Acid Rock
Acid rock is a loud, heavy and improvised form of psychedelic rock from the mid-to-late 1960s, named after the drug LSD.
It grew out of American garage rock and the San Francisco scene. Typical features are long jams, heavily distorted and feedback-laden guitar, and lyrics that refer to drug experiences. The term is often used as another word for psychedelic rock, but it usually means the harder, rawer end, which pointed the way to hard rock and heavy metal.
Artists it is known for: The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Iron Butterfly.
- Family
- Rock
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United States, mid-1960s
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 2%
About 1,600 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have acid rock among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Acid Rock artists
The Doors
Jimi Hendrix
Grateful Dead
CreamThe acid rock artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.