Freakbeat

Not to be confused with Breakbeat.

For the compilation, see English Freakbeat series.

Freakbeat
Other names	Freak beat
Stylistic origins	British Invasion R&B beat garage rock psychedelic rock
Cultural origins	Mid-1960s, United Kingdom
Other topics
British rock English Freakbeat series music of the United Kingdom (1960s) Nederbeat Nederpop Freak scene Proto-punk

Freakbeat is a subgenre of rock music originally coined by English music journalist Phil Smee in 1986 to refer to "hard-edged" British mod groups during the British Invasion and Swinging London period of the mid-to late 1960s. The genre bridges R&B, beat and early psychedelia.

Freakbeat has been seen as the psychedelic, British response to US garage rock and proto-punk and represents a link between the music of the 1960s counterculture and that of the later punk movement in the 1970s, even sometimes described as "more punk than punk itself". While this was largely a British scene linked to the UK underground, some American groups such as Count Five, The Sonics and The Remains have also been described as freakbeat and included in compilations.

Etymology

See also: Freak-out music

In 1986, English music journalist Phil Smee coined the term "freakbeat" when compiling reissues of obscure mid-1960s records for the Rubble series. These "slightly weird mod records" featured British Invasion artists, often part of the mod culture and the UK underground, that existed in a gap between beat music and psychedelic rock. The music is typified by greater intensity, rawness and energy than that usually found in British beat, using distortion and psychedelic studio techniques specifically to express this intensity within a more conventional pop structure, in contrast with the formal experimentation of psychedelic rock.

Producer Joe Meek has been associated with freakbeat due to the studio experimentation and raw distortion in his projects, having produced bands such as The Riot Squad, The Syndicats and The Cryin' Shames.

Compilations

Much of the material collected on Rhino Records'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 albums, released in the late 1980s, that were issued by AIP Records. The LPs featured recordings that were released in the mid-1960s by English rock bands in R&B and beat 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.

The New Untouchables organisation has regularly released mod and freakbeat compilations since 2004 under the name Le Beat Bespoké, alongside organising contemporary freakbeat and mod events.

See also

• Freak-out (slang)
• Swinging Sixties
• Peacock revolution
• Mod (subculture)
• Los Angeles freak scene

External links

• Freakbeat information
• Essay about freakbeat
• "Looking Back 80 Mod, Freakbeat & Swinging London Nuggets" compilation
• Mini Documentary on Joe Meek | The Freakbeat Singles (1964–67)