Freakbeat is a loosely defined
subgenre of
rock and roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...
music developed mainly by harder-driving British groups during the
Swinging London
The Swinging Sixties was a youth-driven cultural revolution that took place in the United Kingdom during the mid-to-late 1960s, emphasising modernity and fun-loving hedonism, with Swinging London denoted as its centre. It saw a flourishing in ...
period of the mid-to late 1960s. The genre bridges British Invasion
R&B,
beat and
psychedelia
Psychedelia usually refers to a Aesthetics, style or aesthetic that is resembled in the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience produced by certain psychoactive substances. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic ...
.
Etymology
The term was coined by English music journalist
Phil Smee
Philip Lloyd-Smee is an English music journalist, designer and record collector, most widely known for designing music album covers and his Bam-Caruso music label, best known for the Rubble series of albums. Much of Smee's design work was done f ...
when he was compiling the
Rubble series
''Rubble'' is a 20-volume collection of compilation albums featuring mostly late-1960s British psychedelic rock compiled by Bam-Caruso Records, St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, by Phil Lloyd-Smee.
The first volume was created in 1984, and th ...
of compilations in the 1980s.
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
writes that "freakbeat" is loosely defined, but generally describes the more obscure but hard-edged artists of the
British Invasion
The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when Rock music, rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of Culture of the United Kingdom, British culture became popular in the United States with sign ...
era.
Compilations
Much of the material collected on
Rhino Records
A rhinoceros ( ; ; ; : rhinoceros or rhinoceroses), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant taxon, extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates (perissodactyls) in the family (biology), famil ...
's 2001 box-set compilation ''
Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964–1969'' can be classified as freakbeat.
The ''
English Freakbeat'' series is a group of five
compilation album
A compilation album comprises Album#Tracks, tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one Performing arts#Performers, performer or by several performers. If the recordings are from ...
s, released in the late 1980s, that were issued by
AIP Records
AIP Records is a record label that was started by Greg Shaw's Bomp! Records in 1983 to continue the Pebbles series. AIP stands for "Archive International Productions". The first 10 volumes in the Pebbles series had been released by BFD Reco ...
. The LPs featured recordings that were released in the mid-1960s by English
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...
bands in R&B and
beat
Beat, beats, or beating may refer to:
Common uses
* Assault, inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact
* Battery (crime), a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact
* Battery (tort), a civil wrong in common law of inte ...
genres. The series served as a follow-up to the ''
Pebbles, Volume 6'' LP, itself subtitled ''The Roots of Mod'', which was the only album in the ''
Pebbles'' series that was devoted to English music. When the ''English Freakbeat'' series was reissued as CDs in the 1990s, the ''Pebbles, Volume 6'' LP was adapted into the ''English Freakbeat, Volume 6'' CD.
References
External links
Freakbeat information"Looking Back 80 Mod, Freakbeat & Swinging London Nuggets" compilationMini Documentary on Joe Meek , The Freakbeat Singles (1964–67)
Rock music genres
British styles of music
Psychedelic music
Mod (subculture)
Garage rock
Beat music
{{rock-music-stub