Shocking Blue was a Dutch rock band, formed in The Hague in 1967. The band spawned a number of psychedelic rock hits throughout the counterculture movements era during the 1960s and early 1970s, including Never Marry a Railroad Man, Mighty Joe, Love Buzz, Blossom Lady, Inkpot and "Venus", the latter became their biggest hit, it went to No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and many other countries during 1969 and 1970.

The band had sold 13.5 million discs by 1973, but the group disbanded in 1974, when the hippie, flower power and other counterculture movements around the world began to decline in the mid-1970s.