Define psychedelic...
 

It's a word I throw around alot without giving any thought to what exactly it is I'm talking about. Is it a sound/genre/feeling/mental state? Is recreational chemicals use the only way to properly understand it, or does it serve as a replacement in the absence of said chemicals? Does it have anything to do with drugs at all?

I suppose when I use the word I'm generally refering to something that has a kind of transcendent quality to it. Music that leaves you in a state of bliss without having to contemplate too much what is happening. Maybe a completely egoless musical experience, if that makes sense. Which I suppose means that in my experience, at least, drugs have nothing to do with it, but rather your ability to let music take control of your concious mind.

Eh, reading over what I just wrote kinda sounds like a load of new age psycho babble. Oh whale. I"m totally serious.

What do you think?

I see "psychedelic" tossed around a lot today and I really don't like it. I quite usually associate the term with 60's movement's music scene.

A swirling sensation in the brain coming out through some music instruments.

yeah stoner and psychedelic are different...

psychedelic is anything that allows the brain to experience hallucinogenic sensuality.

listen to butthole surfer's Psychadelic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GMZYcWhirA

To me it's basically music related in the practice of mind-altering, epitomised by this cover:

Yeaaah man, feel the magic.

psychedelia is a tricky one, i guess bands like love were classed as psychedelic when they came out, but now they, and a lot of other 60s "psych" bands, don't sound psychedelic to me in comparrison to the music of subsequent bands, but i guess the term was first applied to bands like them, so they must be psychedelic by default, even if i don't hear it.

the earliest (rock or pop) stuff i can think of that still sounds psychedelic to me would be stuff like the white noise, or ash ra tempel, tangerine dream & co. but i'm no psych expert.

There are a lot of things that make a band psychedelic. GENERALLY it's any lesser-known bands from the sixties and music that stems from that. While not all lesser-known bands from the sixties were psychedelic, most of them were because everyone was on acid all the time and it reflected in the music. It's difficult to define psychedelic in a general sense, since the genre is largely based on experimentation; there are patterns, however: intense organs, phasing, surreal lyrics, wailing guitar solos, drum rolls, a shit ton of delay, going flat on purpose... that kind of thing.

Check out some bands, you'll catch on eventually ;-)

hendrix.

'Psychedelic' doesn't do it justice. 'Amazing'. The only word for it.

Your answers to your own question are as good as any I might come up with. I don't think you need drugs to have a psychedelic experience, but if you don't use them it should at least feel like you're on drugs. And I think that usually means the type that slow down time and reality rather than speed it up.

I've often wondered about Fugazi's trippier stuff on Red Medicine and if this qualifies as psychedelic music in the broad sense.

Also, you are definitley looking at the broad sense here. Psych rock is something very specific, but "psychedelic" is not even exclusively a type of music.

I like Porkie's definition.

It is more a quality of music than a genre. Beethoven can be psychadelic at times.

You know I was gonna mention FUGAZI. Some of their live jams can get pretty trippy.

My argument against dropping acid has always been that I could just listen to some really fucking good music.

A healthy argument, though for me acid was always at least as visual inspiring/influencing as musical. These days I use my holga, photoshop, and Flickr to "get there" rather than something with questionable long term physical effects. Of course staring at a computer can't be that good for you either...

Close your eyes really hard sometime. It is pretty trippy. I used to do that when I was a kid while watching my D-TV VHS.

That was one of my favorite D-TV VHS's when I was a kid. It was like MTV of 60's songs with old Disney movie clips used as the footage.

Here was the tracklisting of the VHS I had:

• Martha and The Vandellas: Dancing In the Street
• Little Richard: Tutti Frutti
• Tommy Roe: Dizzy
• The Diamonds: Little Darlin'
• Stevie Wonder: Uptight (Everything's Alright)
• The Supremes: You Keep Me Hangin' On
• Elvis Presley: Stuck On You
• Stevie Wonder: I Was Made to Love Her
• Danny and The Juniors: At the Hop
• Sheb Wooley: The Purple People Eater (Not in Monster Hits)
• Johnny Burnette: Dreamin'
• Little Richard: Long Tall Sally
• Jan and Dean: Surf City
• Elvis Presley: Hound Dog
• The Four Tops: Reach Out - I'll Be There
• The Dovells: You Can't Sit Down
• The Beach Boys: Dance, Dance, Dance

I thought that some of those songs were damn psychadelic when I was like 4, and I didn't even know what psychadelic was.

Also some of the songs in the original Winnie the Pooh movie seem like Syd Barret wrote them. Also, I don't remember if there was accompanying music- but in Dumbo when he gets drunk. Man.