Psychedelic pop, also called acid pop, is a type of pop music that includes sounds and styles found in psychedelic music. This genre began in the mid-1960s and continued into the late 1960s. It used unusual effects like fuzzy guitar sounds, tape tricks, backwards recordings, sitar instruments, and harmonies similar to those of the Beach Boys. These features were combined with catchy, melodic songs that had clear and organized structures. The style remained popular until the early 1970s. Later, artists who create neo-psychedelic music have brought this genre back in different decades.

Characteristics

According to AllMusic, psychedelic pop was not very strange, but also not very simple or childish. It used the sounds and techniques from psychedelic music, but applied them to short, pop-style songs. Sometimes, this music was recorded in the studio, but there were also examples that felt more natural and lively. AllMusic explains: "What is interesting is that some psychedelic pop is more engaging than typical psychedelic music, because it combined psychedelic sounds with pop traditions in unusual and sometimes awkward ways – The Neon Philharmonic's 1969 album The Moth Confesses is a good example of this."

Notable works (1966–1969)

• Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys – The album happened because Brian Wilson, the band leader, experimented with psychedelic drugs. Music journalist Mike McPadden says this album started a big change in music style. He explains that even though psychedelic rock existed before, mainly from garage bands like the 13th Floor Elevators, Pet Sounds inspired more popular music groups to join the psychedelic movement.

• Revolver by the Beatles – According to AllMusic, this album helped psychedelic music move from being underground to mainstream as psychedelic pop. Biographer Ian MacDonald wrote that the album started a second big change in pop music. This change made existing competitors work harder and inspired new ones, but left them all behind.

• "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys – Barney Hoskyns called it the "ultimate psychedelic pop record" from Los Angeles at that time. Popmatters added that its influence on later psychedelic and progressive rock was huge. It changed how pop records were made, how they sounded, and the lyrics they used.

• "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" by the Beatles – The double A-sided single is described by AllMusic as a prototype for psychedelic pop.

• Evolution by The Hollies – The album was a transitional album between The Hollies’ traditional pop sound and what the Oxford Encyclopedia of Popular Music described as the "full-blown psychedelic glory of Butterfly."

• "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play" by Pink Floyd – Two singles by Syd Barrett helped set the pattern for pop-psychedelia in Britain.

• Odessey and Oracle by the Zombies – AllMusic’s Bruce Eder says the album is "some of the most powerful psychedelic pop/rock ever heard from England." Record Bin’s Joshua Packard called it a "psychedelic pop spectacle." The opening track, "Care of Cell 44," shows the band creating a new kind of psychedelia that relied more on the band’s natural abilities than on drugs. The album is now known as one of the greatest pop records of the 1960s.

Decline and revivals

By the end of the 1960s, psychedelic folk and rock music became less popular. Many musicians who remained in the scene shifted to other styles, such as simpler "roots rock," traditional folk, pastoral or whimsical folk, the more complex sound of progressive rock, or the guitar-heavy style of heavy rock. Psychedelic influences in pop music lasted longer, continuing into the early 1970s.

Psychedelic pop later became part of a new style called neo-psychedelic. Some well-known artists tried this style, such as Prince in the mid-1980s and Lenny Kravitz in the 1990s. However, most musicians who worked in this style were part of alternative or indie rock groups. In the 2000s, the band Animal Collective achieved success. Their 2009 album Merriweather Post Pavilion used a sound filled with reverb, a type of echo effect, and helped shape music trends in the following decade.