Pink Floyd originally consisted of Bob Klose (lead guitar), Syd Barrett (vocals, rhythm guitar), Richard Wright (keyboards, vocals), Roger Waters (bass, vocals) and Nick Mason (drums) and named in tribute to two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The band initially covered rhythm and blues staples such as "Louie, Louie". As Barrett started writing tunes more influenced by American surf music, psychedelic rock, and British whimsy, humor and literature, the heavily jazz-orientated Klose departed and left a rather stable foursome whose configuration would last for several years.
The sound was hardened somewhat in 1968 when guitarist David Gilmour joined the band. In 1969, Barrett suffered a mental breakdown, attributed to prolonged usage of hallucinogenic drugs (especially LSD). With Barrett's state becoming less and less predictable, the band's live shows became increasingly ramshackle until eventually the other band members simply stopped taking Barrett to the concerts, with Waters and Gilmour taking his place as lead vocalists.
Whilst Barrett had written the bulk of the first record, Piper at the Gates Of Dawn (1967), he contributed little to the second A Saucerful of Secrets (1968), forcing the band in a new direction. With the loss of their main songwriter the band was perceived as losing focus and a distinctive sound: the next record, the double album Ummagumma (1969), was a mix of live recordings and unchecked studio experimentation by the band members, with each recording half a side of vinyl as a solo project (Mason's wife makes an uncredited contribution as a flautist).
1970's Atom Heart Mother, a UK number one album, is sometimes now considered a dated psychedelic period piece and has been described by Gilmour as the sound of a band "blundering about in the dark". The title piece owes much to orchestration by Ron Geesin.
The band's sound was considerably more focused in Meddle (1971), whose 23-minute epic "Echoes" is heard by many critics today as one of their best works ever, and which also included the atmospheric "One of These Days" (now regarded as a concert classic, with a distorted, disembodied one-line vocal) and the pop-jazz stylings of "St. Tropez". Their forays into experimentation and trying new things were expressed on "Seamus" (earlier, "Mademoiselle Nobs") a pure-blues number featuring lead vocals by a Russian wolfhound.
Despite having never been a hit-single driven group, their massively successful 1973 album, Dark Side of the Moon featured a US number one track ("Money"), and more importantly remained in the top 100 for over a decade, breaking many records on the way, and making it one of the top selling albums of all time. Dark Side of the Moon itself was a concept album dealing with themes of insanity, neurosis and fame which, due to the use of Abbey Road studio's new 16-track recording equipment and the investment of an enormous amount of time by the group and engineer Alan Parsons, set new standards for sound fidelity. Dark Side of the Moon has also been the source of a persistent, but false, urban legend that it was conceived as a kind of synchronized soundtrack for the film The Wizard of Oz.
Dark Side of the Moon and the three following albums (Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall) are often held up as the peak of Pink Floyd's career. The first of those, Wish You Were Here, released in 1975, is a tribute to Barrett in which the lyrics deal explicitly with the aftermath of his breakdown, including the critically-acclaimed, mainly instrumental "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and the classic title track.
By 1977, and the release of Animals the band's music came under increasing criticism from some quarters in the new punk rock sphere as being too flabby and pretentious, losing its way from the simplicity of early rock and roll. Animals contained more lengthy songs tied to a theme, taken in part from George Orwell's Animal Farm, which used pigs, dogs and sheep as metaphors for contemporary society.
1979's The Wall gave Pink Floyd renewed and highly enthusiastic critical acclaim and another hit single with the track "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II," and its youth catchphrase "We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control," as well as the extraordinary track "Comfortably Numb" which, though never released as a single (and interestingly, hated during sessions by both Waters and Gilmour), became a cornerstone of AOR and classic-rock radio playlists and is today probably their best-known song. It is also the only song on Pink Floyd's four concept albums to not segue at either the beginning or end. The album also became a vastly expensive and money-losing tour/stage show. During this time, Roger Waters increased his artistic influence and leadership of the band, prompting frequent conflicts with the other members and causing Wright to quit the band, though he would return, on a fixed wage, for the album's few live concerts. Paradoxically, he was the only one of Pink Floyd to make any money from the "Wall" shows, the rest having to cover the excessive costs. The album was co-produced by Bob Ezrin, a friend of Waters who shared songwriting credits on "The Trial".
The Wall remained on best-selling-album lists for 14 years. A film starring Boomtown Rats founder Bob Geldof was adapted from it in 1982 written by Waters and directed by Alan Parker, and featuring animation by noted British cartoonist Gerald Scarfe.
After 1983's The Final Cut, bandmembers went their separate ways till 1987, when Gilmour attempted to revive the band with Nick Mason. A bitter legal dispute with Roger Waters (who left the band in 1985) ensued, but Gilmour and Mason achieved the legal right to release an album as Pink Floyd (Waters, however, gained the rights to some traditional Pink Floyd imagery, including almost all of The Wall). Richard Wright re-joined the duo during the recording sessions of A Momentary Lapse of Reason as a session musician, and was paid a weekly salary. By any account, Wright was a member of the band for the 1994 release of The Division Bell and its subsequent tour.
All of the members of Pink Floyd have released solo albums which have met with varying degrees of commercial and critical success. Waters' Amused To Death was especially praised.
Syd Barrett died Tuesday, July 11, 2006. He was 60.
Discography
Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967)
A Saucerful of Secrets (1968)
Music From the Film More (1969)
Ummagumma (1969)
Atom Heart Mother (1970)
Relics (1971) (compilation)
Meddle (1971)
Obscured By Clouds (1972)
Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
A Nice Pair (1973) (compilation)
Wish You Were Here (1975)
Animals (1977)
The Wall (1979)
A Collection of Great Dance Songs (1981) (compilation)
The Final Cut (1983)
Works (1983) (compilation)
A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987)
Delicate Sound of Thunder (1988) (live)
Shine On (1992) (compilation, CD box set)
The Early Singles (1992) (compilation, packaged as a bonus with Shine On)
The Division Bell (1994)
P.U.L.S.E (1995) (live)
Is there Anybody Out There?: The Wall Live 1980-1981 (2000) (live)
Echoes\ (2001) (best-of compilation)
Live at Pompeii: Directors Cut (2003) (DVD with live performance pre-DSOTM; available previously on video cassette and laser disc)
Pink Floyd Biography And Top 10 Songs
Pink Floyd Rare Collection
I think I probably started listening to Pink Floyd because I used to chill with some dudes who smoked weed and used to play Floyd a lot and I found the music is really good to listen to when you are stoned. Pink floyd are a kind of psychedelic rock cross breed and their lyrics are quite deep and philosophical.
Pink floyd formed in Cambridge England in the early 1960's and were originally caled Tea Set but one night while they were playing at a gig there was a band with the same name so Syd Barrett came up with the name The Pink Floyd Sound which was named after two blues singers (Pink Anderson an Floyd Council). The group switched between their two names for a while until finally Pink Floyd won over.
Floyd were made up originally of David Gilmour, Rick wright, Nick Mason, Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and Bob Klose. Bob Klose actually left the group before Pink floyd had recorded any albums and david gilmour came in to replace Barrett after his decline. In the early years Syd Barrett was the "leader" of the group and wrote most of the early songs.
The first of Pink Floyd's albums was The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and was released in 1967 and is considered one of the best dbut albums by any group. The album contained many new technologies and the use of electronics such as the use of stereo panning, electric keyboards and echo effects.
Pink Floyd toured with Jimi Hendrix in the early 1970's which helped them to rise in popularity and with that rise came the decline of Syd who had been taking a lot of "psychedelic" drugs and pushed him into a mental deterioration. It was around this time that David gilmour joined the band to take the place of Syd who it is reported would just be standing still and staring into space during rehersals and some of their performances and it is said this is due to his constant taking of LSD. Eventually the other members of the group slowly stopped taking Syd along to their concerts and his last performance was in 1968 when they played at Hastings Pier. Syd Barrett died on July 7th, 2006.
After Syd had formally left Pink floyd in 1968 David gilmour, Roger Waters and Rick Wright started to take on the role of writing the lyrics and songs between them and A Saucerful Of Secrets was released in late 1968. Following this album they started to get more popular and were recruited to write the music for the film More. After this they released many further albums (Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, Obscured By Clouds, Dark Side Of The Moon, wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall).
In 1985 Roger Waters left Pink Floyd and started to persue his own solo career. There were some disagreements over the use of the "Pink Floyd" name when David Gilmour and Nick Mason continued to use the name and started recording a new album in 1986. The disagreements were finally settled out of court and the album was released (A Momentart Lapse Of Reason). There were several other albums released which were Delicate Sound Of Thunder and The Division Bell.
Roger Waters finally returned to Pink Floyd in 2005 when they played together again at the London Live 8 concert. Pink Floyd have inspired many of todays groups and artists, such as Phil Collins & Genesis, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Yes. and their music is a prominent feature of the musical by Tom Stoppard called Rock 'n' Roll which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London in 2006
Some of Pink Floyds most popular songs are: Interstellar Overdrive, A Saucerful Of Secrets, Careful With That Axe: Eugene, Brain Damage, The Great Gig In The Sky, Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2), Comfortably Numb, The Final Cut, Learning To Fly and Wish you Were Here.
http://lavamus.com/Artist/600/Pink_Floyd/download-mp3/
Top 10 Pink Floyd Songs are:
01. The Thin Ice
02. Astronomy Domine
03. Money
04. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)
05. Hey You
06. Comfortably Numb
07. Us And Them
08. Wearing The Inside Out
09. Terminal Frost
10. The Great Gig In The Sky
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd are an English progressive rock band noted for philosophical lyrics, classical rock compositions, sonic experimentation, innovative cover art, and elaborate live shows. One of rock music's most successful and influential acts, the group have sold over 200 million albums worldwide, and an estimated 73.5 million albums in the United States alone.
Pink Floyd had modest success in the late-1960s as a psychedelic band led by the late Syd Barrett. Barrett's increasingly erratic behaviour eventually forced his colleagues to augment and eventually replace him with guitarist David Gilmour and the band went on to record several elaborate concept albums, achieving worldwide success with 1973's The Dark Side of the Moon, 1975's Wish You Were Here, 1977's Animals, and 1979's The Wall, among the best-selling, most critically acclaimed, and enduringly popular albums in rock music history. In 1985, singer and bassist Roger Waters declared Pink Floyd defunct although the...Background group or band
Origin Cambridge, England Genre Rock music
Years active 1965 in music Associated acts Sigma 6
website www.pinkfloyd.co.uk
Current members
David Gilmour
Nick Mason
Richard Wright (musician)
Past members
Roger Waters
Syd Barrett
Bob Klose
Pink Flyod Chordie Of Songs
http://www.chordie.com/song.php/songartist/Pink%2BFloyd/index.html
With the release of 1973's The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd abruptly went from a moderately successful acid-rock band to one of pop music's biggest acts. The recording, in fact, remained on Billboard's Top 200 album chart longer than any other release in history. Along with 1979's The Wall, it established Pink Floyd as purveyors of a distinctively dark vision. Experimenting with concept albums and studio technology and breaking free of conventional pop-song formats, Pink Floyd prefigured the progressive rock of the '70s and ambient music of the ’80s.
As early as 1964, Pink Floyd’s original members, except Syd Barrett, were together studying architecture at London’s Regent Street Polytechnic School. With Barrett, an art student who coined the name the Pink Floyd Sound after a favorite blues record by Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, they began playing R&B-based material for schoolmates. By 1967 they had developed an unmistakably psychedelic sound; long, loud suitelike compositions that touched on hard rock, blues, country, folk, electronic, and quasi-classical music. Adding a slide-and-light show, one of the first in British rock, they became a sensation among London’s underground as a featured attraction at the UFO Club. Barrett, who was responsible for most of the band’s early material, had a knack for composing singles-length bits of psychedelia, and Pink Floyd had British hits with two of them in 1967: “Arnold Layne” (#20 U.K.), the tale of a transvestite, and “See Emily Play” (#60 U.K.). The latter, however, was the last hit single they would have for over a decade; space-epic titles like “Astronomy Domine” and “Interstellar Overdrive” were more typical.
In 1968 Barrett [see entry], allegedly because of an excess of LSD experimentation, began to exhibit ever more strange and erratic behavior. David Gilmour joined to help with the guitar work. Barrett appeared on only one track of Secrets, “Jugband Music,” which aptly summed up his mental state: “I’m most obliged to you for making it clear/That I’m not really here.” Without Barrett to create concise psychedelic singles, the band concentrated on wider-ranging psychedelic epics.
From 1969 to 1972 Pink Floyd made several film soundtracks - the most dramatic being Zabriskie Point, in which Michelangelo Antonioni’s closing sequence of explosions was complemented by Floyd’s “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” - and began using its “azimuth coordinated sound system” in concert, a sophisticated 360-degree P.A. With Atom Heart Mother, they topped the British chart in 1970; stateside success, however, still eluded them.
Their breakthrough came in 1973 with The Dark Side of the Moon. The themes were unremittingly bleak - alienation, paranoia, schizophrenia - and the music was at once sterile and doomy. Taped voices mumbling ominous asides (something the band had used before) surfaced at key moments. Yielding a surprise American hit in “Money,” (#13, 1973), the album went on to mammoth long-running sales success. Ultimately remaining on the Billboard Top 200 album chart for 741 weeks, Dark Side showcased the talents of Pink Floyd’s chief members: Waters’ lyrics, Gilmour’s guitar. The two would continue to dominate the band but soon furiously contend against each other.
The group’s subsequent albums explored the same territory, with Waters’ songs growing ever more bitter. Wish You Were Here (#1, 1975) was dedicated to Barrett and elegized him with “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” The Wall, Waters’ finest moment, topped the U.S. chart for 15 weeks, while its nihilistic hit, “Another Brick in the Wall,” was banned by the BBC and in 1980 became the band’s only #1 American single. Meanwhile Pink Floyd’s stage shows had become increasingly elaborate. For the Dark Side and Wish tours, there were slide/light shows and animated films, plus a giant inflated jet that crashed into the stage; for Animals, huge inflated pigs hovered over the stadiums; for The Wall (due to enormous expense, performed 29 times only in New York, L.A., and London) there was that, plus an actual wall built, brick by brick, across the stage, eventually obscuring the band from audience view. Shortly thereafter, Wright left, due to conflict with Waters.
With The Final Cut (#6, 1983), subtitled A Requiem for the Postwar Dream, Waters penned his darkest work yet. It also marked the effective end of the original Pink Floyd, with Waters bitterly departing, and Gilmour and Mason cementing their alliance. (Two films related to the original band - minus Barrett - have been made: the documentary Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii [1971] and The Wall [1982]. The latter featured stunning animation by Gerald Scarfe - Bob Geldof starred in the live-action sequences - and illustrated music from Pink Floyd’s LP of the same name. The first remains a cult movie; the second was a massive commercial success.)
In 1978, withGilmour’s David Gilmour and Wright’s Wet Dream, Pink Floyd’s members had started releasing solo albums. Mason had begun a sideline career as a producer in 1974 with Robert Wyatt; ultimately his very diverse roster included Gong, Carla Bley, the Damned, and Steve Hillage. Solo work continued into the ’80s: In 1984 came Waters’ The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, Wright’s Identity, and Gilmour’s About Face (with lyrical contributions by Pete Townshend). A year later Mason released Profiles. Concurrently, Gilmour played sessions with Bryan Ferry, Grace Jones, and Arcadia; in 1986 he formed David Gilmour & Friends with Bad Company’s Mick Ralphs.
In 1986 Waters brought suit against Gilmour and Mason, asking the court to dissolve the trio’s partnership and to block them from using the name Pink Floyd. A year later Waters lost his suit, and the other members, as Pink Floyd, released Momentary Lapse of Reason (#3, 1987). As Waters put out his own Radio K.A.O.S., the others launched a Pink Floyd tour that grossed nearly $30 million. (Though Wright was included on the tour and album, he wasn’t legally considered an official band member but a salaried employee.) With the live Delicate Sound of Thunder, Gilmour, Mason, and Wright again billed themselves as Pink Floyd and went on to more successful touring, including a gig performed in Venice aboard a giant barge, which was televised worldwide.
In 1990 Waters presented an all-star cast, including Sinéad O’Connor, Joni Mitchell, and Van Morrison, in a version of The Wall performed at the site of the Berlin Wall (chronicled in The Wall - Live in Berlin). Two years later he released the dour Amused to Death.
With Wright rejoining Gilmour and Mason as a full band member, Pink Floyd garnered immediate success with The Division Bell in 1994. Named after the bell in the British House of Commons that summons members to parliamentary debate, the album featured songs written by Gilmour in collaboration with his ex-journalist girlfriend Polly Samson. Two weeks after its release, The Division Bell shot to #1 on the album chart, and in late spring the band embarked on an elaborate American tour. P.U.L.S.E. (#1, 1995) documented the ’94 tour, including a live performance of Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. In 1996 Pink Floyd was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Still antagonistic with his former band mates, Waters didn’t attend the ceremonies. After a successful solo tour in 1999, he embarked upon writing a modern opera about the French Revolution, recording with an 80-piece orchestra and 100-member choir.
In the interim, Dark Side of the Moon had taken on yet new life, when certain Pink Floyd fans began playing the album while watching The Wizard of Oz and noting how the 1973 album seemed to provide an uncannily appropriate soundtrack to the 1939 film. The band itself denied that it had intended any sort of parallel between its music and the movie, but rumors persisted of an eerie connection between the two. Pink Floyd also entered the new millennium by releasing a live version, from 1980, of The Wall, in double-CD format, with a lavishly illustrated history.
After decades of turbulence, Dave Gilmour, Rick Wright, Nick Mason and Roger Waters finally stood on the same stage together to perform at the global Live 8 concert on July 2, 2005. It had been 24 years since all four band members had played together. Although the appearance remained a one-time only affair, the classic line-up embraced at the end of their set. One year later, on July 7, 2006, Syd Barrett died at his home in Cambridge from complications related to diabetes.
http://www.floydmcduff.co.uk/roio.htm
The Dark Side of the Moon Lyrics
1. Speak to Me
2. Breathe
3. On The Run
4. Time/Breathe Reprise
5. The Great Gig in the Sky
6. Money
7. Us and Them
8. Any Colour You Like
9. Brain Damage
10.Eclipse
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Speak to Me
"I've been mad for fucking years, absolutely years, been
over the edge for yonks, been working me buns off for bands..."
"I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the
most of us...very hard to explain why you're mad, even
if you're not mad..."
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Breathe
Breathe, breathe in the air.
Don't be afraid to care.
Leave but don't leave me.
Look around and choose your own ground.
Long you live and high you fly
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be.
Run, rabbit run.
Dig that hole, forget the sun,
And when at last the work is done
Don't sit down it's time to dig another one.
For long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time/Breathe Reprise
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for soemone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to nought or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desparation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.
Breath Reprise
Home, home again.
I like to be here when I can.
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire.
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Great Gig in the Sky
"And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, I
don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying?
There's no reason for it, you've gotta go sometime."
"I never said I was frightened of dying."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Money
Money, get away.
Get a good job with good pay and you're okay.
Money, it's a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I'll buy me a football team.
Money, get back.
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack.
Money, it's a hit.
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit.
I'm in the high-fidelity first class travelling set
And I think I need a Lear jet.
Money, it's a crime.
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.
But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that they're
giving none away.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Us and Them
Us, and them
And after all we're only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it's noz what we would choose to do.
Forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died.
And the general sat and the lines on the map
moved from side to side.
Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who.
Up and down.
But in the end it's only round and round.
Haven't you heard it's a battle of words
The poster bearer cried.
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There's room for you inside.
Down and out
It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about.
With, without.
And who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about?
Out of the way, it's a busy day
I've got things on my mind.
For the want of the price of tea and a slice
The old man died.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brain Damage
The lunatic is on the grass.
The lunatic is on the grass.
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs.
Got to keep the loonies on the path.
The lunatic is in the hall.
The lunatics are in my hall.
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more.
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.
The lunatic is in my head.
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me 'till I'm sane.
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There's someone in my head but it's not me.
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear.
And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eclipse
All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
everyone you meet
All that you slight
everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.
"There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."
Pink FloydInduction Year: 1996
Inductees: Syd Barrett (guitar, vocals; born January 6, 1946), David Gilmour (guitar, vocals; born March 6, 1944), Nick Mason (drums; born January 27, 1945), Roger Waters (bass, synthesizer, vocals; born September 9, 1944), Rick Wright (keyboards, synthesizers; born July 28, 1945).
Pink Floyd’s hallucinatory presentation of lights and music at London’s Roundhouse in 1966 brought psychedelia to the U.K. scene. The group carried rock and roll into a dimension that was more cerebral and conceptual than what preceded it. What George Orwell and Ray Bradbury were to literature, Pink Floyd is to popular music, forging an unsettling but provocative combination of science fiction and social commentary. In their early years, with vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Syd Barrett at the helm, Pink Floyd were the psychedelic Pied Pipers of the “London underground” scene. In the Seventies, with bassist Roger Waters providing more of the songwriting and direction, Pink Floyd became one of the most influential rock bands of all time.
Before they settled on Pink Floyd, the group went by the names Sigma 6 and the Architectural Abdabs, and they mainly performed rhythm and blues covers. Singer-guitarist Syd Barrett provided Pink Floyd with most of its original early material, including the British hits “See Emily Play” and “Arnold Layne.” Barrett’s elfin, tuneful psychedelia made him the Lewis Carroll of the pop scene. Pink Floyd’s debut album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, is a classic of psychedelic whimsy that epitomized the remarkable year of 1967 at its most playful and creative. As the British music magazine Q opined in 1995, “Piper at the Gates of Dawn is, even counting Sgt. Pepper, possibly the defining moment of English psychedelia and Syd Barrett’s magnum opus.” Among its highlights was a nine-minute instrumental, “Interstellar Overdrive,” that represented one of rock’s first forays into deep space. It was a preoccupation of Pink Floyd’s that would later surface in songs like “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” (from A Saucerful of Secrets) and the group’s masterwork, Dark Side of the Moon.
Intense experimentation with LSD unfortunately transported Barrett from enlightenment to mental instability, and increasingly unpredictable behavior necessitated his departure from Pink Floyd in 1968. Among the prime “acid casualties” of the Sixties, Barrett subsequently released two magnificent, if eccentric, solo albums – The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, both from 1970 – with considerable input from his erstwhile bandmates in Pink Floyd. Thereafter, however, Barrett became one of rock’s most legendary hermits and the subject of Roger Waters’ tributary opus “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” It was the side-long centerpiece of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here (1975) and a sterling example of what the group has referred to as its recurring “theme of absence.”
With guitarist David Gilmour on-board as Barrett’s replacement, Pink Floyd’s lineup remained constant for the next 15 years. In the wake of Piper, they recorded psychedelic soundscapes such as A Saucerful of Secrets and the double album Ummagumma, which comprised one disc of live performances and one of individual works by each band member. Laid-back but experimental, Pink Floyd kicked off the Seventies with the pastoral, atmospheric albums Atom Heart Mother (1970) and Meddle (1971). Each featured a side-long epic, “Atom Heart Mother Suite” and “Echoes,” respectively. Fittingly for a band with who took a cinematic approach to music, Pink Floyd provided music for three films. Their work as film scorers can be heard on the soundtrack albums More (1969), Zabriskie Point (1970) and Obscured by Clouds: Music from La Vallee (1972).
Their 1973 release Dark Side of the Moon hit Number One on the Billboard charts and ultimately broke all records by remaining on the Top 200 album charts for 741 weeks. Dark Side of the Moon did not drop off Billboard’s Top 200 album chart until 1988. The album signaled rock’s willingness to move from adolescence into adulthood, conceptually addressing such subjects as aging, madness, money and time. From its prismatic cover artwork to the music therein, Dark Side of the Moon is a classic-rock milestone. The subject of alienation was further explored in Wish You Were Here (1975), an album whose central preoccupation was the band members’ distance from each other (“Wish You Were Here”) and erstwhile leader Syd Barrett’s distance from reality (“Shine On You Crazy Diamond”). They turned their gaze outward yet again on the Orwellian Animals (1977), whose songs bore the titles “Pigs,” “Sheep” and “Dogs.”
Success continued into the Eighties with The Wall, a four-sided epic about a rock star named Pink who suffers a nervous breakdown while on tour. Much of it reflected chief architect Roger Waters’ dim view of the concert experience as rock expanded into arenas and stadiums. “I wanted to make comparisons between rock and roll concerts and war,” Roger Waters told Rolling Stone in 1982. He elaborated on this central tenet in the liner notes for The Wall Live: 1980-81: “The idea that we, as individuals, generally find it necessary to avoid or deny the painful aspects of our experience, and in fact often use them as bricks in a wall behind which we may sometimes find shelter, but behind which we may just as easily become emotionally immured, relatively simply stated and easy to grasp.” That, in a nutshell, is the theme pursued by Pink Floyd from Dark Side of the Moon forward.
Possibly the most pessimistic album ever to reach #1, The Wall also addressed childhood, education and marriage, finding all of these passages to be dehumanizing. The Wall, the most theatrical and complex stage show that rock had ever seen, was performed 24 times in multi-night stands at four places - London, Los Angeles, Long Island and Dortmund, Germany. During the performance, an actual “wall” was constructed in front of the band, and its collapse at the end provided a fitting denouement. The Wall was subsequently revived by Roger Waters for a star-studded staging in Berlin in 1990, to commemorate the unification of East and West Germany. Performances from the Pink Floyd’s original staging of the epic saw release in 2000 as The Wall Live: 1980-81.
In the wake of The Wall, Pink Floyd itself gradually seemed to collapse, at least temporarily. The Wall turned out to be the last album the foursome of Waters, Gilmour, Wright and Mason recorded together. The Final Cut, which was recorded under extreme duress, found Wright absent from the group. Almost wholly Waters’ vision, it was an antiwar album triggered by Britain’s 1982 conflict in the Falkland Islands. The group unofficially disbanded after its release, and that seemed to mark the end of Pink Floyd, as the members involved themselves in endeavors, including solo projects, outside the band.
Throughout their history, the members of Pink Floyd have projected a rather static personal image, allowing music, lyrics, lighting and theatrical settings to communicate for them. Consequently, they’ve largely avoided the sort of public scrutiny that typifies the lives of rock stars. Little was known or reported about their personal lives. Only when a bitter war of words and a court battle erupted between Roger Waters and the others after Gilmour, Mason and Wright reconvened Pink Floyd was the silence broken.
Pink Floyd released Momentary Lapse of Reason in 1987 and followed it up a year later with Delicate Sound of Thunder, a live album drawn from an extensive tour. The group reconvened in the Nineties with Gilmour again at the helm, releasing The Division Bell in 1994 and another tour souvenir, Pulse, a year later. Both albums went to the top of the charts, proving that the public’s fascination with this most unconventional supergroup had not dimmed in the least.
TIMELINE
September 6, 1944: Roger Waters of Pink Floyd is born.
January 27, 1945: Nick Mason of Pink Floyd is born.
July 28, 1945: Rick Wright of Pink Floyd is born.
January 6, 1946: Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd is born.
March 6, 1946: Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour is born.
October 12, 1965: Pink Floyd plays their first gig at the Countdown Club in London.
February 12, 1966: Pink Floyd performs at a series of Sunday afternoon multimedia happenings at London’s Marquee Club, dubbed the “Spontaneous Underground.”
October 11, 1966: The launch party for Britain’s’ first underground paper, the International Times, features performances by psychedelic groups Pink Floyd and Soft Machine.
October 15, 1966: Pink Floyd plays the “All Night Rave Pop Op Costume Masque Drag Ball Et All” on the opening night of the Roundhouse.
December 23, 1966: Pink Floyd perform for the first time at London’s UFO Club, home the the burgeoning “London Underground” scene.
February 27, 1967: Pink Floyd record their first single, “Arnold Layne,” at Sound Techniques Studio in London. It reaches #20 on the British singles chart.
April 5, 1967: ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn,’ the debut album by Pink Floyd—and the only one to feature Syd Barrett as bandleader—is released.
May 23, 1967: “See Emily Play,” Pink Floyd’s enchanting second single, is recorded. It reaches #6 on the British charts.
January 7, 1968: David Gilmour is asked to join Pink Floyd, briefly making them a five-piece band.
April 6, 1968: Syd Barrett’s departure from Pink Floyd is announced via press release.
October 24, 1970: Pink Floyd’s ‘Atom Heart Mother’ tops the UK chart. It reaches #55 in America and sets the stage for the breakthrough album ‘Meddle, Obscured by Clouds’ and, of course, ‘Dark Side of the Moon.’
November 12, 1971: Pink Floyd hits #3 in the UK with ‘Meddle.’
February 17, 1972: Pink Floyd premiere a new piece of music entitled “Eclipse” at London’s Rainbow Theater. It will evolve into the album ‘Dark Side of the Moon.’
March 13, 1973: ‘Dark Side of the Moon,’ by Pink Floyd, is released. It will reach #1 on April 28, log a record-breaking 741 weeks on Billboard’s Top 200 album chart, and sell more than 15 million copies in the US alone.
April 28, 1973: Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ hits #1 in the US during a record-breaking 741-week US chart stretch.
June 23, 1973: The decidedly non-single-oriented Pink Floyd makes their US Top Forty debut with “Money,” from ‘Dark Side of the Moon.’ It reaches #13.
September 12, 1975: ‘Wish You Were Here,’ Pink Floyd’s long-awaited followup to ‘Dark Side of the Moon,’ is released. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” a side-long epic about their troubled ex-leader Syd Barrett, is its centerpiece.
January 23, 1977: Pink Floyd releases ‘Animals,’ a bleak concept album that appears to have drawn on author George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ for inspiration.
December 15, 1979: Pink Floyd releases their double-album epic, ‘The Wall.’ It stays at #1 for 15 weeks and has to date been certified 23 times platinum (signifying one million copies) in the US, making it the third best-selling album of all time.
March 22, 1980: “Another Brick in the Wall,” by Pink Floyd, tops the singles charts for the first of four weeks. It is their second and final Top Forty single in the US.
June 17, 1981: Pink Floyd gives its 24th and final performance of ‘The Wall,’ in Dortmund, Germany.
July 14, 1982: With the program special “MTV Takes You to ‘The Wall,’” MTV covers the London Premiere of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.”
December 12, 1985: Roger Waters formally notifies Columbia and EMI Records that he is no longer a member of Pink Floyd.
October 31, 1986: Roger Waters files suit to formally dissolve Pink Floyd, a legal battle that will drag on for years without deterring David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright from recording as Pink Floyd.
September 19, 1987: A reunited Pink Floyd, minus Roger Waters, releases ‘A Momentary Lapse of Reason,’ their first studio album since 1984’s ‘The Final Cut.’
April 23, 1994: Pink Floyd release ‘The Division Bell,’ the fourth #1 album of their career. The ensuing live album ‘Pulse,’ which appears a year later, will become the fifth.
January 16, 1996: Pink Floyd is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the eleventh annual induction dinner. Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins is their presenter.
April 18, 2000: ‘The Wall Live: 1980-81,’ culled from Pink Floyd’s London performances of their all-time favorite work, is released.
Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett dies - Wednesday, July 12, 2006. 0:02am (AEST)
Syd Barrett, the troubled founding member of British rock group Pink Floyd, has died at age 60 after living the life of a recluse for the last 30 years.
"The band are naturally very upset and sad to learn of Syd Barrett's death," Pink Floyd said in a statement Tuesday. "Syd was the guiding light of the early band line-up and leaves a legacy which continues to inspire."
A source close to the band, who did not want to be named, said Barrett died on Friday. Media reports say complications from diabetes were the cause.
Barrett's bizarre on-stage antics in the late 1960s were linked to his experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and he left the band in 1968.
The singer, songwriter and guitarist who wrote the bulk of Pink Floyd's earliest music has been credited with helping shape its progressive sound and influencing other artists, including David Bowie.
He wrote most of the songs on Pink Floyd's first album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which was a hit in Britain, and also worked on A Saucerful of Secrets, released in 1968.
Barrett issued his first solo album, The Madcap Laughs, in 1970, with backing from members of Pink Floyd and Soft Machine, but his involvement in music had ended by the mid-1970s, and he had lived the life of a recluse ever since.
Pink Floyd's 1975 track "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," from the album Wish You Were Here is widely believed to be a tribute to Barrett.
Tributes
He missed out on Pink Floyd's most successful years in the 1970s, when they made Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall.
The band went on to sell an estimated 200 million albums worldwide, although internal rifts have kept public performances featuring its main members to a minimum since the 1980s.
"I can't tell you how sad I feel," Bowie said on his Web site www.davidbowie.com.
"Syd was a major inspiration for me. His impact on my thinking was enormous. A major regret is that I never got to know him. A diamond indeed."
Barrett's biographer, Tim Willis, said Barrett struggled with mental breakdown during his life.
"I think he had trouble talking to people and was very happy with his own company," Willis told Reuters. "The painful experience of protracted nervous breakdown meant he did not want to know about that bit of his life."
Willis blamed a combination of drugs and stress for Barrett's mental fragility. "In one sense he only lived half a life. His career was over by 1971, if not 1969."
Graham Coxon, formerly of British band Blur, said Barrett was a major influence.
"The music is there ... a door he left unlocked ... spend time there .... it's good," Coxon said.
Barrett was born in Cambridge, England, as Roger Keith Barrett, in 1946. He acquired the nickname "Syd" as a teenager.
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