What album (not a best of or compilation) best represents psychedelic rock (or list a few that do)...

Sgt. Pepper has always been called a psychedelic album and has been presented as the definitive psychedelic album, but I really don't think it is a very good representation of the genre (When I'm Sixty Four, Good Morning, neither is psychedelic)... While there are great pieces of psychedelia on it, as a whole I don't think it fits the bill well (although I guess is spirit or vibe it does)...

I'll list the albums I feel best fit the genre after I think about it for awhile...

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Actually, the album that best represents psychedelic rock for me isn't even an album (or wasn't until the Capitol "Butchers" got a hold of it).

I've always had a very special place in my heart for Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles. I like the way it flowed (on the original American master--which I pray will be released as part of a "Capitol Albums Vol. 3" box set), with the songs edited very close together ala Pepper. The songs themselves, I think, were the most psychedelic collection of songs that the Beatles ever did.

Because all the '67 singles are represented on MMT, Syd gets his favorite Beatles psych song ("I Am The Walrus") and I get mine ("Stawberry Fields Forever").

All that aside, though, to me MMT simply sounds like the "Summer of Love". It's trippy, spiritual, whimsical, and fun.

On "When I'm Sixty Four" we agree. But I would counter that "Good Morning, Good Morning" is psychedelic in its musical make-up if not in lyrical content (although I think the lyric is stream-of-conciousness enough to easily qualify as well). I mean, all those animal noises at the end are really quite trippy--especially when the lion morphs into an elephant! And that guitar solo (is that Harrison or McCartney, anyway?) is so raga-rock and spastic. Yeah, to me "Good Morning, Good Morning" has always been a bit of a trip.

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Bad trips take you much farther out there.

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Good point Rev, I agree... Plus the fact that it has that weird segue into A Day in A Life that makes it a candidate for psychedelia...
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Pink Floyd. Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

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Now that is a great selection... One that perhaps can't be topped...


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I'm still getting Piper into my system (having just heard it in the past year)...but of course it is a choice that cannot be argued with. Its importance cannot be overstated. That much I suspected even before I heard it, and hearing only confirmed my suspicions.

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I am curious as to your take on several songs on there... Flaming, The Gnome and Bike...

If See Emily Play and Arnold Lane as well as some other singles from that period that never made it onto a "proper" album had been included on that Piper it would have just been off the chart amazing (sort of like if Rain and Paperback Writer were added to Revolver, or Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane had made it onto Pepper)...

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Let me give the album another listen and get back with you, OK? Like I said, I'm still getting this "new" music "into my system".