The Third Eye

Music should never be some kind of popularity contest, though let’s be honest, it usually is. Even in the heavy underground, bands want their stuff to be listened to and blared out on speakers as widely as possible.

Many artists we write about here on The Third Eye aren’t the most popular, but we’ve written about plenty of classic bands like Pink Floyd and The Beatles that have sold more records than one could ever imagine.

That’s why I was interested in looking at the most popular psychedelic rock songs on Spotify, as of April 1, 2023, at least. I also did this dive into the available data sets because, well. I’m a dork.

Along with writing reviews about music, I’ve worked as a journalist and currently work in digital PR while I regularly compile reports gathering data. So, excuse my nerdiness with this post.

About the List

A note about the list: The data comes from here, a dataset I gathered from the website Kaggle. These are the most popular psych-rock songs on Spotify based on a particular scoring method, not necessarily the best ones, updated five months ago.

Most songs are from the earlier psych-rock eras in the Sixties and Seventies, with one notable exception. The scoring is based on a Spotify algorithm for popularity, not on the number of plays.

The data set explained the popularity score in this way: “The popularity of a track is a value between 0 and 100, with 100 being the most popular. The popularity is calculated by algorithm and is based mostly on the total number of plays the track has had and how recent those plays are. Generally speaking, songs that are being played a lot now will have a higher popularity than songs that were played a lot in the past. Duplicate tracks (e.g., the same track from a single and an album) are rated independently. Artist and album popularity is derived mathematically from track popularity.”

So, the list is a bit arbitrary. And, as you’ll see, I’d question if some of the songs mentioned could even be called psych rock. But that’s how they were categorized in the database, and I don’t make the rules, y’all …

Spotify’s 10 Most Popular Pscyh Rock Songs

Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles

Coming in at number one is this Beatles classic, not much of a surprise. It’s debatable if this is genuinely a psych-rock song, and it’s certainly not the most psychedelic song The Beatles ever made. Nevertheless, it is a great song, with a Spotify popularity score of 82 and over 976 million plays.

Here Comes the Sun is perhaps George Harrison’s best-known Beatles composition, written in early 1969 at the country house of Eric Clapton. The song would appear on the 1969 classic Abbey Road. The lyrics are said to reflect the arrival of spring and the temporary break Harrison had from the Beatles’ overwhelming business affairs, a time George was thinking about leaving the band.

As I mentioned, the song isn’t precisely psychedelic but has some experimental sounds. Harrison’s acoustic guitar is the main feature, but the track also has a Moog synthesizer that he introduced to The Beatles song after buying an early model of the instrument. Here Comes the Sun also has several time signature changes and shows the influence of Indian classical music on Harrison’s songwriting at that point.

Homage by Mild High Club

All the songs in the top 10 are either from the Sixties or Seventies – except this one from Mild High Club which was released in 2016. I haven’t listened to Mild High Club much over the years, though I’m familiar with them. Alexander Brettin leads the American psych-pop group and is indeed popular, the type of newer, modern psychedelia group loved by outlets like Pitchfork.

Homage is off the 2016 album Skiptracing and has a Spotify popularity score of 78, even beating out Pink Floyd classics like Wish You Were Here. That’s pretty wild. Mild High Club is the primarily solo project of Brettin, and Skiptracing was his second full-length album. The song was certified Gold in 2022, and it has more than 268 million plays on Spotify. Mild High Club’s newest album, Going, Going, Gone, was released in 2021 after a five-year wait from fans.

For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield

Unlike Homage, this one wasn’t surprising to me. For What It’s Worth is the classic song written by Stephen Stills and released in 1966. It peaked at Number 7 on the Billboard Charts and, since then, has been revered as both a classic psychedelic rock song and classic rock song, in general.

“For What It’s Worth” is often thought of as an anti-war song, but apparently Stills was more so inspired by the Sunset Strip curfew riots in LA in November 1966. Buffalo Springfield was the house band as the Whiskey a Go Go while the riots happened. Locals were annoyed by all the young hippies going to clubs and music venues along the Strip, so the LA County passed ordinances to stop loitering and impose a strict curfew after 10 p.m. What a drag.

Despite this, For What it’s Worth became a well-known protest song. It’s also a staple of films and documentaries about Sixties America, the Vietnam War, the counterculture, etc. It was used in Forrest Gump, after all. But Stephen Stills has always been clear about it – the song is not a war protest song.

California Dreamin’ by The Mamas & The Papas

Here’s another one from the very early psychedelic era. California Dreamin’ was released as a single in 1965 and became a hallmark of the early California sound. The Mamas & the Papas were a folk rock group that formed in LA and recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968 and became a defining countercultural force. California Dreamin’ has made many lists over the years as one of rock’s greatest songs, and was eventually covered by The Beach Boys in the ‘80s.

The song’s lyrics express the narrator’s yearning for the warmth of Los Angeles during a cold winter day back in New York City, and there’s a reason for that. California Dreamin’ was written in 1963 by John and Michelle Phillips while they were living in a brutally cold NYC winter. Michelle was missing sunny California, and the two were members of the folk group the New Journeymen at the time, which eventually evolved into the successful Mamas & Papas.

Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd

I imagine all you Third Eye readers know this tune very well. I don’t think of this one as a particularly psychedelic Pink Floyd song, but it’s a great one, of course. It was released as the title track of the 1975 album of the same name, with David Gilmour and Roger Waters collaborating in writing the music. Gilmour sings the lead vocals on Wish You Were Here.

Many people think of this song, lyrically, as a tribute to Syd Barrett. But that may not be precisely the case. Waters, who mainly wrote the lyrics, said they were directed at himself. It’s about being present in one’s own life and freeing the self to truly experience life, according to Waters. However, Gilmour says he never performs the song without thinking of Syd.

It’s no surprise Wish You Were Here is so popular on Spotify. Both Gilmour and Waters have said the song is one of Pink Floyd’s best. Gilmour also playfully once said it’s a very “simple country song” because of the emotional weight the song carries.

Let It Be by The Beatles

Now, I take issue with this pick. As amazing as this song is, it’s not even remotely psychedelic. The data set I used categorized it as such, though, so I included it in the ranking. Of course, it’s a great song, and one of the most popular songs The Beatles ever made, and that’s saying a lot.

Let it Be was released in 1970 as a single and would be the title track of the Let It Be album. It was written by Paul McCartney but credited to the Lennon-McCartney partnership. Let it Be eventually reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100, but it was the Beatles’ final single before Paul left the band. As for the inspiration behind the song, Paul said he got the idea from a dream he had about his mother during the sessions for The White Album in 1968. Paul’s mother, Mary Patricia, died of cancer when he was fourteen. In a later interview, he would say his mum told him in the dream, “It will be all right, just let it be.”

Come Together by The Beatles

The fact that the Beatles dominate this list shouldn’t be a surprise. Come Together making the list isn’t much of a shocker, either. This one was written by John Lennon and is the opening track on Abbey Road. It reached the very top of the charts in the U.S. and Australia, but peaked at No. 4 in the U.K.

It’s one of my favorite Beatles songs and one that has been covered by several bands and artists, from Ike and Tina Turner to Aerosmith. I didn’t know this, but John Lennon wrote the song for Timothy Leary, the American psychologist and LSD advocate, who intended to run for governor of California. Leary asked Lennon to write him a campaign song based on the slogan, “Come Together – Join the Party!” After Lennon gave him a tape of the song, the two reportedly never interacted again.

All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix

As many of you probably know, this isn’t a Hendrix original. All Along the Watchtower is an original Bob Dylan song from his 1967 album John Wesley Harding. It was. arguably, remade into an even better version by Hendrix and certainly a more popular version, as the ranking on this list would suggest.

The Hendrix version was released a mere six months after Dylan’s original recording and came out on the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s third studio album, Electric Ladlyland (1968). Hendrix’s version became a Top 20 single and was later ranked number 48 in Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time. Dylan would play this song a lot live, and his live version was heavily influenced by Hendrix. It was so influenced by Jimi, in fact, that it has been called a “cover of a cover.”

Happy Together by The Turtles

I was surprised by the inclusion of this song on the list, but maybe I shouldn’t be. Like other bands on this list, The Turtles were formed in Los Angeles in the mid-Sixties. “Happy Together” from 1967 is their most well-known song, though they charted other Top 40 hits in the Sixties before disbanding in 1970.

I like many of the songs on this list, but not this one. It’s like a bad Beach Boys psychedelic pop song that gets on my nerves and one that I’ve heard unwillingly millions of times in various TV shows and movies. And despite the joyous sounds of the music, the lyrics have a dark side. The song is about unrequited and imaginary love, so it’s pretty creepy, actually.

Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 by Pink Floyd

We finish the list with another Pink Floyd classic, certainly one of their most loved songs. I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a psychedelic song, either, though. Another Brick in the Wall was a three-part composition from Floyd’s 1979 rock opera The Wall, written by Roger Waters.

The song is a protest tune against corporal punishment and abusive schooling, of course featuring the chorus of children singing. Pink Floyd and Waters also included elements of disco in the song at the suggestion of producer Bob Erzin. Part 2 was released as a single and sold more than four million copies worldwide, topping the singles charts all over the damn place.

Yes, it’s a classic song, but this is one I’ve heard so many times on classic rock radio, that it no longer feels even remotely fresh. However, I always remember that “If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding.”

Final Thoughts

So, there you have it – Spotify’s most popular psychedelic rock songs, by one measure at least. Not exactly the greatest list and plenty of songs that I may say aren’t even psychedelic. Many of the entries aren’t too shocking. And with the exception of Mild High Club, they are all of the early psych variety.

I rounded up the top 25 in this fancy chart below if you’d like to take a look. Some entries are even more bizarre, including Twist and Shout by the Beatles and Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf. Still, there are some good ones to be had, including two classics by The Doors, Riders on the Storm, included.

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Music isn’t always a popularity contest, but oftentimes, it is. We create music for the love of it, but we want it to be shared. And according to this database, these are the most loved psych-rock songs on Spotify. For better or worse, this is what most listeners are enjoying when they dial up the psych on Spotify.

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