100 Greatest Psychedelic Artists
Criteria: Artists are ranked by their influence, impact, and popularity. Includes artists that performed psychedelic music for only a portion of their career
List editor: Piper, with significant contributions from Brett Alan and pauldrach

1. The Beatles (mid-to-late 60's)
2. Jimi Hendrix Experience
3. Jefferson Airplane
4. The Doors
5. Cream
6. Grateful Dead
7. Sly & The Family Stone
8. Love
9. The Byrds (mid-60's)
10. The Yardbirds
11. Quicksilver Messenger Service
12. Country Joe & The Fish
13. The United States of America
14. Pink Floyd (early career)
15. Donovan
16. The Beach Boys (mid-to-late 60's)
17. Moby Grape
18. Santana
19. The Pretty Things
20. Frank Zappa/The Mothers of Invention (early career)
21. The 13th Floor Elevators
22. The Incredible String Band
23. The Zombies
24. Vanilla Fudge
25. Hawkwind
26. Spirit
27. The Small Faces
28. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band
29. Blue Cheer
30. Traffic
31. Soft Machine
32. The Temptations (late 60's-to-early 70's)
33. West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
34. Os Mutantes
35. Shuggie Otis
36. Big Brother and the Holding Company
37. Steppenwolf
38. Gong
39. The Rolling Stones (mid-60's)
40. The Who (mid-60's)
41. The Holy Modal Rounders
42. Red Krayola/The Red Crayola
43. Silver Apples
44. Pearls Before Swine
45. Tomorrow
46. Syd Barrett
47. The Charlatans (US)
49. Procol Harum
50. Kaleidoscope (US)
51. The Seeds
52. The Moody Blues (late-60's)
53. Iron Butterfly
54. The Monkees (later career)
55. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
56. Electric Prunes
57. Eric Burdon & The (New) Animals
58. The Millennium
59. The Status Quo (early career)
60. The Blues Magoos
61. The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
62. The Move
63. The Bee Gees (mid-to-late 60's)
64. John's Children
65. The Nice
66. The Chambers Brothers
67. Nirvana (UK)
68. Yes (early career)
69. Kevin Ayers
70. Skip Spence
71. Funkadelic (early career)
72. The Chocolate Watch Band
73. H.P. Lovecraft
74. The Great Society
75. The Amboy Dukes
76. The Zakary Thaks
77. Tyrannosaurus Rex
78. It's A Beautiful Day
79. Family
80. The Left Banke
81. David Axelrod
82. Ultimate Spinach
83. Man
84. Strawberry Alarm Clock
85. Nazz
86. Harry Nilsson (early career)
87. Moving Sidewalks
88. The Creation
89. Lothar and the Hand People
90. Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera
91. The Idle Race
92. Fifty Foot Hose
93. Kaleidoscope (UK)
94. Vashti Bunyan
95. Sagittarius
96. Andromeda
97. The Neon Philharmonic
98. The Yellow Balloon
99. Sweetwater
100. The Flower Pot Men

101. Peanut Butter Conspiracy
102. Bubble Puppy
103. Clear Light
104. The Blues Project
105. C.A. Quintet
106. Aphrodite's Child
107. The Music Machine
108. The Count Five
109. Earth Opera
110. Circus Maximus
111. Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
112. The SRC
113. The La De Das
114. Blossom Toes
115. Sopwith Camel
116. The Attack
117. We the People
118. The Deviants
119. Comus
120. Orpheus
121. Amazing Blondel
122. Third Ear Band
123. Beacon Street Union
124. Mystic Tide
125. Velvett Fogg
126. Fever Tree
127. Mad River
128. Gandalf
129. July
130. The Golden Dawn
131. Quintessence
132. The Savage Rose
133. The Tripsichord Music Box
134. Dantalian's Chariot
135. Forest
136. Neighb'rhood Childr'n
137. Mighty Baby
138. Ash Ra Tempel
139. Ford Theatre
140. Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band
141. The Sons of Champlin
142. The Open Mind
143. Le Fleur de Lys
144. The Paupers
145. Flower Travellin' Band
146. Group 1850
147. The Outcasts
148. Frumious Bandersnatch
149. Blonde on Blonde
150. The Litter

75 Greatest Neo-Psychedelic Artists
1. The Flaming Lips
2. Echo and the Bunnymen
3. Lenny Kravitz
4. Robyn Hitchcock
5. The Teardrop Explodes
6. Neutral Milk Hotel
7. Super Furry Animals
8. Phish
9. The Apples in Stereo
10. Love and Rockets
11. Dream Syndicate
12. The Soft Boys
13. The Dandy Warhols
14. of Montreal
15. The Charlatans (UK)
16. Spiritualized
17. Kula Shaker
18. The Church
19. Mercury Rev
20. Spacemen 3
21. The Brian Jonestown Massacre
22. The Olivia Tremor Control
23. Rain Parade
24. Inspiral Carpets
25. The Bevis Frond
26. The Soup Dragons
27. Ozric Tentacles
28. That Petrol Emotion
29. Gorky's Zygotic Mynci
30. Television Personalities
31. The Chills
32. The Three O'Clock
33. Animal Collective
34. Tripping Daisy
35. Butthole Surfers
36. The Fuzztones
37. The Farm
38. Lyres
39. The Essex Green
40. MGMT
41. The Mighty Lemon Drops
42. Elf Power
43. Ocean Colour Scene
44. The Dukes of Stratosphear (XTC)
45. The Icicle Works
46. The Wondermints
47. The String Cheese Incident
48. The La's
49. Opal
50. Devendra Banhart
51. Ariel Pink
52. Grizzly Bear
53. Screaming Trees
54. The Chesterfield Kings
55. Darker My Love
56. The Dodos
57. Tame Impala
58. Plasticland
59. The Green Pajamas
60. Angel'in Heavy Syrup
61. Widespread Panic
62. Yeasayer
63. Acid Mothers Temple
64. Black Moth Super Rainbow
65. Magic Hour
66. Baby Lemonade
67. The Black Angels
68. The Bangles (early career)
69. Charalambides
70. Euros Childs
71. Julian's Treatment
72. Plan 9
73. Mandragora
74. Floatation Toy Warning
75. Hum

noticed we didn't have a Psychedelic Artists list. List will include 60's (and early 70's) psych artists, will include a Top 50 sublist for "Neo Psychedelia" (late-70's onwards(?)) artists

Nice early draft. A couple of things I noticed:

The Mamas & the Papas and The Association are only borderline psychedelic artists. They are closely linked to the hippie culture, but there music is rather pure sunshine pop than actually psychedelic. You could include them, but I'd lower them significantly.

The Velvet Underground are somewhat problematic as they are not identified with hippie culture at all. The music itself shares many characteristics with psychedelic rock so I guess it's OK to include them but I don't know whether they really should be that high as they didn't have a lot of impact on the psychedelic scene itself.

The New Riders of the Purple Sage, even though they are an offshoot of the Grateful Dead, are not a psychedelic rock act and shouldn't be on the list at all.

Kaleidoscope is the name of two psychedelic rock bands, one from the US the other from Britain, that have absolutely nothing to do with each other, even though both probably are significant enough to make the list. You might want to split that entry.

Artists that should or at least could be on your list and are probably more significant than most of the acts you included in the lower reaches of your list:
The Moody Blues, The Byrds, Santana, Funkadelic, Sly and the Family Stone, Curtis Mayfield, The Beach Boys, The Monkees, Bee Gees, The Who, Small Faces, The Move, Kevin Ayers, The Seeds, The Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Steppenwolf, Yes, Shuggie Otis, Eric Burdon & the Animals, C.A. Quintet, Fifty Foot Hose, Count Five, Harry Nilsson, David Axelrod, The Chambers Brothers, The Deviants, Gandalf

You completely forgot psychedelic soul apparently (Sly, Funkadelic, Chambers Brothers, Shuggie Otis need to be on here). The Byrds and the Yardbirds were among the first psychedelic artists in their respective country and need to get a decent spot.

Also an honorable mention goes to Billy Joel's pioneering work in the immensely popular and beloved duo Attila.

Thanks for those suggestions!
I have:
replaced the Mamas and the Papas with Santana
replaced the Velvet Underground with Sly & The Family Stone
disambiguated Kaleidoscope (US at #22, UK at #82)
replaced the Association with The Small Faces
replaced New Riders of the Purple Sage with Shuggie Otis
added: The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Move, The Bee Gees (early career), The Status Quo, Kevin Ayers, C.A. Quartet, Fifty Foot Hose, Gandalf, David Axelrod, The Chamber Brothers, The Byrds, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, The Count Five, The Seeds



You mean the band whose only album Stephen Thomas Erlewane once called "undoubtedly is the worst album released in the history of rock & roll -- hell, the history of recorded music itself"?

Haha... I got a good chuckle, Paul.

Interesting list. Looks like a good start. A couple random thoughts:

I think the Stones are too high. Their psych period was short and generally not considered their best, although it certainly produced a couple of classic songs. No way do I see them above, say, Love, the Beach Boys, Donovan, or Moby Grape.

The Yardbirds definitely need to be here. People on the rock artists list have been arguing that "Still I'm Sad" was actually the first psychedelic record, and they have a point.

More R&B, definitely. The Temptations had a great psych period from roughly 1967-72 and they should rank high.

You should probably add a year stretch for Pink Floyd. Obviously the listing is mostly for the Barrett era, yes?

The listing for the Dukes of Stratosphear might as well also include the name XTC.

Stones have been moved to #19
Yardbirds added at #29
Temptations added at #30

Oh, and that C.A. thing is a quintet.

OK:
Stones are down, and I added the Who, Funkadelic (both 60's) and Eric Burdon and the New Animals. Lowered Blues Magoos, The mid/late 60's stones, and Arthur Brown

How does it look now?
Any suggestions for the Neo-Psychedelia list?

Soft Machine up. At least ahead of Gong, maybe as high as Traffic/Blue Cheer, that area. Then move The Stones/The Who right below all those artists that acually were significant for psychedelia (Holy Modals, Red Krayola, Silver Apples, PBS) and place the brackets only around the "new" for The Animals. I think I'll shut up then. List is really looking good now.

The Bangles were actually apart of the Paisley Underground, a very important neo-psychedelia scene in Los Angeles during the 1980's.

Not the biggest fan when it comes to the beach boys.

I didn't realize that all Paisley Underground artist were automatically psychedelic. The few Bangles songs I know don't sound very psychedelic. On Allmusic only their first album is categorized as Paisley Underground and I think they developped into a pure pop-rock artist later, so I'd probably have them at least a little lower.

Yeah, I'm a huge Bangles fan, but I don't really think of them as psychedelic. They're a power-pop band with some psych influences.

One band that needs to be on the main list: The Creation. See "Painter Man", "Making Time", "Ostrich Man", "The Girls Are Naked", "How Does It Feel To Feel", etc.

Creation added at #51. Bangles dropped off Neo Psych list. Replaced at #50 by Ariel Pink.