The seventy-second album: #72 13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
While, I must admit, the Beatles are one of my main touchstones for psychedelic rock, the thing that makes them sound poppier to my mind are the lack of hard guitar riffs, usually peeferring a gentler sound. The 13th Floor Elevators show that things can be different though, as they have the heavy guitars in here that come from their garage rock roots, as well as the shoutier vocals.The psychedelic elements are still there though, with weird sounds dominating part of the music and adding an otherworldly feel to what we'd otherwise have as a fairly standard garage rock album.
The trick is compelling enough to work, but the lack of variety means that while the whole is good, I struggle a bit to identify individual standout tracks on the album. It's a decent album, what it is trying is interesting, but falling between two genres as it does, I struggle to get a grip on it. Other bands may do it in a way that works better for me later on.