Factors Influencing Acid Rock
The genre of acid rock came about for many reasons. During the 1960’s and 1970’s there were many major events which shaped the new musical era. Events such as “The Summer of Love” drew major attention to the hippie movement that had emerged during the late 1960’s, and then that was followed by the music festival “Woodstock” in 1969 (Moist, 2016) which really cemented this movement into national culture. These events did not just occur randomly though, various tensions around the nation brought them on. These tensions included both the Cold War and Vietnam War troubles that the nation had been faced with. It did not stop there though, as civil rights were in full effect. MLK made his famous “I have a dream…” speech in 1963 (Howard, 1969), which sparked a civil rights revolution throughout the country. With a mixture of political, civil, and international troubles, the youths took to the forefront by using music as a way to start a rebellion against the current situation they faced. Heavy drug use and political themes defined this new genre that had come about, which was acid rock. In order to express the emotions of the youth during this stressful time a dissonant harmony, loud dynamics, and multiple layers were used in acid rock.
The dissonant harmony which developed during this time reflected the tense nature of the nation. The youth were fed up with the talks of war and instead opted for a new style of music which promoted activism. This movement was mainly fueled by heavy use of drugs (especially acid), which allowed for the artists to look at the world in a new kind of light (Howard, 1969). This music was filled with all kinds of new sounds which at the very least were unsettling at times, but it did a great job at expressing the emotions faced by the younger generation of this era.
Prior to acid rock there had been a theme of soft dynamics throughout the music industry, and there was more of a focus on getting a message across clearly. This is a very prominent trait in the artist Bob Dylan’s work (Barker, 2016). Then the acid rock era came along and the artists involved wanted to change this way of getting the message across. The new way to do this was to use loud music in order to evoke strong emotions in people, and to try and stir up riots around the country. The younger generation saw what the previous generation accomplished and were not impressed by it, so they changed the entire mindset with their music. Instead of focusing on calmly changing the nations current problems, acid rock chose to use drugs, anger, and chaos to make a difference.
The layering of songs can have a huge impact on how it comes across to listeners. While artists of the previous generation decided to use single layers to produce a more calming and heart felt effect, acid rock artists decided to move in the opposite direction. Their music produced confusion and more importantly action. The biggest event around this time period which people wanted to change was the Vietnam War. People were begging for the troops to come home, and this was apparent in the music being produced as well. In California there was even a hippie movement which was produced in part because of the music (Boyd-Smith, 2010). Messages were not clear anymore in them, and the focus turned to a changing of lifestyle in order to change the nation.
Music before acid rock was produced may have been helpful at aiding in the fight for civil rights, but it did not have the same impact for other issues across the country, and the youths had grown tired of such minimal change. They believed that an “expansion of the mind”(Boyd-Smith, 2010) through the use of drugs would help them to realize the answers to the current problems. Themes of peace and love were thrown across the country, and the music also advocated for that through a more aggressive musical style as compared to the music just prior to acid rock’s birth.
References:
Barker, T. P. (2016). Music, civil rights, and counterculture : critical aesthetics and resistance in the United States, 1957–1968.
Boyd-Smith, S. (2010). “The Psychedelic Experience: Rock Posters from the San Francisco Bay Area, 1965–1971.”. Journal of American History, 97, 123–127.
Howard, J., R. (1969). The Flowering of the Hippie Movement. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 382, 43.
Moist, K., M. (2016). Special issue of Rock Music Studies: Global Psychedelia and Counterculture. Popular Music & Society, 39, 391–392. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2016.1165533
