The Pretty Things were one of the toughest and most celebrated artists to rise from the British Invasion era, and among the very best British R&B bands of the '60s. Taking their name from a Bo Diddley song, they were intentionally ugly: their sound was brutish, their hair longer than any of their contemporaries, their look unkempt. The high points of their R&B period are 1965's The Pretty Things and Get the Picture?; 1968's S.F. Sorrow is their psychedelic touchstone; and 1970's Parachute is an ambitious mix of psychedelia, pop, and hard rock. Their cult was drawn to either their vicious early records, where they sounded like a meaner version of the Rolling Stones, or to S.F. Sorrow, which inspired Pete Townshend to write Tommy for the Who.