Baroque pop

Baroque pop is a pop rock music subgenre spurred by recording artists from the United States and United Kingdom who infused rock and roll with elements of classical music. Its height of success was in the late-1960s, with several prominent exponents emerging and/or incorporating the genre into their repertoire, including: the Beach Boys, the Moody Blues, the Beatles, the Left Banke, the Fifth Estate, the Rolling Stones, Love and Procol Harum.

Baroque pop's mainstream popularity faded by the 1970s, partially because punk rock, disco and hard rock took over; nonetheless, music was still produced within the genre's tradition, and it exerted an influence on subsequent movements such as Philadelphia soul in the 1970s and chamber pop in the 1990s, which both incorporated the spirit of baroque pop while the latter contested much of the time's low fidelity musical aesthetic.

Since the 1990s, baroque pop has seen a revival; several prominent artists, such as Belle and Sebastian, Regina Spektor and the Divine Comedy, have performed or incorporated elements of the genre in their work.

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Psychedelic pop

Psychedelic pop is a psychedelic musical style applied to pop music settings. It reached its peak during the late 1960s, declining rapidly in the early 1970s. Examples include work by the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Byrds, and Pink Floyd.

History

Origins and characteristics

The origins of psychedelic music were in folk and rock music of the mid-1960s, particularly the work of The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Byrds, The Yardbirds, and The Grateful Dead. As psychedelia emerged as a mainstream and commercial force it began to influence pop music, which incorporated hippie fashions, drug references, as well as the sounds of sitars, fuzz guitars, and tape effects, but often using the close harmony vocals associated with California-based groups and applying these elements to concise and catchy pop songs.

Development

The Beach Boys under the leadership of Brian Wilson began to experiment with psychedelia, with records such as Pet Sounds (1966) and the single "Good Vibrations", which made use of a Tannerin (an easier to manipulate version of a Theremin). The Beatles followed Pet Sounds with the psychedelically-tinged Revolver (1966), and many subsequent works of psychedelia would contain a distinct Beach Boys influence. American pop-oriented rock bands that followed in this vein included The Mamas & the Papas,Electric Prunes, Blues Magoos and Strawberry Alarm Clock; with their first and most famous hit "Incense and Peppermints".

Sunshine pop

Sunshine pop (first known as soft pop) is a subgenre of pop music originating in the United States, mainly the state of California, in the mid-1960s, although it only acquired the name later. It began as an offshoot of the 1960s California Sound.

Sunshine pop is characterized by prominent vocal harmonies and lush orchestrations based on the productions of Phil Spector and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. In some ways sunshine pop is similar to baroque pop music through being elaborate and melancholic, though it also crossed into folk pop and Brill Building styles. According to Noel Murray of The A.V. Club, "influenced by the pretty sounds of easy-listening, the catchiness of commercial jingles, and the chemically induced delirium of the drug scene, the sunshine pop acts expressed an appreciation for the beauty of the world mixed with a sense of anxiety that the good ol’ days were gone for good."

Sunshine pop enjoyed mainstream success in the latter half of the decade, with many of its top 40 hits peaking in the spring and summer of 1967, especially just before the Summer of Love. Popular bands include the Mamas & the Papas, the Turtles, and the Association. Other acts, like the Millennium, Sagittarius, and the Yellow Balloon were less successful but gained a cult following years later; with albums like Begin (1968) and Present Tense (1968) highly sought-after on the collectors’ market.

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs, most notably LSD. It often uses new recording techniques and effects and sometimes draws on sources such as the ragas and drones of Indian music.

It was pioneered by musicians including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Byrds, and the Yardbirds, emerging as a genre during the mid-1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in the United Kingdom and United States, such as Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, the Doors and Pink Floyd. It reached a peak in between 1967 and 1969 with the Summer of Love and Woodstock Rock Festival, respectively, becoming an international musical movement and associated with a widespread counterculture, before beginning a decline as changing attitudes, the loss of some key individuals and a back-to-basics movement, led surviving performers to move into new musical areas.