Music is a sound, but it is never only a sound. It comes wrapped in images, in album covers and posters and logos and stage sets and merch and everything else that makes up the look of a band or a scene, and that visual culture is a real and serious part of how music lives in the world. We have already looked, in this series, at one great chapter of it, the psychedelic rock album cover of the sixties, but that is a single moment in something much larger, the whole ongoing visual culture of music, and across that whole visual culture, in decade after decade and genre after genre, the mushroom keeps showing up. The fungus recurs across the imagery of music, well beyond the psychedelic albums of the counterculture, one more medium in which the mushroom has found a lasting home.
This article is about the mushroom in the visual culture of music, the fungus across album art, band imagery, scene aesthetics, and all the visual apparatus of music, from the sixties onward and across the genres. It is a story about music as a visual as well as a sonic culture, about the mushroom's recurring place in that visual culture, and about why the fungus should be so bound up with the look of music. It connects to the whole psychedelic visual tradition this series has explored, including poster art and the contemporary festival aesthetic. Verify any specific music and artist claims against documented sources before publishing.
Music has a look
To understand the mushroom's place here you first have to appreciate that music has a visual culture at all, that it is not only heard but seen, wrapped in a whole apparatus of images. Music comes with a rich visual dimension, the album cover, the poster, the logo, the stage set, the video, the merchandise, the whole visual identity of a band, a genre, or a scene, and this visual culture is a serious and integral part of music, shaping how it is experienced, marketed, and remembered. To understand music fully you have to attend to its look as well as its sound, the visual culture that wraps and expresses the music, and it is within this rich visual culture that the mushroom recurs.
The album cover is the most celebrated form of music's visual culture, and it is worth recalling its significance, which this series has explored. The album cover became, especially in the era of the vinyl record, a genuine art form, a square canvas for expressing and packaging the music, and this series has traced its heights in our piece on the psychedelic rock album as art. The album cover is where music's visual culture reached some of its greatest artistic ambition, the sleeve as a canvas for real art, and the mushroom appeared there, in the psychedelic covers of the counterculture and beyond, one of the recurring images of the album as art. But the album cover, celebrated as it is, is only one part of music's much larger visual culture.
Beyond the album cover, music's visual culture extends across a whole range of forms, and the mushroom appears throughout them, not just on the sleeve. Band logos and imagery, concert posters, stage sets and backdrops, music videos, t-shirts and merchandise, the whole visual apparatus of music carries imagery, and the mushroom recurs across all of it, appearing on posters and logos and stage sets and merch and videos as well as on album covers. This breadth is worth emphasizing, the mushroom present not just on the celebrated album cover but across the whole visual culture of music, in every form that music's imagery takes, a recurring fungus throughout the look of music.
The concert poster in particular deserves a note, since it is one of the richest forms of music's visual culture and one where the mushroom has a deep history. The poster advertising a concert or a tour became, especially in the psychedelic era, a genuine art form in its own right, and this series has traced its heights in our piece on 1960s psychedelic poster art, where the mushroom appeared as one of the recurring images. The concert poster carries music's visual culture out into the world, advertising the show and expressing the band's image, and the mushroom recurs across it, from the psychedelic gig poster of the counterculture to the contemporary festival poster, one of the fungus's most established musical homes, the concert poster a canvas where the mushroom has long expressed the look and spirit of the music it advertises.
Music merchandise is another rich form worth emphasizing, the mushroom carried out into the world on the shirts and goods that fans wear and display. The t-shirt, the patch, the poster, the whole range of music merchandise, carries the band's or scene's imagery out into the everyday world, worn and displayed by fans as a badge of allegiance, and the mushroom recurs across this merchandise, connecting to the whole life of the fungus as a wearable emblem traced in this series in relation to popular merchandise. The music mushroom on the t-shirt is one of the fungus's most everyday musical homes, carried out into the world on the goods that fans wear, a badge of musical allegiance and a piece of the music's visual culture worn on the body, the fungus expressing a fan's connection to the music wherever the merchandise goes.
Beyond the sixties
The obvious association of the mushroom with music is the psychedelic sixties, but the fungus's musical life extends far beyond that era, and this continuation is worth tracing, because it shows the mushroom as a lasting rather than a period image in music. The strong link between the mushroom and music was forged in the psychedelic counterculture, where the fungus became bound up with psychedelic rock and its visual culture, but this link did not end with the sixties, continuing and evolving across the subsequent decades and genres, the mushroom recurring in the visual culture of music long after the counterculture, a lasting rather than a merely period image.
Pull quote: The mushroom got its musical reputation in the psychedelic sixties, but it never left. It just kept turning up, decade after decade, wherever music wanted to look a little strange, a little natural, or a little out there.
The mushroom persisted in the music associated with the ongoing psychedelic and alternative scenes, which carried the fungus forward across the decades. As psychedelic and alternative music continued and evolved after the sixties, through successive scenes and genres, the mushroom persisted as one of their recurring visual emblems, carried forward by the ongoing tradition of psychedelic and alternative music and its visual culture, traced in this series into the contemporary festival and electronic scene. The fungus remained a live emblem in the visual culture of psychedelic and alternative music across the decades, its musical association continuously renewed by the ongoing scenes that carried the psychedelic tradition forward, the mushroom still a sign of the psychedelic in music long after the sixties.
The mushroom also spread beyond psychedelic music proper, appearing in the visual culture of genres well outside the psychedelic, which shows its reach as a musical image. As the mushroom's associations spread across the culture, the fungus appeared in the visual culture of many kinds of music beyond the strictly psychedelic, in genres drawing on nature imagery, on the alternative and countercultural, on the strange and the whimsical, the mushroom recurring wherever music reached for these associations. This spread beyond psychedelic music shows the mushroom's broad reach as a musical image, the fungus appearing across many genres and scenes wherever its associations suited the music's image, well beyond its original psychedelic home, a recurring image across the wide visual culture of music.
The evolution of music's visual formats across the decades also shaped how the mushroom appeared, the fungus adapting to each new medium of music imagery. As music moved from the large vinyl sleeve to the smaller physical formats and then to the digital thumbnail and the streaming image, its visual culture adapted, and the mushroom adapted with it, appearing in whatever format music's imagery took, from the grand album canvas to the tiny digital icon. This adaptation across formats echoes the fungus's move into the digital visual language traced elsewhere in this series, the mushroom shrinking to the streaming thumbnail as it shrank to the emoji, adapting its musical presence to each new visual format. The fungus persisted across all these formats, its musical image carried from the vinyl sleeve to the digital screen, adapting to the changing visual media of music while remaining a recurring emblem throughout.
The music video and the visual performance gave the mushroom yet another musical home, the fungus animated and staged in the moving and live imagery of music. As music developed the video and the elaborate live visual performance, its visual culture extended into the moving and the staged, and the mushroom appeared there too, animated in music videos and staged in concert visuals and backdrops, connecting to the whole tradition of the psychedelic screen sequence and the contemporary festival visuals this series has explored. This extension into the moving and staged image gave the mushroom a dynamic and immersive musical life beyond the static cover, the fungus animated and projected and staged as part of the total audiovisual experience of music, one more form of its presence across the whole evolving visual culture of the art of sound.
Why the mushroom and music
It is worth asking why the mushroom should be so bound up with the visual culture of music, and the answer draws on both the fungus's associations and the nature of music itself, because there is a genuine affinity between them. The deepest reason is the mushroom's association with the psychedelic and with altered states, which connects it to music's own power to move and transport the listener. Music has its own capacity to alter mood and consciousness, to transport and move the listener, and the mushroom, as an emblem of altered states and expanded consciousness, resonates naturally with this power of music, the fungus a fitting image for an art that itself alters and transports. This affinity between the mushroom's associations with altered states and music's own transporting power is the deepest root of their connection, the fungus a natural emblem for the mind-altering power of music.
Another reason is the mushroom's association with the natural, the organic, and the earthy, which suits music that reaches for these qualities. Much music draws on associations with nature, the earth, the organic, and the elemental, and the mushroom, as a striking natural organism, is a fitting image for music reaching for these qualities, the fungus lending the music its associations with the natural and the earthy. This use of the mushroom to signal the natural suits many kinds of music, from the folk to the ambient to the earthy and organic, the fungus appearing in their visual culture to express a connection to nature and the elemental, one more reason the mushroom recurs across the look of music.
Another reason is the mushroom's association with the alternative, the countercultural, and the transgressive, which suits music that wants to signal these things. Much music, across many genres, wants to present itself as alternative, countercultural, edgy, or transgressive, and the mushroom, with its strong countercultural and alternative associations, is a fitting emblem for exactly this, the fungus signaling that the music too is alternative and edgy. This use of the mushroom to signal the countercultural suits the visual culture of much alternative and edgy music, the fungus lending it an air of the alternative and the transgressive, one more association that makes the mushroom a recurring image across the look of music, wherever music wants to signal its alternative edge.
There is also the sheer visual richness of the mushroom, which makes it good material for the artists and designers who create music's imagery. Whatever its associations, the mushroom is a genuinely striking and adaptable visual form, as this series has traced across many contexts, and this makes it appealing raw material for the album designers, poster artists, and visual creators who shape the look of music, a rich and versatile image to work with. The people who make music's visual culture reach for the mushroom partly just because it is a good image, striking and adaptable and rewarding to render, and this practical visual appeal, beneath all the associations, is part of why the fungus recurs across the look of music, a genuinely good image for the artists who create the visual apparatus of the art of sound. Sometimes the mushroom is on the cover simply because it makes a great cover.
And there is the deep and genuine historical link between the mushroom and music forged in the psychedelic era, which gives the fungus a lasting musical resonance. The counterculture bound the mushroom tightly to music, above all to psychedelic rock and its whole visual culture, and this historical association became part of the fungus's meaning, so that the mushroom now carries an inherent musical resonance, an established connection to music that later musicians and designers can draw on. This accumulated historical link means the mushroom comes to music already loaded with musical association, its long connection to psychedelic music making it a natural and resonant musical image, and this inherited resonance, built up since the sixties, is one more reason the fungus recurs across music's visual culture, the mushroom carrying its own established musical meaning wherever the look of music reaches for it.
The mushroom and the scene
Beyond individual bands and albums, the mushroom sometimes becomes an emblem of a whole music scene or subculture, and this larger role is worth examining, because it shows the fungus doing serious work as a badge of belonging. A music scene or subculture develops its own visual identity, its own emblems and imagery that mark belonging and express the scene's values, and the mushroom has served as such an emblem for scenes bound up with the psychedelic, the alternative, and the natural, a badge of the scene that marks its members and expresses its sensibility. This use of the fungus as a scene emblem shows its power as a musical image, the mushroom strong and rich enough to serve as a badge of belonging for a whole musical subculture.
The mushroom as a scene emblem functions as a marker of shared identity and values, worn and displayed by the members of the scene. When the mushroom becomes an emblem of a music scene, it serves to mark belonging, worn on shirts and displayed on merchandise and imagery, a badge that identifies members of the scene and expresses their shared sensibility and values, the fungus a sign of belonging to the musical subculture. This function connects to the mushroom's whole life as a wearable and displayable emblem, traced in this series in relation to merchandise and the tattoo, the scene mushroom one more form of the fungus worn and displayed as a badge of identity, now marking belonging to a music scene and its shared values.
The contemporary festival and electronic scene, explored in this series, is a particularly vivid instance of the mushroom as a scene emblem, the fungus central to a whole living musical visual culture. The contemporary psychedelic festival and electronic scene, traced in our piece on the festival and visionary visual culture, has the mushroom as one of its central visual emblems, the fungus appearing throughout the visual culture of the scene, on stage sets and merchandise and imagery, a badge of the whole contemporary psychedelic musical world. This contemporary scene shows the mushroom's continuing life as a musical emblem, the fungus central to the visual culture of a living and thriving musical subculture, one more instance of the mushroom as the badge of a music scene, its musical association as alive as ever in the contemporary festival world.
The sounding fungus in the whole story
Stepping back, the mushroom's life in the visual culture of music is one more rich chapter in the fungus's vast cultural history, distinguished by its connection to an art that is heard as well as seen, and it is worth seeing in that larger context. Music wraps its sound in a rich visual culture, and the mushroom recurs throughout that visual culture, across decades and genres and scenes, drawn by its deep affinities with music's own transporting power, its associations with the natural and the alternative, and its established place in the psychedelic tradition. The mushroom in music's visual culture is the fungus bound up with an art of sound, its image wrapping and expressing the music, one more domain in which the mushroom has found a lasting home.
The musical mushroom draws, like all the fungus's other lives, on the deep store of cultural meaning the mushroom has accumulated, which music's visual culture deploys in its own way. Music's imagery can draw on any of the fungus's rich associations, the psychedelic and the natural and the alternative and the strange, deploying them to express and package the music, so that the musical mushroom is one more harvest of the fungus's whole cultural inheritance, its accumulated meanings put to work in the visual culture of music. The look of music draws on the mushroom's whole cultural history, deploying its rich associations to wrap and express the sound, one more medium in which the fungus's deep accumulated meaning is put to fresh use.
That the mushroom has found so lasting and various a life in the visual culture of music, from the psychedelic album cover to the contemporary festival emblem, is one more testament to its extraordinary richness and adaptability, the fungus at home across the whole look of music. The mushroom's recurrence throughout music's visual culture, across decades and genres and scenes, is one more expression of its general cultural power, the fungus so rich and recognizable and resonant that it thrives across the whole visual apparatus of music. The honest way to hold the musical mushroom is with appreciation for music's visual culture as the serious thing it is, with recognition of the deep affinities between the fungus and music that root their connection, and with a sense of how the mushroom's musical life extends far beyond the sixties, across the decades and the genres and the scenes. Wherever music wraps its sound in images, and reaches for the psychedelic or the natural or the alternative, the mushroom is likely to appear, one more medium in which the endlessly adaptable fungus has found a lasting and various home, bound up now with the look of the art of sound.
Why this matters
The mushroom in music's visual culture matters, first, as a lasting and various life for the fungus across the whole look of music, well beyond the celebrated psychedelic album covers of the sixties. The mushroom recurs throughout music's visual culture, on album covers, band logos, posters, stage sets, videos, and merchandise, across decades and genres and scenes, and its life across this visual culture is a rich chapter in the fungus's cultural history, the mushroom bound up with an art that is seen as well as heard, its image wrapping and expressing the music.
It matters, too, for what it reveals about the deep affinities between the fungus and music, and for the mushroom's role as an emblem of musical scenes and subcultures. The mushroom is bound up with music's visual culture because of genuine affinities, its association with altered states resonating with music's own transporting power, its associations with the natural and the alternative suiting music that reaches for these qualities, and its established place in the psychedelic tradition. And it has served as an emblem of whole music scenes, a badge of belonging marking members and expressing shared values, from the counterculture to the contemporary festival world. The honest way to hold the musical mushroom is with appreciation for music's visual culture, with recognition of the deep affinities that root the fungus's connection to music, and with a sense of how far beyond the sixties the mushroom's musical life extends, across the decades and genres and scenes. Music has a look as well as a sound, and the mushroom keeps showing up in it, one more medium conquered by the endlessly adaptable fungus, now bound up with the visual life of the art of sound.