Category Archives: Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd

Overivew
Pink Floyd went through a number of different stages. From 1967-1970, they released 5 albums, all of which were very experimental and ranged in level of quality.  In 1971, they released Meddle, which contained the side-long track “Echoes” (which many consider to be one of Floyd’s finest moments). They followed Meddle with the underrated Obscured by Clouds (a movie soundtrack album). During their peak period in the 70′s, they released Dark Side Of The Moon in ‘73, Wish You Were Here in ’75, Animals in ’77, and then The Wall in ’79. All four of those albums are absolutely essential listening and should be in any rock music collection. After The Wall, the band had basically crumbled as a result of Roger Water’s over dominance. Rick Wright was fired, and Pink Floyd was essentially over. They did crank out one more album in ’83 (The Final Cut), before completely disbanding and breaking up. However, David Gilmore and Nick Mason wanted to continue on as Pink Floyd, and after a long legal battle with Roger Waters, they won the rights to the name Pink Floyd. They then rehired Rick Wright, and they went on to record two more studio albums without Roger Waters. In addition to their amazing musical output, Pink Floyd is also one of the most commercially successful bands of all time; they are ranked 11^th in terms of worldwide album sales with over 200+ million records sold (Wikipedia).

Styles and Genres
Psychedelic Rock, Progressive Rock, Classic Rock

Original Band Line-Up
Syd Barrett – vocals, guitars
Roger Waters – bass guitar, vocals
Nick Mason – drums, percussion
Richard Wright – farfisa, Hammond organ, piano, celeste, vocals

Key Band Line-Up
Roger Waters – bass guitar, vocals, synthesizers, tape effects and production
David Gilmour – vocals, guitar, synthesizers and production
Nick Mason – percussion, tape effects and production
Richard Wright – keyboards, vocals, synthesizers and production

Final Band Line-Up
David Gilmour – lead vocals, guitars, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards
Nick Mason – drums, percussion, programming
Richard Wright – keyboards, piano, vocals

Rate this album now! Scroll over the stars and click to rate.

(No reader ratings yet, be the first to rate!)

 Loading ...

Pink Floyd Piper at the Gates of Dawn- 1967
RMR Album Rating- 5

If there were ever an album that I were to rate as completely timeless, Piper at the Gates of Dawn would certainly not be it.

Piper at the Gates of Dawn is a complete period piece, meaning that you had to be there. I can imagine that if I heard this album in 1967, when it was released, I might like it better, but now it just sounds extremely dated. Its other major flaws are Barrett’s lyrics and signing. His lyrics are like childish nursery rhymes, and they just doesn’t resonate with me.

However, there are some highlights. The opener “Astronomy Domine” has a great spacey feel to it, and it avoids the nursery rhyme type of lyrics that most of the other songs have. I also like “Chapter 24.” Instrumentally, it is much more mellow than the rest of the album, and I especially like the lyrical sequence of “All movement is accomplished in six stages/ and the seventh brings return.” These lyrics are interestingly ambiguous, and they evoke an element of mystery.

Click here to listen to Astronomy Domine
Click here to listen to Chapter 24

The album’s real winner is the completely instrumental “Interstellar Overdrive.” Some live versions of the song break the 20-minute mark, but this version clocks in just below 10-minutes. Barrett’s guitar takes center stage, and he clearly demonstrates that he was a phenomenal guitarist. Like the opener, this piece is very spacey, but it is organized, and it features a great reprise of the main theme around the 8:40-minute mark that brings the song back in check for a nice climax. (Click here to listen to Interstellar Overdrive)

If you are a Pink Floyd completest or you want to hear Pink Floyd lead by Syd Barrett, than is album is a must own. Otherwise, Pink Floyd’s next album (Saucerful of Secrets) is the best place to start your Pink Floyd collection. Plus, there are many better psychedelic albums from 1967. Here are just a few, and I would rank them all above Piper at the Gates of Dawn: The Doors- The Doors and Strange Days; Cream- Disraëli Gears; The Beatles- St. Pepper’s and Magical Mystery Tour; The Jefferson Airplane- Surrealistic Pillow; The Moody Blues- Days of Future Passed.

Rate this album now! Scroll over the stars and click to rate.

(2 reader ratings, average: 5.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Pink Floyd A Saucerful of Secrets- 1968
RMR Album Rating- 8

I like the saying “everyone goes a little crazy some of the time” because it’s certainly true, but in Syd’s Barrett’s case, he went crazy and stayed crazy. Syd Barrett was Floyd’s original founder, leader, lead vocalist, and lead guitarist, so Barrett basically was Pink Floyd. But, you just can’t eat acid every day in huge quantities and expect to be normal– what you can expect is to be “crazy all of the time,” which is exactly what Syd became. All of this craziness culminated at a show at the Fillmore in San Francisco, where Barrett stood completely motionless not playing his guitar or signing, and since he was the lead guitarist and vocalist, this obviously didn’t go over well.

This was also right around the time that Floyd was starting to write and record material for A Saucerful of Secrets, their second album. So, what did they do? They brought in David Gilmore to cover the guitar duties, and Roger Waters took on the role of new band leader. So, what’s the result?

The result is a much better album than Piper at the Gates of Dawn (Pink Floyd’s debut album). Most of the childish lyrics and themes that were present on that album are gone, and the those that remain are not sung by Barrett, so they don’t seem creepy like they did on the debut when Barrett was singing them.

I have to admit, I had really forgotten how much I like this album: it’s a great psychedelic journey that gives us a glimpse into Floyd’s past, present, and future.

The Past
“Remember a Day,” “See-Saw,” and “Jugband Blues” are stylistically like the songs from the debut, but the first two are written and sung by Richard Wright (not Barrett), so they don’t seem creepy, and they actually provide a nice breather from the rest of the album, which is more serious in tone. “Jugband Blues” is Barrett’s only contribution to the album, and although it’s similar to his songs from Piper, it’s actually not bad, and it has a great Beatles St. Pepper’s style musical interlude at about the 1:15 mark.

Click here to listen to Remember A Day
Click here to listen to Jugband Blues

The Present
Floyd’s new style of psychedelic songs are the real highlight of the album, especially “Let there be more Light,” which is my favorite track on the album and “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun.” Both of these are fantastic psychedelic numbers with great lyrics sung by Wright and Gilmore. Then there’s the fully instrumental “A Saucerful of Secrets,” which is the centerpiece of the album, and it is this album’s attempt at a proper follow up to “Interstellar Overdrive” from the debut.“A Saucerful of Secrets” is a great song, but it doesn’t quite  live up to its predecessor, which was truly Barrett’s masterpiece.

Click here to listen to Let There Be More Light
Click here to listen to Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

The Future
Looking to the future, there’s also the Water’s penned “Corporal Clegg,” which explores post World War II themes that waters would become obsessed with in the late 70’s on The Wall and The Final Cut albums. The interesting thing to me is that although Waters wrote the song, he doesn’t take on the vocal duties, which he leaves to Gilmore, Wright, and Mason. (Click here to listen to Corporal Clegg)

As mentioned, I had honestly forgotten how much I like this album because it’s so overshadowed by Floyd’s 70’s output, but it’s great, and as sad as Barrett’s deterioration was, his departure really did make Pink Floyd a better band. Lastly, I’d like to give Richard Wright the recognition he deserves on this album. He sings lead vocals on 4 of the 7 songs, and he sounds great, but enjoy it here, because the lead vocal duties went almost exclusively to Waters and Gilmore after this album.

Rate this album now! Scroll over the stars and click to rate.

(2 reader ratings, average: 5.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Pink Floyd More- 1969
RMR Album Rating- 3

Definitely for collectors only. More is a soundtrack album to the British film by the same name. There’s nothing bad about the album, but there’s nothing really exciting about it either. The music can be split into three groups. The main group of songs contains instrumental soundscapes. The second group contains some nice acoustic slow pieces that include vocals, and the third group contains two very heavy songs that also include vocals.

The Soundscapes:
These instrumental soundscapes make up the bulk of the album, and 6 of he 13 tracks are completely instrumental. They are all pleasant enough, and I’m assuming they provide background music to different scenes in the film (which I haven’t seen). The best of these is the “Main Theme,” and it stands out due to some spacey keyboard work from Richard Wright. “Dramatic Theme” also stands out as a soundscape due to some cool sound effects. (Click here to listen to Main Theme)

Slow Acoustic Pieces:
This group contains 4 songs: “Cirrus Minor,” “Crying Song,” “Green is the Colour,” and Cymbaline”. “Green is the Colour” is the best of these, and it is my favorite track on the album. It has a great Celtic texture to it, and it reminds me of the Jethro Tull song “Broadford Bazaar,” from their 1978 Heavy Horses album. (Click here to listen to Green Is The Colour)

Heavy Songs:
Then there are two uncharacteristically heavy songs for Floyd, especially for this time period. Floyd incorporated a certain amount of heaviness in Animals from ’77, and The Wall from ’79, but it was almost the bitterness and cynicism of those albums that made them sound Heavy, where as “The Nile Song” and “Ibiza Bar” from this album are both just straight up hard rock songs with lots of distorted guitar and scratchy vocals. Ultimately, I don’t think either song is performed very well, mainly because they just don’t sound like Pink Floyd, and I don’t think Floyd plays this type of music very well. I’ll also point out that both songs remind me of the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter,” and I don’t really like that song for the same reasons I don’t like these two Floyd tracks. (Click here to listen to The Nile Song)

All in all, I’d skip this one unless you’re a completest and want to own every Floyd album. I will close by saying that although this album doesn’t do much for me, don’t count Pink Floyd out of the film soundtrack business because their 1972 release Obscured by Clouds is also a film soundtrack album, and it is fantastic and probably the most underrated album in their catalog.

Rate this album now! Scroll over the stars and click to rate.

(2 reader ratings, average: 4.50 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Pink Floyd Ummagumma- 1969
RMR Album Rating- 5

Ummagumma is double album. The first album consists of fantastic live tracks from their first two studio albums plus the previously unreleased song “Careful with that Axe Eugene.” The second album consists of new experiential studio tracks.

The live half of the album, which consists of 4 extended tracks, is phenomenal. The opener, “Astronomy Domine,” has a great atmospheric section mid-way through that wasn’t on the studio version. Next up is “Careful with that Axe Eugene,” which was previously unreleased at the time. It was eventually released in ’71 on the Relics album in studio form, but this live version is much better, especially the build up and climax in the middle section, which is absent from the shorter studio version. There’s also “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” which was one of my favorite tracks from “Saucerful of Secrets.” It is almost doubled in length here, and it is played with much more power than the studio version. The live portion of Ummagumma ends with a “Saucerful of Secrets,” which also trumps the original studio version. All in all, the live half of this album is amazing.

Click here to listen to Astronomy Domine (Live)
Click here to listen to Careful With That Axe Eugene (Live)
Click here to listen to Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (Live)
Click here to listen to A Saucerful of Secrets (Live)

The experimental studio tracks on Ummagumma’s second album consist of solo compositions by each of the four band members. Some fans and critics rave about the second album, and they call it an experimental masterpiece, but I completely disagree because the songs are poorly composed pieces of music that flounder around with no direction. All the band members have also commented that they regret recording the Ummagumma studio tracks. I certainly don’t mind experimental music; it’s a critical part of pushing music forward and breaking down musical boundaries, but these tracks just don’t do that. The only track that I like from the studio half of Ummagumma, which is not experimental, is Water’s “Grantchester Meadows.” It is a very soft acoustic song that reminds me of “Green is the Colour” from the More album. The song’s lush chorus really makes it wonderful:

Hear the lark and harken to the barking of the dog fox gone to ground/ See the splashing of the kingfisher flashing to the water/ And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees/ Laughing as it passes through the endless summer making for the sea. (click here to listen to Grantchester Meadows)

Overall, the live half of Ummagumma is absolutely worth hearing, but with the exception “Grantchester Meadows” and one of the coolest song titles in history (“Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict”), the studio half of the album is a complete failure.

Post Script:
Pink Floyd had originally intended to include an extended live version of “Interstellar Overdrive” and a live version of the unreleased song “Embryo” for the album instead of the studio tracks, which would have made the album a great representation of early live Pink Floyd, but the album didn’t play out way, which is a shame because the full version of “Embryo” (which was a live staple for the band) never showed up on any official Pink Floyd recording, expect for the significantly shortened version that is included on the 1983 Works compilation.  Here’s an extended version of “Interstellar Overdrive” and the version of “Embryo” from Works.

Click here to listen to Interstellar Overdrive [Full Length Version]
Click here to listen to Embryo

Rate this album now! Scroll over the stars and click to rate.

(7 reader ratings, average: 4.14 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Pink Floyd Atom Heart Mother- 1970
RMR Album Rating- 7 (Excellent)

Pink Floyd’s first album of the ‘70’s, Atom Heart Mother, is best known for its 24-minute orchestral epic title track, but it also contains three beautiful ballads, and Pink Floyd’s last pure psychedelic-experimental track.

The “Atom Heart Mother” suite has been called both a masterpiece and a complete failure by fans, critics, and Pink Floyd themselves. Pink Floyd was clearly proud of the suite when it came out because they toured with an orchestra & choir, and they played the song in its entirety upon the release of the album. Plus, they even kept a shorter version in their live set through the Dark Side of the Moon tour, yet in later years, the band completely dismissed the song, with comments like these:

“I wouldn’t dream of performing anything that embarrassed me. If somebody said to me now: Right… here’s a million pounds, go out and play Atom Heart Mother, I’d say: You must be fucking joking… I’m not playing that rubbish! Cause then I really would be embarrassed” (Roger Waters ’84).

“Atom Heart Mother was a good idea but it was dreadful. I listened to that album recently: God, it’s shit, possibly our lowest point artistically. Atom Heart Mother sounds like we didn’t have any idea between us, but we became much more prolific after it” (David Gilmour ’01).

Admittedly, it is a difficult song to get into. It’s almost 24-minutes long. It is completely instrumental with the exception of some sound effects, chanting, and humming, but it has great atmosphere, and it features Gilmore’s first great extended guitar solo. So, I think “Atom Heart Mother” is arguably the most pivotal song in Pink Floyd’s catalog because its musicality laid the foundation for Pink Floyd’s signature sound, which is primarily built upon atmosphere and Gilmore’s guitar. Personally, I love the suite, but it is not an easy song to love, and it certainly polarizes listeners and the band. (Click here to listen to Atom Heart Mother Suite)

The other key tracks on the album are three ballads written independently by Wright, Waters, and Gilmore. My favorite of these is Richard Wright’s “Summer ‘68,” which seems like a simple ballad on the surface, but it is actually quite complex, and it layers 4 contrasting musical styles on top of each other. The 1st layer is a simple ballad section sung by Wright. The 2nd layer is a heavy psychedelic section. The 3rd layer is a Beach Boy’s style pop chorus of repeating “ba ba-ba ba” vocals, and the 4th layer is an orchestral section of brass horns. After two verses of this structure, the song closes with a long classical piano outro, which is layered under more brass horns. All of these styles are packed into one short song that is criminally underrated and easily my favorite song on the album. (Click here to listen to Summer ’68)

The other two ballads are good as well. Waters’ contribution is “If,” which is pleasant; however, it is not quite as good as some of his other early ballads like “Green is the Colour,” or “Grantchester Meadows.” Lastly, Gilmore’s contribution of “Fat Old Sun” starts out as a great folky piece with just Gilmore singing over his guitar, but the song concludes with some heavier instrumentation, which creates an interesting juxtaposition of sounds throughout the song.

Click here to listen to If
Click here to listen to Fat Old Sun

Lastly, there’s “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast,” which closes the album. It features very slight instrumentation, and the main parts of the song (to which the title alludes) are just the sounds of someone cooking and eating breakfast. You can hear cereal being poured, bacon sizzling, and a myriad of other breakfast related sound effects. The song doesn’t do much for me; however, two things did come out of the track. First, it is the last song like this that Floyd would ever put out, so it shows them leaving that type of experimentation behind. Secondly, the sound effects are amazing. They are crisp, sharp, and they show Pink Floyd’s complete mastery of sound effects. This is important because sound effects play a major role in Pink Floyd’s future sound, most notably on their 1973 masterpiece, Dark Side Of The Moon. (Click here to listen to Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast)

Atom Heart Mother is a very mellow album, and it is a tough record to penetrate, so many fans just skip over it or dismiss it completely, which is a huge mistake, for it is the first Pink Floyd album that contains all the key elements that would create their signature sound, so its place in the evolution of Pink Floyd is unparalleled and it should not be overlooked.

Rate this album now! Scroll over the stars and click to rate.

(4 reader ratings, average: 3.25 out of 5)

 Loading ...