| 1968 was the year of More and
Ummagumma. More is the soundtrack of Barbet
Schroeder's film with the same name. "Cirrus Minor" the best track on it. The part-live, part-studio Ummagumma is a masterpiece of
experimentation (it contains "Astronomy Domine" - originally from their debut The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn -, as well as "Careful
With That Axe Eugene" and "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun").
Stemming from Rick Wright's discontent with Pink Floyd's music to date (and having some
solo material at hand), Ummagumma developed into a series of solo compositions
with each bond member being responsible for their own piece. The mystical-sounding title
turned out to be an euphemism for sex used in Cambridgeshire, but it means also "a
bit of the other".
The second part contained live material recorded in April and May of 1969 at Mother's Club
and Manchester College of Commerce.
January, 1970: Pink Floyd released the soundtrack of Antonioni's oeuvre Zabriskie
Point. And finally, in October of the same year, Atom Heart
Mother came out.
Atom Heart Mother, partially written with avant-garde composer Ron Geesin,
is a great, complex work, which includes a long piece for several voices. It has a quite
"baroque" character. However, you can hear out of it the incomparable style of
P.F. This album also featured the first in a series of impressive album covers, designed
by the Hipgnosis studio.
Atom Heart Mother calls images of alienation, of a multitude of
faces and shapes, of killing machines, but also of joy. The name "Atom Heart
Mother" arose from a newspaper heading about a baby being kept alive by an atomic
pacemaker.
By this point Pink Floyd were a major attraction, drawing 100,000 to their free concert
in London in 1970. Meanwhile, "lost child" Barrett
emerged with a couple of quite good albums (The Madcap Laughs and Barrett)
and also Roger Waters had his debut as solist with Music From The Body.
1971: second European tour of Pink Floyd. Then, in November, it was
the turn of album number 6: Meddle. With this work, Pink
Floyd was on the path of rock again.
The seemingly abstract cover of Meddle, is in fact a macro lens
shot of an ear. The music within contained some classic pieces, notably "One Of These
Days" and the long suite "Echoes".
"Echoes", Gilmour said, "definitely, for me, achieved something very good
and strong." From Rick's opening piano note sent through a Binson echo unit, to the
mid-section lead by Roger's bass fine, and to Dave's resonant guitar technique,
"Echoes" remains a favourite amongst fans and the band themselves.
One year after, the band released Obscured By
Clouds (soundtrack of Barbet Schroeder's film La Vallée). 1972 was also
the year of Pink Floyd At Pompei, a documentary film on a concert set among the
beautiful ruins of the ancient Roman town.
Their 1973 release Dark Side Of The Moon
("Money", "Us And Them", "The Great Gig In The Sky"...) hit
Number One on the Billboard charts and broke all records by remaining on the Top 200 album
charts for 741 weeks (!). Dark Side Of The Moon, which marked the arrival of
Waters as an important lyricist and Gilmour as a guitar hero, sold ca. 25,000,000 times.
The piece "Great Gig", written by Rick Wright and passionately sung by Clare
Torry, was inspired by Rick's fear of dying.
With The Dark Side Of The Moon, Pink Floyd finally achieved the coveted status of
rock super group.
There was a two-year wait for Wish You Were Here.
Although dwarfed in sales terms by its predecessor, this 1975 release is now regarded by
some aficionados as the group's artistic zenith. For Wish You Were Here Waters
wrote some of his most poignant lines. The key piece is the superb "Shine On You
Crazy Diamond", a tribute to Syd Barrett. The old friend -
now fat and bald - showed in the lobby of the Abbey Road studios where Pink Floyd
recorded, prepared to contribute but incapable of doing so.
Sadly, in this time personalities dashed and arguments constantly erupted. Roger's
emphasis on the theme of insanity and the pitfalls of the record industry were not of
major concern to the others. Dave and Rick wanted to expound on the music while Roger
wanted increased emphasis on the lyrics. The band sometimes refers to this period as Wish
WE Were Here due to their bits of arguing...
Animals (1977) surely opened the door for Roger Waters to further expound
on his hatred for war and money mangers. The analogy of pigs as politicians, dogs as
monopolistic industrialists, and sheep as the belittled labouring class draws closely to
the symbols used in Orwell's Animal Farm. This album also featured a scathing
attack on the "clean-up television" campaigner, Mary Whitehouse.
Animals came out at the height of punk. The music is terrific, but, as one of
the world's most successful bands, Pink Floyd were criticised as an anathema to the punk
movement. This album lacked the phenomenal success of the previous two products. Two of
the tracks, "Sheep" and "Dogs", are rewrites of songs rejected from Wish
You Were Here. The cover photograph, an inflatable pig soaring over Battersea power
station, is considered one of the best art-works in rock history.
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