What about "Wish You Were Here"? Or "Animals"? Or "The Wall"?

 

 

As well as "Wish You Were Here", "Animals" or "The Wall".

 

Do you think Hawkwind are psychedelic?

 

 

I don't think of Hawkwind at all. 

I try not to ever bring it up, and I know nobody asked, but for the sake of this argument i'll put it out there that i've used psychedelics before and I think that album captures really well the sort of reflective and introspective head space that psychedelics put you in. Also, the song "On The Run" does a phenomenal job of imitating the auditory hallucinations that you can sometimes experience while tripping, its generally a little more ambient in real life though. The actual music is just on the same wavelength, but the subject matter deals with topics and ideas that you generally can really deeply explore while on planet Lucy. It's hard to describe but i'm voting a hard "yes" on this one. To add on, i've never listened to the album while on psychs, so that isn't skewing my perception. Perhaps Piper or Meddle are more psychedelic in the traditional sense, but Dark Side is psychedelic in a more "night time introspective trip" way

 

No, Dark Side of the Moon doesn't sound psychedelic to me, but The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets DO sound psychedelic.

It is not psychedelic. It wasn't considered psychedelic in 1973 when I was a teenager, and it still isn't now. Psychedelia in rock had for all intents and purposes died in or around 1971. The last Floyd album with bits of psychedelic accouterments would be Meddle, and that fits with that 1971 time-frame. By the time Obscured by Clouds was released in 1972, Floyd had abandoned the extended-form psychedelic epics like "Echoes", "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast", much of Ummagumma, "Saucerful of Secrets",  "Astronomy Domine" and "Interstellar Ovedrive".

DSotM is controlled and purposeful in its approach. The musicianship is very tight -- there is no free-form exposition inherent in psychedelia. The attention to detail in the studio is still a marvel nearly 50 years later. It is conceptual and seamless in how one composition flows into the next. And while one could certainly get high while listening to Dark Side of the Moon (and we did, often and quite heavily), the same could be said of any number of non-psychedelic prog albums of that era; which is probably why A Passion Play, Close to the Edge, and even proggy non-prog albums like Quadrophenia were monster sellers -- because you didn't have to move to touch the record unless it was time to flip sides. Of course, the same could be said of Black Sabbath which, I would suggest, more stoners got high to than just about anything else in the epoch.

And I don't doubt your being able to listen the way you did while psychedelicized, Doug.  Just as psych itself, as the original genre played out and in defining it, Dark Elf explains it well.  It certainly could take one on a trip, but it was a different kind of trip than the psych-tinged earlier music of PF did.  It does miss the free-form experimentalism that was a hallmark of true psych.

I'd go along with that. All of Pink Floyd's albums sound more Space Rock than Psychedelic Rock to me in my hippie universe.

 

I see a strong distinction between space rock and psychedelic rock, which is why I asked about Hawkwind earlier. To me, Hawkwind are the quintessential space rock group, but they don't sound psychedelic to me. By contrast, Nektar - Journey To The Centre Of The Eye sounds both space rock and psychedelic. Thus, I ask whether Dark Side of the Moon is psychedelic without any mention of space rock.

 

 

 

I always think of Space Rock and Psychedelic Rock as being entirely separate too, even though they're both lumped together as one music genre on ProgArchives. In the same way as Hawkwind are the quintessential Space Rock band without sounding psychedelic, The Doors  are the quintessential Psychedelic Rock band without sounding spacey.

Thanks for presenting another Internet stereotype: those who have utterly nothing worthwhile to offer, but still feel the necessity to type.

Is that good or bad?

Works for me! We were asked to offer our opinions on a classic prog album, and we offered them.

Haha, you got me! It brings out the "best" in all of us. Anyway, I did actually give my thoughts on the matter at hand earlier in the thread. I'm just not a fan of saying it like "PF is..." or "PF is not..." when this is something so subjective.

I was just thinking to "On The Run". Absolutely psych, as well as the clocks on "Time".

"Us and Them" is Psych enough, too IMO.

 

Everything everyone has to say is opinion. At long last people are getting their confidence back after years of having some belligerent attacking "opinion" as "opinion!". Good to see people being forthright and not having to say imo etc.

Just as it was good to see PF progressing psychedelia. Didn't they do well.

Echoes is equally as structured. All the sections are superbly cued and paced. Psych is more improv than prog is. PF couldn't jam out too much on Dark Side - no room. Doesn't stop some from sl*g.ing off Money for this function even when that it also equally structured, precise and thus able to be expanded live.

IMVVVVHO....