest Hits compilations– the spirit of this whole experience is to focus on a greater appreciation…
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Black Rebel Motorcycle Club ‘B.R.M.C’ (2001)
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club has largely been somewhat of a cult underground rock band for over two decades now, dipping into the mainstream during the garage rock revival in the mid 2000’s. They are a rock fan’s rock band through and through— grimy guitars, garage rock edgy drums, bass tones loaded with fuzz, and straightforward…
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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young ‘Deja Vu’ (1970)
From the opening moments of Deja Vu, when Stephen Stills’ iconic acoustic guitar kicks in and the three-piece harmony hits your eardrums, it’s evident you’re about to bear witness to musical greatness. Out of all the iconic protest folk rock that entered the American consciousness during the late 60’s and early 70’s, Deja Vu stands…
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Steppenwolf ‘Steppenwolf’ (1968)
Steppenwolf is one of those bands you rarely hear discussed as a major player in rock history, but man does it feel like they’re everywhere in modern roock. The psychedelic rock, fuzzy distorted guitars, and rollicking percussion section in their self-titled debut just screams 2000’s garage rock revival and probably played a larger role in…
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Traffic ‘Traffic’ (1968)
The 1960’s were a wild time in music history. Take Traffic for example– in three short years from 1967 to 1970 founding member Dave Mason recorded the band’s first album Mr. Fantasy, subsequently left the group, decided to re-join in the middle of the recording this album, and then abruptly left the band for good…
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