 -The Place For Pink Floyd Info-                     -The Place For Pink Floyd Info- |
GITC - The Place For Pink Floyd Information
Pink Floyd:There Is No Dark Side. I didn't nor do I try to take credit for writing it.
However, it is Pink Floyd's 1973 album, The Dark Side Of The Moon, which springs to most people's minds as their greatest achievement. Incredibly, it remained in the U.S. 'Billboard' chart for over 625 weeks - over thirteen years after its release. The album has come to symbolise rock's finest hour, an age when progressive rock stretched the boundaries of popular music by incorporating ambiet soundscapes, moody soundtrack-styled material, futuristic keyboards and musical virtuosity. Come to 90's, The Dark Side Of The Moon was still seen as cutting edge - by an unlikely source in ambient dance outfit The Orb.
The early Pink Floyd sound, too, has proved vastly influential - though their first few records were a far cry from the band's later quest for musical precision. Floyd fans tend to be split into two camps: those who aren't interested in the 60's Pink Floyd and those who feel they never bettered their early sound, rooted as it was around original band leader Syd Barrett.
The four London students who constituted the orginal Pink Floyd - the Cambridge - born Barrett on guitar and vocals, plus drummer Nick Mason, bassist Roger Waters and keyboardist Rick Wright - cut their musical teeth on imported R&B standards when they formed in 1966. These covers rapidly gave way to Syd's own songs, and the band's subsequent rise to prominence is inextricably linked with the blossoming of Lodon's undergound movement - the counter culure. The band's reputation was fulled by their embryonic light show, using liquied lights and slides. Pink Floyd reached the national spotlight after the launch party for 'International Times' magazine at the Roundhouse in October 1966. When the U.F.O. club was opened in December, the Floyd were adopted as virtrally a house band.
Meanwhile, the band signed to EMI's Columbia label and recorded their debut single in January 1967 with producer Joe Boyd. A tale of transvestism set to spooky music, 'Arnold Layne' introduced the Top 20 to psychedelia, despite a degree of controversy. Even more successful was the sublime 'See Emily Play'. Issued in June, this reached No. 6 at the height of the Summer Of LOve and paved the way perfectly for the Floyd's startling debut album, The Piper At The Gates OF Dawn, which was recorded at Abbey Road. The album's mix of bizarre, whimsical songs and wigged out, extended pieces captured the period perfectly - from the wacky 'Bike" to the lengthy instrumental, 'Interstellar Overdrive'. An early take of the track appeared soon afterwards on the soundtrack of the Swinging 60's visual documentary, 'Tonite Let's All Make Love In London'.
In November, Pink Floyd issued a less commercial third single, 'Apples And Oranges', a wonderful psychelic effeort which reflected Syd Barrett's increasing use of drugs like acid. Sadly, their effects led to Syd's departure from the band in early '68, to be replaced by his old friend Dave Gilmour (ex-Joker's Wild) Barrett later issued two charming solo albums, which reflected both his eccentric genius and his apparent mental instability.
Floyd, meanwhile, forged a new sound with their second LP, A Saucerful Of Secrets, which was issued in summer 1968. Mellower and meandering, the LP cauht the band in transition; its highlight was probably the hypnotic psycheldia of 'Set The Controls For The Heart Of the Sun'. The year also witnessed some experimental non-LP singles, 'It Would Be So Nice' and 'Point Me At The Sky', but the band turned their back on singles for over a decade. The sleeve to Saucerful was designed by Hipgnosis, incidentally, an intrinsic part of the Floyd team for years to come.
The band's next project was a soundtrack LP, More, issued in July 1969, which generally reflected a more pastoral side to their music, aside from the heavy rock of 'The Nile Song'. Floyd were by now lumped in with Britain's burgeoing progressive rock scene, which suited their stance as serious musicians. That's the pose they adopted on the cover of their next album, Ummagumma, a budget-priced double set containing one excellent live disc and one patchy studio LP. This was their first release on EMI's new progressice label, Harvest. Another soundtrack followed; Antonioni's 'Zabriskie Point', the LP of which featured three of the band's tracks.
More impressive was the band's next album, which kicked off the new decade in dramatic fashion. Atom Heart Mother shot to No. 1 in October 1970, despite an ambitious side-long track featuring an orchestral score. As Floyd grew increasingly studio-bound, EMI responded by issuing the excellent Relics on their budget Starline label, an odds'n'ends collection of oldies and rarites. 1971's Meddle was strenghtened another side-long piece, 'Echoes' and the contrastingly simple 'One Of These Days', both of which grew into long-standing Floyd favourites.
The series of cocerts performed at London's Rainbow Theatre in February 1972 are commonly cited as the watershed in Pink Floyd's career. these four sell-out shows marked the premier of The Dark Side Of The Moon and were ecstatically received. Before its release, however, Floyd were involved in a film, 'Live At Pompeii', which the band were filmed in the famous amphitheatre, interspersed by studio and interview footage. They also issued their soundtrack to the film, 'La Vallee', as Obscured By Clouds, a gentle mixture of folk and ambient background music which sold surprisingly well.
When Dark Side finally hit the racks in March 1973, it was already one of the most talked-about records sice Sgt. Pepper. Fans had seen it performed throughout Europe and the U.S.A. and its superior sound quality sent hi-fi buffs out in droves. While The Dark Side Of The Moon remains jone of the best-selling albums ever, it never quite managed to reach No. 1. Yet its consistent saless over the years is testament to its strenght, which lay in its dreamy melodies and space age instrumentation - its title seemed very apt. And few rock fans wouldn't recognise the sound of cash registers which marked the start of the LP's most famous song, 'Money'.
In its wake, Pink Floyd were reported to have suffered the pressure of its success. In the meantime, EMI recycled the first two Floyd LP's as A Nice Pair in late '73, but it wasn't until September 1975 that the next LP arrived. Wish You Were Here continued Roger Waters' theme of quiet desperation; the album's piece de resistance was 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond', a long track allegedly inspired by a visit from Syd Barrett
while Roy Harper and Stefan Grappelli both guested.
By the time the next Floyd album was released, punk had cut a swathe through the music scene but 1977's Animals didn't suffer the poor sales of most of Floyd's contemporaries, though criticism was levelled at two songs, 'Pigs On The Wing' and 'Sheep', since their were reworkings of two 1974 compositions.
By now Floyd were an out-and-out stadium band, playing regularly to audiences of up to 100,000 people. The band - and Waters, in particular - felt ambivalent towards such enormous events. In Waters' case, he felt alienated by the experience and this deepening personal crisis inspired the Floyd's next project, The Wall. Released in November 1979, the album was accompanied by their first single in eleven years and after selling 340,000 copies in the U.K. within five days, 'Another Brick In The Wall(Pt. 2)' went straight to the top of the charts. The Wall was a bleak affair, a concept album based around an Orwellian '1984'- styled future, but the lyrics ran the gamut of human emotions and the music was equally adventurous.
Waters had always conceived The Wall As a live show, and the expensive producton was first performed in New York and Los Angeles in February 1980 and then in London in August. The main feature of the show was the gradual construction of a wall as the band played, and to hammer the concept home, a film was released in 1982, using animation based on Gerald Scarfe's drawings and featuring the Boomtown Rat's Bob Geldof in the central role of Pink. Like the LP, the movie was thought-provoking, if ultimately depressing.
Although The Wall in its various guises produced mixed reactions from critics, it thrust them ever further onto the world stage. While recording costs for the ambitious LP topped 300,000 pounds, the investment paid off; The Wall grossed over 10 million pounds in a mere three months. By the end of the 70's, Pink Floyd were arguably the biggest rock band in the world. It was a suprise, then when the 1981 compilation, A Collection Of Great Dance Songs, flopped - it brely scraped into the Top 40. Modest sales also accompanied a single, 'When The Tigers Break Free', one of the missing songs from the movie, back by Floyd's comment on the Falklands War, 'Bring The Boys Back Home'.
Behind the scenes, friction was growing between the band members.
By the time sessions had begun for the prophetically-titled The Final Cut, Rick Wright had left the band and the keyboard duties were handled by session musicians. Many believed that Water's domination of Pink Floyd had reduced Mason and Gilmour to a silmilar status. Issued in March 1983, The Final Cut was one of the first records to be recorded using the holographic technique, but not even this innovation could half the universal thumbs-down that the record received. Nevertheless, it sold three million copies and a single, 'Not Now John', reached the Top 30.
Since the early 70's, the individual members of Pink Floyd had pursued solo recording careers to satisfy their own pursuits/ego/curiosity. But by the mid-1980's, feuds within the band had reached an all-time high. 1984 witnessed a flurry of solo activity, the most prominent of which was Roger Waters' The Pros And Cons Of Hitchhiking. The album was a Top 20 success, helped in part by and enormous media blitz and a guest spot from Eric Clapton. Waters also toured, at first refusing to play any Floyd material, and generally shunning other band members. It could only mean one thing: soon afterwards, Waters announced his departure from Pink Floyd.
The second half of the 80's were riddled with disputes between the surviving Floyd trio, who regrouped, and the solo Waters. But while Gilmour's social graces won the band many friends, Waters' confrontational stance alienatied many in the music industry - not least, the mighty MTV. As such, and despite Waters' several solo albums since, the remaining Floydians have overshadowed their former leader ever since.
The 'comeback' came in the shpae of 1987's A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, though they called upon a dazzling cast of musicians to support them - 10cc's Eric Stewart, Roxy Music's Phil Manzanera and poet Roger McGough among them. Rick Wright was persuaded to rejoin but his role was marginal (he took a wage, for example) and despite considerable succes, the album was spoilt by endless overdubbing, re- cording and mixing. Nevertheless, it sold in large quentities - perhaps, as Roger Waters commented, that it was a pretty fair forgery.
A spectacular and very long world tour accompainied the LP, stretching from '87 right through into 1989. Not suprisingly, the Floyd marked this not inconsiderable feat with a live album, The Delicate Sound Of Thunder, which came out in time for Christmas 1988. Many critics flet the album was superflous, with comments like "you had to be there" and "sterile", allthough there was one hightlight in a new song, 'Sorrow'.
In 1990, Pink Floyd performed a massive show at Knebworth, which reflected the band's position at the top of the rock ladder - put it this way, the supports were ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Cliff Richard, Tears For Fears, Status Quo, Genesis and Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler and, best of all, Led Zeppelin's Rober Plant and Jimmy Page - a literal who's who of rock. Hightlights of the performances were subsequently issued on Polydor as "Knebworth: The Album", accompained by a three video set.
Nothing was then heard of the Floyd until 1994, when they returned with The Division Bell. The album felt far more of a collaborative effort between the group, perhaps because it was written as the band were jamming. Two singles were plucked of the album as singles: "Take It Back" echoed the feel of Irish band U2, and was backed by an old favorite from the first LP, "Astronome Domine", folled by a double-A-side:"Hight Hopes" was perhaps the stand-out track on the album while "Keep Talking" featured astro-physicist Stephen Hawking.
The same day as The Division Bell was released, the Floyd embarked on their most ambitious world tour ever - a rampant success, aside from an incident at Earls Court when some seating collapsed. The tour was later celebrated with a double Cd live set, Pulse, notable not only for its music but also for the distinctive flashing light on its spine.