Last Updated on 27 January 2026 by Massimo M.

The ten essential records for psychedelic music

At the beginning of the 1960s, the experimental use of drugs spread widely, especially in underground circles where many artists, including many musicians, were eager to test the potential of these substances, which were said to give the ability to expand perceptual capacities.

Hence the desire to create music that reflected or simulated the lysergic experience soon took shape, finding in rock music an ideal breeding ground. These experimenters succeeded in creating some of the most intriguing, fascinating and incredible music ever made, namely psychedelic rock.

Not all of these experiments were successful and, honestly, some of the albums created during this period are definitely forgettable. But nevertheless, it is not difficult to compile a list of high-quality records useful for those who want to delve into this unique historical moment.

Let us therefore see together what I consider to be the ten essential records to understand psychedelic music.

The 13th Floor Elevators – The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators (1966)

The 13th Floor Elevators are probably the first truly psychedelic rock band. Unlike the San Francisco bands, which had started life as folk bands and then gradually became exponents of the new psychedelic trend, Roky Erickson and co. had their own unique connotations. In fact, openly inspired by both early rock and rollers and their contemporaries such as the Rolling Stones, 13th Floor Elevators appropriated the energy typical of rock and transformed it into something completely new.

The album, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, was released in August 1966, very close to the release date of The Beatles’ Revolver, which was another album with absolute psychedelic sounds.

Country Joe & the Fish – Electric Music for Mind and Body (1967)

The band Country Joe & the Fish started life in 1965 and, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, is one of those bands that began their career as a folk band but already had a certain flair for cultural revolution. In fact, by 1966, the band had quickly transformed from the folk band it was into a full-fledged rock and roll band that would create one of the most interesting psychedelic albums of all time. And indeed, this Electric Music for Mind and Body is a seminal album for the time, a true example of the protest, satire and denunciation that was developing in the second half of the 1960s.

The variety of genres used in this record, ranging from blues to country, and the technical simplicity of the band make it a very special work but still catchy and easily assimilated.

Donovan – Sunshine Superman (1966)

Recorded at the same time as the Elevators’ debut album and The Beatles’ Revolver, Sunshine Superman was an incredible artistic leap for Donovan. From his simple early recordings inspired by the works of Bob Dylan, no one could have guessed the giant leaps he would make with his third album. Recording of Sunshine Superman began in late 1965, so Donovan actually anticipated most of the other artists who took part in the psychedelic ‘revolution’. For the recording of this album, Donovan enlisted the help of some of the best musicians available at the time, including an already great Jimmy Page on guitar.

Pink Floyd – The Piper at the Gates Of Dawn (1967)

What can one say about this masterpiece that has not already been said countless times. Truly a landmark album, not only in the annals of psychedelia, but in the entire history of popular music.
Before ‘See Emily Play’ or ‘Arnold Layne,’ such songs had never been heard, and after them, an endless series of imitations followed. For Pink Floyd, experimentation was the lifeblood and, therefore, their psychedelic path was decidedly different from that which characterised West coast bands such as Quicksilver or the Grateful Dead, who were instead more tied to the blues.

In the piper at the gates of dawn Syd Barrett’s writing probably reached its finest hour and the band, although it went on to produce memorable pages of rock history, will never again be able to produce anything like this

Eric Burdon & the Animals

In 1967, Eric Burdon left his original band, the Animals. Having fallen in love with the sounds from America, he set up a new version of the band, put aside the blues and also began to follow the sounds typical of the psychedelic movement. This musical metamorphosis of his is particularly evident in records such as San Franciscan Nights and When I Was Young, which had as its B-side the song A Girl Called Sandoz, a clear reference to LSD, a song with a countercultural theme. It is no coincidence that it will be the subject of covers by numerous punk bands.

Family – Music in a Doll’s House (1968)

Family was one of the most interesting bands on the British scene in 1967 . Their debut single, Scene Through The Eye Of The Lens is one of the best singles of the time. On their 1968 debut album, this already speaks volumes about the quality of these musicians, the band had already begun to broaden the horizons of their sound by moving into uncharted areas that would soon become known as progressive rock. On Music In A Dolls House the Family engages in a wide range of styles and moods. It is as if each song corresponds to a small room of the colorful and psychedelic dollhouse of the title. As the doors of the small rooms are opened, one finds oneself in ever new places, made up of sounds, colors and visions different from those of the rooms in which one was previously. A truly representative work of the most creative part of psychedelia of those times.

Jefferson Airplane – After Bathing at Baxter’s

After their meteoric debut in 1966 with Takes Off, Jefferson Airplane lost their singer Signe Anderson. This was replaced by one of the most iconic singers of the sixties, Grace Slick. As soon as Slick arrived, Slick took the band to the top of the pop charts with the famous Somebody To Love and, above all, with White Rabbit, one of the songs that one would least expect to see climbing the sales charts. After the success of their second album Surrealistic Pillow the band decided it was time to produce something more personal born from introspection and psychedelic experimentation. After bathing at Baxter’s is the fruit of this experimentation, it is a bizarre melting- pot composed of surreal ballads, hypnotic melodies, Arabic digressions, “full-bodied” rock pieces but always characterized by acid, distorted and wonderfully dissonant guitars. The lyrics of Grace Slick, true queen of this creative realm, fit perfectly on this eclectic psychedelic chaos. It is not an easy listening record but it is certainly a brilliant album and a real milestone of rock.

Silver Apples – Silver Apples (1968)

The Silver Apples were a duo made up of two authentic musical geniuses, Simeon Coxe and Dan Taylor, one a specialist in electronics, the other an excellent percussionist and together they managed to anticipate musical trends by decades. Yet their Silver Apples project is one of the least remembered works of the period. However, it must be said that, in spite of their subsequent lack of luck, their two albums, Silver apple of 1968 and Contact published the following year, were, in a positive sense, real bolts from the blue, managing to practically anticipate every genre and every trend that would establish itself in the following decades.

Can – Monster Movie (1969)

Also in this case, as already happened with the Silver Apples, with The Can we find ourselves in front of pioneers, authentic forerunners of electronic music that would explode many years ahead and also known as kraut rock. Can was a band formed by authentic artists trained at the school of Stockausen naturally inclined to search for a new sound, a new music capable of breaking ties with everything that could be defined as traditional. Mixing elements of the avant-garde, musique concrete, Indian music, pop and rock and roll, these German pioneers enlightened anyone lucky enough to know them. Their debut work, Monster movie, while paying some tribute to the Velvet underground and also to the Beatles is basically a very original album, the original result of the genius of its authors.

The Grateful Dead – Anthem of the Sun (1968)

With this second album, Anthem of the sun, the Grateful dead try to bring I study their best form of expression or the ability to create fantastic live experiences. The experiment of mixing live songs with studio parts worked but not entirely, probably because the project that Garcia and associates had in mind was a little too ambitious compared to the technical skills of the band at the time. In any case Anthem of the sun turns out to be certainly the most psychedelic and experimental album of the Grateful Dead, even if it doesn’t reach the compositional maturity of the successor, the epochal Aoxomoxoa published in 1969 and despite the efforts it fails to fully capture the true live spirit of the group, which will instead be set in that jewel which is twice the < em>Live Dead, also from 69, which will close the psychedelic career of the Grateful dead in a masterly way.

Ten essential records for psychedelic music