Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd was a British rock band, founded in London in 1965. Considered a cultural icon of the 20th century and one of the most influential, successful and acclaimed bands in the history of popular music., obtained great popularity within the underground circuit thanks to his psychedelic and space music, which over time evolved into progressive rock and symphonic rock, acquiring the popularity with which they are remembered today. She is known for her songs with a high philosophical content, sometimes political criticism, along with sound experimentation, the innovative covers of her albums and her elaborate live shows. Its sales exceed 280 million albums sold worldwide, 97.5 million of them in the United States alone, making it one of the best-selling bands in history.

Pink Floyd Logo.

Initially the group consisted of drummer Nick Mason, keyboardist and vocalist Richard Wright, bassist and vocalist Roger Waters and guitarist and lead vocalist Syd Barrett, who became the band's first leader after the short-lived stint by Bob Klose, who never appeared on any album. Barrett's erratic and unpredictable behavior, caused by excessive drug use (especially LSD), led his friend David Gilmour to join the group in December 1967. A few months later, Barrett left, and with the quartet made up of Mason, Wright, Waters and Gilmour, the definitive line-up of the group was established.

Barrett's departure made Waters the band's primary lyricist, while Gilmour and Wright took the lead in songwriting. The group recorded during this time many albums that became extraordinary commercial successes, such as The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), i>Animals (1977) and The Wall (1979), albums included, in fact, among the most influential in the history of popular music. After the recording sessions for The Wall, bassist Roger Waters fired keyboardist Rick Wright from the band due to creative discrepancies. In 1983, the group released the album The Final Cut, which did not achieve the success of their previous works and did not even have a promotional tour. Arguing that the band was exhausted and without ideas, in 1985 Waters declared the dissolution of Pink Floyd. The remaining members, Gilmour and Mason, refused to accept this decision and continued with the group, for which Waters sued them claiming part of the rights to the Pink Floyd trademark. Waters lost the lawsuit in court, but, after an agreement with Gilmour and Mason, he obtained the exclusive rights to all the imagery they displayed in their concerts (such as their famous flying pig) and to the audiovisual show of The Wall (except for the three songs Gilmour had composed: "Young Lust", "Run Like Hell" and "Comfortably Numb"), as well as all the songs included in The Final Cut; in exchange, the rest of the group would henceforth continue to use the name Pink Floyd without restriction.

After overcoming these legal problems, Gilmour and Mason called Wright to intervene as a contract keyboardist on the recording of their next effort, A Momentary Lapse of Reason. The relationship was regularized in the following album, The Division Bell , with Wright already reinstated as an official member of the group, thus recovering his classic configuration. However, Waters later embarked on a solo career and did not meet his bandmates again until 24 years later; It was on July 2, 2005, in London, at the Live 8 concert, during which the songs "Speak to Me/Breathe", "Money", "Wish You Were Here" could be heard. and "Comfortably Numb."

In November 2014 The Endless River was released, the band's latest studio album, which contains mostly material recorded during the recording sessions for The Division Bell between 1993 and 1994, and without any input from Roger Waters.

In a poll conducted by the British radio show Planet Rock in 2005, Pink Floyd were voted the "greatest rock band of all time".

History

Origins (1964-1967)

Pink Floyd emerged in 1964 from a band called Sigma 6, which successively changed its name to T-Set, Megadeaths, The Screaming Abdabs, The Architectural Abdabs and The Abdabs. When the band broke up, some of its members (guitarists Bob Klose and Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason, and keyboardist Rick Wright) formed a new band called The Tea Set. After a brief stint with Chris Dennis as lead vocalist, guitarist/vocalist Syd Barrett, a fan of The Beatles and rhythm and blues, joined the band, whereupon Waters moved on to playing bass. In the summer of 1965, Bob Klose was forced to leave the band due to pressure from his parents and college professors, and the group became a four-piece, with Barrett, Waters, Wright, and Mason. revealed himself as the group's main songwriter, and soon began writing new songs influenced by Bo Diddley's rhythm and blues, although the release of Eight Miles High by Californians The Byrds and especially the album Revolver by his countrymen the Beatles in 1966 sparked the rise of psychedelic rock, a then new musical genre that impacted the band and in which Barrett felt more comfortable.

In the autumn of that same year, Tea Set coincided in a concert in Northolt, on the outskirts of London, with a band with the same name that was going to perform in the same place. For a short period the name oscillated between Tea Set and The Pink Floyd Sound, but over time the latter came out on top. The name had been proposed by Barrett and taken from two old blues musicians he admired: Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The Sound faded rather quickly, but The would be used regularly until 1968. The band's English productions during the Syd Barrett era were credited as The Pink Floyd as well as their first two singles in the US. David Gilmour is known to have continued to refer to the group as The Pink Floyd until 1984.

Pink Floyd became a favorite band of the underground movement, playing venues like the UFO Club, the Marquee Club and The Roundhouse. In late 1966 the band was invited to compose music for Peter Whitehead's film Tonite Let's All Make Love in London, and was filmed recording two tracks ("Interstellar Overdrive" and " Nick's Boogie") in January 1967. Although very few samples of this music appeared in the film, the session was released as London 1966/1967 in 2005.

Given their growing popularity, the band members decided to form Blackhill Enterprises in October 1966, in association with their managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King, to distribute the singles "Arnold Layne" in March 1967 and "See Emily Play» in June of the same year. The former climbed to number 20 on the UK charts, and the latter peaked at number 6, giving the group their first national television appearance on Top of the Pops. in July 1967.

First steps (1967-1968)

In 1967, after several instrumental sessions and live performances, Pink Floyd decided to produce their first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which was released in August 1967. The title was extracted from the novel The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame. It is currently considered the quintessential example of British psychedelic music, in addition to being very well received by the music scene at the time. criticism. The tracks on the record, predominantly written by Barrett, showcase poetic lyrics and an eclectic mix of music, from the cutting-edge "Interstellar Overdrive" to "The Scarecrow" (inspired by the folk music of The Fens, a rural region north of Cambridge in where Barrett, Gilmour and Waters are from). The lyrics are totally surreal and often folkloric, like "The Gnome." The music reflected the best electronic technology of the time, notably the use of stereo panning, tape editing, tape echo effects, and the use of electronic keyboards, particularly the Farfisa organ played by Wright. The album was a success in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at number 6, but it did not do as well in the United States, where it only reached number 131 in the charts, although it would later be re-released in the period of commercial success. of the group, in the 1970s. During this period, the band undertook a tour with Jimi Hendrix, which helped increase their popularity.

As the band's success grew, stress and drug use (especially LSD) took their toll on Syd Barrett's mental health. His behavior became increasingly unpredictable, affecting the public presentations of the group because on many occasions Barrett was unable to play the guitar or even sing. For this reason, in December 1967 the group contacted a musician friend of Barrett's who frequented the band's concerts, David Gilmour, to support him on guitar and sing when he suffered one of his mental blocks, although it was also considered the Jeff Beck's candidacy. However, this solution was not practical and the other members simply stopped taking him to concerts. Barrett's last concert in the group was on January 20, 1968, at Hastings Pier. The rest of the band had hoped that Barrett would be able to write for the band with Gilmour in concert, but this did not happen, and Barrett's compositions became increasingly difficult and abstract, such as "Have You Got It, Yet ?", with changes of melodies and harmonic progressions, which made the rest of the members scrap the agreement. Barrett's departure became official on April 6, 1968, and producers Jenner and King decided to follow him, for thus the Blackhill partnership dissolved. The band adopted Steve O'Rourke as manager, who would continue with Pink Floyd until his death in 2003.

After the release of two solo albums (The Madcap Laughs and Barrett) in 1970 (co-produced by and sometimes featuring Gilmour, Waters and Wright), moderately successful, Barrett secluded himself in his native Cambridge and led a quiet life until his death on July 7, 2006.

The era of experimentation (1969-1972)

David Gilmour with his Fender Stratocaster.

Without Barrett's presence in the lineup, Gilmour, Waters and Wright took over the creative reins of the group, each one contributing their voice and sound in their new productions, but giving the new material less consistency than in the Barrett era. Syd Barrett had been the main performer for the first few years, in the following era Gilmour, Wright and especially Waters became the main songwriters and voices within the band. Some of the group's more experimental compositions date from this time, such as "A Saucerful of Secrets" —consisting mostly of noises, sound effects, percussion, oscillators and tape loops— or "Careful with That Axe, Eugene".

Although Barrett had written most of the first album, only one of his compositions, "Jugband Blues", appeared on Pink Floyd's second album. Barrett was also featured on the songs "Remember a Day" (recorded during the sessions for The Piper at the Gates of Dawn) and "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun". The new album, A Saucerful of Secrets, released in June 1968, reached ninth place in the UK and became the only Pink Floyd record not to chart in the US. Irregular due to Barrett's departure, the album still contained much of the psychedelic sound his former frontman had imprinted on him, combined with a more experimental style, which would reach its full development on Ummagumma. It is important to mention that "A Saucerful of Secrets" also became the only album by the band that included the participation of all five members. The twelve-minute title track is close to the slow, epic songs to come, but the record was coolly received by critics at the time, though not by critics today. Pink Floyd's future work would embrace more strongly this idea, focusing more towards songwriting with each new release.

Shortly after they were called by the director Barbet Schroeder to compose the soundtrack for the film More, which would be released in May 1969. Their compositions were released two months later as a studio album by Pink Floyd, Music from the Film More, and reached number 9 in the UK and 153rd in the US. Critics called this album irregular and bumpy. Many tracks on More (as it is often referred to by fans) are acoustic folk songs.

Previously, the band had been working on a rock opera called The Man/The Journey, but the project was turned down. However, two of the songs that made up this work, "Green Is the Colour" and "Cymbaline", were included in More, and remained a regular part of concerts at that time. "Cymbaline" was also the first Pink Floyd song to explicitly express Roger Waters' cynical attitude towards the music industry. The rest of the album consists of edgy side pieces featured on the soundtrack (some of which are also featured on The Man/The Journey), with a few more powerful songs, like "The Nile Song."

The band's next work was a double album titled Ummagumma, which consists of a live album (recorded between Birmingham and Manchester) and another with new studio tracks. Each of these songs was composed by one of the band members and occupies half of one side of each disc (about 10 minutes each). The title of this album means "sexual intercourse" in Cambridge slang. The studio record is purely experimental, with a lengthy folky theme ("Grantchester Meadows," composed by Waters), the atonal, pianistic "Sysyphus," flirtations with prog rock on "The Narrow Way," and long drum solos. in "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party." Finally, "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict" is a five-minute song that features only Waters' voice singing at different speeds, resulting in a sound resembling birds and rodents.. Several of the new songs on this album had already been performed at the concert recorded under the name The Man/The Journey. Ummagumma was the band's most successful album to that time, peaking at number 5 in the UK and number 74 in the US.

Atom Heart Mother, the band's first recording with an orchestra and their follow-up studio album, featured musician Ron Geesin. The name was a hasty decision by the members based on a newspaper article announcing that a woman with an implanted atomic pacemaker had managed to give birth. The cover was also an almost improvised job; in fact, the photographer declared that, due to lack of time, he had gone to the field to take a picture of the first thing he saw. A 23-minute symphonic rock suite titled "Atom Heart Mother" appears on one side of the record, while the other features three tracks, each by a vocalist and songwriter from the group (Waters' "If," Gilmour's "Old Sun" and Wright's "Summer '68"). Another of the songs, "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast", consists of a sound collage of a man cooking and having breakfast while his thoughts sound in the background accompanied by instrumental lines. The man in question is Alan Styles, one of the band's sound technicians. Although the album was considered a step backwards for the band and one of their most inaccessible works, it peaked at the top of the list. of his entire discography up to that point, peaking at number one in the UK and number 55 in the US. Waters himself, who stated that he did not care that "it was thrown away and no one would ever hear it again". The popularity of Atom Heart Mother led the band to embark on their first full US tour.

Before releasing their next studio effort, the band released a compilation album, Relics, which contained several singles and B-sides along with an original Waters song called "Biding My Time", recorded during Ummagumma sessions. The group contributed to the score for the film Zabriskie Point, although most of their compositions would eventually be discarded by the film's director, Michelangelo Antonioni.

The arrival of world fame (1973-1975)

The following release, Meddle (1971), ended up cementing the direction the band would take towards Progressive Rock. The 23-minute song "Echoes" was described by Waters as a "sonic poem" due to its constant sound effects, and is considered one of his best pieces, containing long, unnerving instrumental lapses that demonstrate fully the talents of Gilmour on guitar, Mason on drums and Wright on Hammond Organ. In this sense, the orchestra that played such a leading role in Atom Heart Mother was left aside to make way for improvisations and studio experimentation. Shortly before the release of this album in 1971, the band stated in an interview that by then the quality and sound of their performances had no secret (such as those who claimed that they required a large number of sound engineers), rather than the 4 instruments that each of them mastered. Meddle peaked at number three in the UK, but lack of publicity from Capitol Records in the US meant it only peaked at number 70 in the US.

The band's next work was Obscured by Clouds (1972), recorded in France, and which formed the soundtrack of the film The Valley by Barbet Schroeder. It became the first top 50 hit for Pink Floyd in the US, as well as peaking at number six in the UK. The song's lyrics "Free Four" were the first reference in a song to the father's death. of Waters in World War II, a theme that established itself as a recurring theme in later works. Additionally, the song "Childhood's End" was Gilmour's last lyrical contribution for fifteen years, and is based on the book of the same name by Arthur C. Clarke. Stylistically, it is a slightly different album from its predecessor, Meddle, with shorter songs and less use of sound effects to create atmospheres, in many cases bordering on blues rock, folk rock or soft rock.

During this time, Pink Floyd distanced itself from psychedelia and became a difficult band to classify. The different styles of each of the composers came together in a single one, which crystallized in the two most important works of his discography, for critics and the public: The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and Wish You Were Here (1975). In both works, Gilmour became the main vocalist of the formation, while the female choirs and Dick Parry's saxophone acquired special relevance. This period became the creative zenith of the band, as both in Dark Side and in Wish you Were Here the 4 members carried out the composition of great songs like Time, in whose creation even Mason was involved. According to Gilmour, there was a kind of "consensus" among the 4 in which Waters was the main writer of the songs while the musical composition fell mainly to Wright and him.

Image depicting the phenomenon of light dispersal, in which Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis was based, to devise the cover of the cover The Dark Side of the Moon.

The release of the super-success The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973 marked a turning point in the band's popularity. Pink Floyd had stopped releasing singles since 1968, when "Point Me at the Sky" was released; however, "Money" broke this trend and peaked at number twenty in the US. For its part, the album became the band's first number one in this country, becoming one of the best-selling albums in the US. history of the United States by exceeding fifteen million copies, and one of the best sellers worldwide, with more than forty million. In addition, it remained on the Billboard 200 for 741 weeks, a record at that time, including 591 consecutive from 1976 to 1988, which meant another record; it is estimated that around one in four British families owns a copy of the album in one of its formats. It also stayed on the UK charts for 301 weeks, although it never rose above second place. It can be called the first fully concept album. developed by the band, which addresses issues such as the meaning of living (Breathe), everyday stress (On the Run), the irremediable passage of time (Time), and death (The Great Gig in the Sky). In this album the saxophone acquires a very important role, expressing the influences of jazz, especially visible in Wright, which, together with the leading role of the female choir, helps to diversify the texture of the album. Throughout this, excerpts from interviews with some of the group's helpers are played in the background several times. The lyrics and the sound of the album try to somehow describe the pressures that human beings suffer throughout their existence. Its cover, which represents the phenomenon of light dispersion in a prism, was designed by Storm Thorgerson and Audrey Powell.

Shortly after the publication of The Dark Side of the Moon the compilation A Nice Pair appeared, which includes the band's first two albums: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets. Also around this time was the release of the group's first live video, Live at Pompeii, recorded before the release of The Dark Side of the Moon at the Pompeii amphitheatre., one of the cities near Naples destroyed by Vesuvius more than 2000 years ago. The concert was recorded without any audience, except for the group's assistants and the recording equipment. The video, directed by Adrian Maben, also includes interviews with members of Pink Floyd and behind-the-scenes footage, and during the recording of The Dark Side at Abbey Road Studios.

After the success of The Dark Side, the members of Pink Floyd tried not to become repetitive about the musical direction they were going to take from that moment on, wondering if they would be able to continue in the top of the sales charts. In a return to their experimental beginnings, they began working on an album project called Household Objects, so named because the songs were to be performed with household objects (such as saws, buckets of water, hammers, rubber bands, etc.). elastic or cups). However, the project was abandoned because the band members decided that it was better and easier to play the songs with their respective instruments. There are no definitive recordings of this project, although some of the effects obtained were used in later works.

Wish You Were Here, published in 1975, is about the lack of human feeling in the world of the music industry, as well as the longing for former band member Syd Barrett. Known primarily for its self-titled track, the album also contains a sprawling 26-minute nine-part, two-track titled "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," a tribute to Barrett in which the lyrics expressly deal with the consequences of his departure. of the group. Many of the band's past influences were blended into this song, which ends with a reference to an early Pink Floyd single, "See Emily Play". The other songs, "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar" (sung by Roy Harper), exhibit, as they say, a strong critique of the industrialization of music. Wish You Were Here was the first album to reach the top spot in the UK and US, and was just as critically acclaimed as The Dark Side of the Moon .

During the recordings of the Wish You Were Here album, a famous anecdote occurred for the band: someone, for some strange reason, told Syd Barrett to attend Abbey Road Studios because Pink Floyd was recording a new album. On June 5, 1975, a fat man, with his head and eyebrows completely shaved, arrived at the Abbey Road studio while the band members were mixing "Shine on You Crazy Diamond". No one was able to recognize him, until suddenly one of them realized it was Syd Barrett himself. Asked about his strange fatness, Barrett said that he had been eating too many pork chops. In a 2001 interview with BBC channel to record the documentary Syd Barrett: Crazy Diamond, Wright said:

One thing that really remains in my memory, that I will never forget; happened at the “Shine On” sessions. I got to the studio and saw that man sitting at the bottom of the studio, he was as far away as you are from me. And I didn't recognize him. I said 'Who is this guy behind you?' 'That's Syd.' And I just came down, I couldn't believe... She had shaved all her hair... I mean, even eyebrows, everything... I was going from top to bottom, making noise with my teeth, it was horrific. And, uh, I was, I mean, Roger was crying, I think I was, too; we were both crying. It was very shocking... seven years without contact, and it came then, when we're doing that particular song. I don't know, coincidence, karma, destiny, who knows? But it was very, very, very powerful.

In the same documentary, Nick Mason said, "When I think about it, I can still see his eyes, but...everything was different." Waters also weighed in on the interview: "I had no idea who he was for a long time," as well as Gilmour: "None of us recognized him. Shaved... bald head shaved, and very fat."

The Waters Era (1976-1983)

The Battersea Power Station departs on the front page Animalswith an inflatable pig between two chimneys.

With the release of Animals in January 1977, the band's music began to be criticized by punk rock fans for having become too pretentious, having lost sight of the simplicity of rock and roll. However, Animals is considered a more guitar-oriented work than their predecessors, partly due to the influence of the emerging punk movement and the fact that it was recorded in the newer studios. by Pink Floyd, Britannia Row. It was the first album not to include any Rick Wright compositions, and reached number two in the UK and number three in the US. As with many of its predecessors, Animals features several songs. related to each other by the same theme, in this case inspired by George Orwell's novel Animal Farm. On the album, the songs "Sheep", "Pigs" or "Dogs" are used as metaphors for contemporary society. In this metaphor, the dogs ("Dogs") are the bosses of the industry, the pigs ("Pigs") represent the British political class of the time, indirectly alluding to figures such as Margaret Thatcher, and the sheep ("Sheep") represent the rest of the inhabitants, who let themselves be carried away by the dogs and pigs without rebelling. Despite the prominence of the guitar, keyboards and synthesizers still play an important role in Animals, but Dick Parry's characteristic saxophone and female backing vocals disappeared from the compositions. Many critics did not respond well to the album, calling it "tedious" and "gloomy". The album cover features an inflatable pig, named "Algie" by the band members, flying over the chimneys of the Battersea Power Station, London. However, the wind that was blowing on the day the photograph was taken made it difficult to control the balloon, and the photo of the pig and the photo of the power station had to be superimposed using a photo montage. This pig became one of the symbols of the band, and remained a part of the group's live shows.

After the tour in support of Animals, each of the members of Pink Floyd embarked on separate solo projects. Gilmour recorded and released the album David Gilmour in 1978, the same year Rick Wright released Wet Dream, and Nick Mason worked briefly on the album's production Steve by Steve Hillage (member of Gong). The only one not distracted from the Pink Floyd activity was Roger Waters, who worked on two separate projects: The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking and The Wall. The rest of the members chose the latter as their next album, and Pros and Cons would later become Waters' first solo album.

At the beginning of 1979, an economic scandal involving the Northon Warburg company came to light: its top leader, Andrew Warburg, had been diverting funds for a series of illicit operations and fled England; he being arrested upon his return in 1982. This company was the one that managed the income of the members of Pink Floyd, who saw how the four of them had lost more than a million pounds sterling. As a result of the scandal, each of them owed a lot of tax money, and they were forced to leave the country between April 6, 1979 and April 6, 1980. During their exile, the album The Wall, which was recorded in France.

The Wall and the departure of Richard Wright

The epic rock opera The Wall was released in 1979. Composed almost entirely by Waters, it deals with the themes of loneliness and lack of communication, expressed through the metaphor of a wall, built between the musician and the public. Waters devised this format when he spat at a fan who had not stopped berating the group at a concert in Montreal, Canada. The Wall got Pink to Floyd returned to the top of the charts with the single "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II" (340,000 copies distributed in the United Kingdom were sold in just five days) also extracting other hits such as "Comfortably Numb" or "Run Like Hell", which became classics for the band and radio stations despite never being published as singles.

The album was produced by Bob Ezrin, a friend of Waters's who shared songwriting credits on the track "The Trial" (although they would later break off their relationship when Ezrin revealed the concert show to the press). Waters prevailed. his artistic skills and his leadership over the band, using the band's precarious financial situation to his advantage, which immediately led to numerous conflicts between the members. Wright's influence was downplayed, and he was fired during the recording by Waters, though he eventually returned for live concerts with a set salary. Curiously, this situation was what made Wright become the only musician to earn some money from The Wall concerts. The opera was only performed on a few occasions due to logistical complications (since in these performances a wall was built between performance breaks), although it would be performed by Waters once more after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Although it never reached number one in the UK (it only reached third place), The Wall spent fifteen weeks at number one on the US charts. It was lauded by critics, and went 23 platinum, selling 11.5 million copies in the US.

As a sequel, the film Pink Floyd – The Wall was published in 1982, whose soundtrack consists of most of the content of The Wall. The film, written by Waters and directed by Alan Parker, stars Boomtown Rats founder Bob Geldof, who re-recorded many of the album's original vocal parts. The film was animated by Gerald Scarfe. The song "When the Tigers Broke Free", which first appeared in this film, was released as a limited edition single, but became popular when it was included on the compilation Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd and in the reissue of The Final Cut. Another original song from the film is "What Shall We Do Now?", which was cut from the original album due to time constraints on vinyl records. The only songs from The Wall not used were "Hey You" and "The Show Must Go On".

The Falklands War was one of the new themes incorporated in the letters The Final Cutwhich reaffirmed Roger Waters' anti-war stance.

The Final Cut, an album dedicated to the memory of Waters's father, Eric Fletcher Waters, who was killed in action in World War II, was released in 1983. It is the only album by the band in which Richard Wright did not appear, and the only one that was composed entirely by one of the band members, in this case Waters (so much so that they offered him to publish it as a solo album, something that was rejected by the rest of the members and by EMI). It was also he himself who recorded almost all the vocal parts, except for one song in which he is accompanied by Gilmour.The theme of the work followed the line of the previous ones, although in a darker way. In it, Waters included for the first time in the lyrics the British participation in the Falklands War, and concluded with a reference to a possible nuclear war, in the song "Two Suns in the Sunset". The orchestral arrangements were provided by Michael Kamen, who, along with Andy Bown, performed the keyboard parts due to Wright's absence.

The Final Cut was well received by critics, reaching number one in the UK and number six in the US. It contains a minor radio hit, "Not Now John"., the only one of the work in which Gilmour sings. This situation caused numerous arguments between Gilmour and Waters, of such magnitude that it was rumored that they did not see each other in the studio during the recording sessions. While Gilmour said that he tried to keep making good music, Waters stated that no one understood the social message that his songs contained. Although there was never any promotional tour for this album, Waters has since performed some songs in his solo concerts.

This album was followed by the compilation Works, which included for the first time the previously unreleased song "Embryo", recorded in 1970. From then on, each of the members took different paths, embarking on their own projects. Gilmour released the solo album About Face in March 1984. A month later, Wright joined with Fashion's Dave Harris to form Zee, who released the album Identity. In May 1984, Waters released The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, a concept album he had devised during the hiatus of 1978. A year after these releases, Mason released Profiles along with 10cc's Rick Fenn, featuring a collaboration by Gilmour and UFO keyboardist Danny Peyronel.

The Gilmour era and the departure of Roger Waters (1985-1992)

Pink Floyd acting in London in July 1989.

In December 1985, Waters announced the breakup of Pink Floyd, describing the band as a "spent force". However, in 1986 Gilmour and Mason began recording a new album under the Pink Floyd name. A bitter legal dispute led Roger to claim that the Pink Floyd name should have been dropped, but Gilmour and Mason stood by their intention to record under that name, stating that they held the legal rights since Waters had left. the band on their own initiative. Finally, the lawsuit was brought to court, and the rights were acquired by Gilmour and Mason.

After shuffling around various titles, the new album was released as A Momentary Lapse of Reason, reaching number three in the US and UK. Without Waters, who had been the main compositional engine on a lyrical level, the band relied on outside lyricists, which led to criticism from some purists. Bob Ezrin served as a co-producer along with Jon Carin, with both contributing compositions to the work. Carin also performed most of the keyboard parts despite Wright's return, initially as a salaried musician—because of the legal risks involved—and later, once the legal issues were resolved., definitely as an official member. Considering this situation and Mason's few contributions, many critics consider that A Momentary Lapse of Reason should be a solo album by the English guitarist, in the same way that The Final Cut should be a Waters solo album.

A year later the band released a live double album accompanied by a concert video, called Delicate Sound of Thunder, which was recorded at a series of concerts on Long Island, USA, and he subsequently recorded a series of tracks for La Carrera Panamericana, a video for the Mexican competition of the same name. In this race, which had Mason and Gilmour as participants, the latter had an accident along with his co-driver, manager Steve O'Rourke, who broke his leg, although Gilmour only suffered a few scratches. These tracks, all They are instrumental, presenting Wright's first compositions since 1975, and Mason's first since 1973.

In 1992 the box set Shine On was published, which included reissues of the albums A Saucerful of Secrets, Meddle , The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall and A Momentary Lapse of Reason along with a bonus disc called The Early Singles. That same year Amused to Death, the new solo work by Roger Waters, was also published.

Richard Wright's Definitive Return (1993)

Pink Floyd's next studio album was The Division Bell, released in 1994. Composed by all the members of the group and not just by Gilmour exclusively, now with Wright as an official member again. It was better received than A Momentary Lapse of Reason, although purists continued to criticize it for its style. Beyond that, it was the band's second album to reach number one on both sides of the chart. Atlantic from Wish You Were Here. The Division Bell is an album whose theme revolves around communication and its conflicts. Many of the lyrics were written by Polly Samson, Gilmour's girlfriend at the time, whom he married shortly after this work was released. Along with Samson, the album features most of the musicians who contributed to the previous album. The band's studio work, with the inclusion of Dick Parry, a longtime collaborator from the days of The Dark Side. In addition, Anthony Moore, who had helped compose some of the lyrics to A Momentary Lapse, composed the lyrics to "Wearing the Inside Out," which is also Wright's first vocal contribution since The Dark Side. This same collaboration continued on Wright's subsequent album, Broken China.

The following year, 1995, the band released a live album titled P.U.L.S.E. which reached number one in the US and contains the songs performed at a concert in London on tour by The Division Bell, in which the entire album The Dark Side of the Moon was performed live. On July 10, 2006, its DVD version was released, which quickly reached the highest positions on the charts.

Also in 1995 the band received their first and only Grammy Award in the category of "Best Rock Instrumental Performance" for "Marooned".

Solo works and reissues

In the 2000s, the band sold various reissues and compilations, in which the "Box set" Discovery was created, with the remastering of the band's records, in which there are The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, A Sauceful Of Secrets, More, Atom Heart Mother and others. The company "Why Pink Floyd?" is also created, with which they launch Experience, which includes extra CDs, and the "Box set" Immersion, which includes other CDs with material not originally included, DVD with the album in different sound formats, exclusive videos and a Blu-Ray including the material from the 2 DVDs, from the discs The Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall.

Pink Floyd was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 at a ceremony hosted by Billy Corgan, lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins. Waters did not attend the ceremony due to his unresolved disagreements with the other members.. In his acceptance speech, Gilmour said, "I'm going to have to grab a couple more of these for our two bandmates who started playing in different keys: Roger and Syd...". Although Mason was present during the gala, he did not join Gilmour, Wright and Corgan to perform the acoustic version of "Wish You Were Here".

A live recording of The Wall, taken from London concerts between 1980 and 1981, was released in 2000 under the name Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-1981 and reached number 19 in the US. A compilation album of the band's best-known songs was released in 2001 under the name Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd. This compilation brought with it controversies, since some of the longer songs appear cut and without following a chronological order, which took them out of the original context of the album, although they were mixed so that they seemed part of a single track of more than two hours.. Songs like "Echoes", "Shine on You Crazy Diamond", "Sheep", "Marooned" or "High Hopes" appear noticeably biased. This album climbed to number two on the UK charts.

In 2003 the SACD version of The Dark Side of the Moon was released with a new cover art. It was also released on a blank vinyl version featuring the artwork of the original along with a new poster. A year later Nick Mason's book, Detro de Pink Floyd (original title Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd), was published in Europe, which was published in market in 2005 in the US Mason made public promotional appearances in some of the major cities in the US and Europe.

On October 30, 2003, the band's manager, Steve O'Rourke, died of a heart attack. Gilmour, Mason and Wright reunited at his funeral and performed "Fat Old Sun" and "The Great Gig in the Sky" at Chichester Cathedral.

Roger Waters at a solo concert in June 2006.

2005-present

Reunion at Live 8

Two years later, on July 2, 2005, the band reunited with its original 4 members once more for a single performance at the Live 8 concert in London. Waters' return meant that they were playing together again after 24 years. Pink Floyd performed a set of four songs: "Speak to Me/Breathe", "Money", "Wish You Were Here" and "Comfortably Numb", with Gilmour and Waters sharing vocal duties. At the end of the performance, all the members merged into a joint hug that became one of the most famous images of the concert.

During the week after Live 8 there was a sudden interest in the band. According to the online store HMV, sales of Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd increased by 1,343%, while sales of The Wall increased by more than 3,600 % on Amazon.com. David Gilmour later stated that he planned to allocate all of these proceeds to charities and NGOs, and asked the other artists and companies that took part in Live 8 to do the same. 2005 the band was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame by Pete Townshend, guitarist for The Who. Gilmour and Mason attended the gala, but neither Waters (who appeared via video link) nor Wright (who was undergoing eye surgery) were able to attend.

Gilmour released his third solo album, titled On an Island, on March 6, 2006, and began a tour that took him across Europe, Canada, and the US on this tour featured Wright and Mason on several occasions, and performed the band's first single, "Arnold Layne". Waters was also invited to attend, but his commitments (tour in Europe and the US) forced him to decline the invitation. However, Waters appeared in the second half of a concert of this tour in Cork, Ireland, in which the album The Dark Side of the Moon was performed in its entirety.

Waters is currently working on a solo album, and writing a Broadway musical of The Wall with bonus songs composed by himself. Waters also embarked on The Dark Side of the Moon Live tour with a set list consisting of the entire The Dark Side of the Moon album along with other famous songs by the band and some of his own. his solo career.

In April 2010, Waters confirmed the realization of a new world tour, The Wall Live 2010-2011, which will tour the States and Europe in principle, with the presentation of the album The Wall in its entirety commemorating its thirtieth anniversary.

Pink Floyd at the Live 8 festival in London.

On January 31, 2006, David Gilmour made it known that the group had no intention of meeting, denying the rumors that came from some media. Shortly after, Gilmour declared in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that he had finished with Pink Floyd and that he intends to focus on his solo career and his family. He also mentions that he agreed to play with Waters at Live 8 to support the cause of the concert, to make peace with Waters and to know if he would refuse or not. However, he admits the likelihood that Pink Floyd could play a concert in favor of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority. In an interview with Billboard magazine, Gilmour shifted his stance from killing Pink Floyd to "who knows." A surprise performance from the post-Waters lineup performed "Comfortably Numb" and "Wish You Were Here" at the Royal Albert Hall in London on May 31, 2006.

2007 marked the 40th anniversary of the signing of the band's first contract with EMI and the release of their first three singles: "Arnold Layne", "See Emily Play" and "Apples and Oranges", along with the album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. This was accompanied by the limited edition release of a set containing stereo and mono mixes of the album along with unreleased recordings.

On May 10, 2007, Roger Waters took part in the Syd Barrett tribute concert at London's Barbican Centre. This was followed by a performance by Mason, Gilmour and Wright performing "Arnold Layne". However, rumors that the band might hold a concert with all its members were debunked by the fact that Waters did not join them.

In a 2007 interview, Waters was more receptive to the idea of a Pink Floyd reunion when he said, "I'm fine if the rest want to join. It wouldn't even have to be to save the world. It's just because it's fun. And people would love it."

On September 24, 2007 Gilmour stated that a Pink Floyd reunion anyway, with or without Waters, would not be right: "I don't see why I would want to go back to that old thing. It's very retrograde. I want to look further, and looking back is not fun." However, in April 2008 Nick Mason announced that Pink Floyd would reunite at a charity event without specifying a specific date and place, which was to be the band's first performance in three years.

On Monday, September 15, 2008, Richard Wright, keyboardist and founding member of the band, died of cancer at the age of 65, eliminating the possibility of a future reunion of the entire group. "The family of Richard Wright, founding member of Pink Floyd, announces with great sadness that Richard has passed away after a short bout with cancer." "The family has asked that their privacy be respected at this difficult time," added a family spokesperson, without specifying what type of cancer was killing the musician.

In February 2010 the band's lawyer accused the record company EMI of marketing the band's songs on the Internet without authorization. This led to a lawsuit which the band won, forcing the label to pay them £60,000 and prohibiting the marketing of Pink Floyd's songs via the Internet.

The Endless River (2014)

In July 2014, Samson announced via Twitter that a new Pink Floyd album titled The Endless River would be released in November. Former vocalist Durga McBroom commented that the music came from a project called "The Big Spliff", recorded at the Division Bell recording sessions, adding that Gilmour and Mason had worked on more material together. She also commented that while Wright was involved, Waters was not involved at all.

Gilmour described the record:

The Endless River starts with music taken from sessions The Division Bell 1993. We heard more than twenty hours of material from the three playing together and selected what we wanted it to appear on the new album. In the last year we have been adding parts, re-recording others and using technology to make a Pink Floyd album of the century XXI. Without Rick, and without the possibility that you can do it again, it seems the right thing these pieces are part of our repertoire.

Keyboardist Rick Wright, who died in 2008 and to whom his bandmates Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason dedicate the work as a "posthumous tribute", was still present at those sessions.

In November 2016, Pink Floyd released a box set, The Early Years 1965-1972, which included outtakes, live recordings, remixes, and films from their early career. [1] This was followed in December 2019 by The Later Years, which compiled Pink Floyd's work after Waters' departure. The set includes a remixed version of A Momentary Lapse of Reason with further contributions from Wright and Mason, and an expanded reissue of the Delicate Sound of Thunder live album. [2] In 2018, Mason formed a new band, Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets, to perform early Pink Floyd material. The band includes Spandau Ballet's Gary Kemp and longtime Pink Floyd collaborator Guy Pratt. [3] They toured Europe in September 2018 and North America in 2019. Waters joined the band at New York's Beacon Theater to perform vocals on 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun'. #3. 4;.

Style

Pink Floyd are best known for their spacey songwriting and elaborate concept albums of the mid-1970s, but they actually started out as a much more conventional band. Its first years, directed by Syd Barrett, were tinged with the prevailing psychedelia at that time (late 60s), although it began to show some traces of what would end up becoming the band's characteristic space rock. Barrett's massive use of drugs like LSD caused his compositions to oscillate between classic pop tunes like "Astronomy Domine" and experimentation with longer tracks like "Interstellar Overdrive," to the point that The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was considered one of the best psychedelic albums ever released. The lyrics on this work, playful and humorous and at times emulating space travel as metaphors for psychedelic sentiment, contrast with the enveloping sound of Wright's keyboards. and with Barrett's melancholy guitar lines, giving an often chaotic and confused overall sound.

With the release of A Saucerful of Secrets in 1968, the band's style took a turn due to Barrett's departure from the band and David Gilmour's entry. Defined as a transition album, it mixes psychedelic songs similar to those signed by Barrett and more experimental pieces, with influences from classical music and that helped to mark the later sound of Pink Floyd. On this album appears the last song composed by Barrett, "Jugband Blues". The albums Music from the Film More, Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother continued to explore the sounds of space rock that they would take to their maximum expression with later works.

Atom Heart Mother is perhaps the most experimental album in the Pink Floyd discography and one of the most inaccessible. duration, while "Alan Psychedelic Breakfast" plays the sounds of a man making breakfast interspersed between instrumental snippets. With Meddle, Pink Floyd began to approach their own sound directly. In it, the band put aside the orchestra of "Atom Heart Mother" and immersed themselves in long and elaborate pieces, such as "Echoes" or "One of These Days", signing one of the best works of their career and the best since The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

Pink Floyd Concert in 1973, shortly after publication The Dark Side of the Moon. Watch the band on the left of the image, whose sound is a fundamental part of the band's most successful albums.

The Dark Side of the Moon became the band's best-selling album and one of the best-selling albums in music history. The band's new change in style is evident again on this album, with songs like "Money" or "Time" and with the appearance of female backing vocalists and the sound of the saxophone by Dick Parry. The sound textures explored on this album and the careful atmospheres defined the classic Pink Floyd sound, with a mix of blues rock, jazz fusion, psychedelic rock and art rock.

The sequel to The Dark Side was also a bestseller and became another classic for the group. Wish You Were Here, with some songs dedicated to Syd Barrett and others directed against the industrialization of music, contains the song "Shine on You Crazy Diamond", one of the best known of the band and the longer, which with its almost 26 minutes had to be divided into two tracks, one at the beginning and one at the end of the album. This song is entirely dedicated to Barrett, and ends with the notes of "See Emily Play", one of the group's early singles composed by Syd. Another of Pink Floyd's most famous songs is the acoustic "Wish You Were Here"., also dedicated to Barrett and which constitutes one of the most lyrical pieces of the band. i>The Wall and The Final Cut.

Animals is one of the darkest albums from the band's golden age, in which Waters treats the human species as pigs, dogs and sheep, in a metaphor for today's society based on in the book Animal Farm. In this work, Gilmour's guitar takes the leading role, while Wright's contributions are greatly reduced, and the songs are much longer than usual, since all of them exceed ten minutes except "Pigs on the Wing", which is separated into two parts of a minute and a half each.

With The Wall, Waters's supremacy in the compositional control of Pink Floyd was made clear. All in all, it is one of the most famous albums in the band's discography and one of the best sellers in history, although it did not surpass The Dark Side in numbers. The album is a rock opera based on a rock star who isolates himself from the world by using drugs, building a wall around himself. Although Waters has denied it several times, the album seems like an autobiography of his, since the protagonist, called "Pink", bears several similarities with it. The album is basically made up of short songs of approximately one, two or three minutes, joined with longer pieces such as "Comfortably Numb" or "Hey You". The song "Another Brick in the Wall" quickly rose as the most representative song on the album and one of the best known of the group, with a characteristic choir of children singing the line "We don't need no education". This phrase would later be criticized and caricatured by artists such as Elvis Costello, on his album Mighty Like a Rose. Also famous in The Wall is the final guitar solo of "Comfortably Numb", composed by Gilmour and, for many, one of the best ever.

The Final Cut, an album initially intended as a compilation of the songs that had not made it into The Wall (and was even going to be called Spare Bricks, "Leftover Bricks"), was defined as a mix between the styles of Animals and The Wall, and was dedicated to the memory of his father de Waters, killed in action in World War II. The theme of this album revolves around the Malvinas War, and its composition —exclusively by Roger Waters— gives absolute supremacy to the lyrical concept, leaving the musical concept in the background. According to Allmusic, it "can only be compared to The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking" (Roger Waters' first solo album), because the music "was used as texture, not music."

With the departure of Waters in 1985, the group's style took a considerable turn, returning to the old style in which more importance was attached to caring for atmospheres, with keyboard textures and the unmistakable sound of the guitar of Gilmour, but Waters' skill as a lyricist was lacking. This materialized on A Momentary Lapse of Reason, a well-received album composed almost entirely by Gilmour, who left behind more room for the rest of the members on the next album, The Division Bell. This album accentuated the return to the times before The Dark Side of the Moon, as you can appreciate long notes on the keyboard and the echo effects that the guitar sound possesses. Lyrically, the The work seems to have implicit references to Waters and the story of The Wall, although the theme of the fall of the Berlin Wall predominates.

Influence

The Pink Floyd Experience, one of the tribute bands dedicated to Pink Floyd.

The constant change of style in each album, added to the great popularity that their music achieved, made Pink Floyd have influenced a large number of musicians and bands, both from the 70s, such as Deep Purple, Queen, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Steve Hackett, Can, Eloy, David Bowie, Genesis, Rush, and Yes; as later, among which are The Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Dream Theater, Guns N Roses, Queensrÿche, Sigur Rós, The Flaming Lips, Coldplay, MGMT, Ayreon, Tool, Radiohead, Porcupine Tree, The Orb, Anathema Nine Inch Nails, Avenged Sevenfold and Faith No More.

Further proof of Pink Floyd's imprint on music history is the proliferation of tribute bands, such as The Pink Floyd Experience, Wish You Were Here, Anderson Council, Australian Pink Floyd Show, Brit Floyd, The Machine, Brain Damage, The Polka Floyd Show, the Argentines Ummagumma, The End or the Spanish The Pink Tones.

In addition, there have been several bands that have paid homage to Pink Floyd. On October 11, 2005, the American progressive metal band Dream Theater performed the entire album The Dark Side of the Moon in Amsterdam, and repeated the same concert two weeks later in London. The band included a reference to "Careful with that Axe, Eugene" in the lyrics of the song "Octavarium", in what constituted an ode to progressive rock, since other songs, such as "Machine Messiah" by Yes, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by the Beatles, "My Generation" by The Who, "<[Pink like Floyd]]" by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers or "Light My Fire" by The Doors are mentioned in their lyrics. Another group that covered The Dark Side of the Moon is The Flaming Lips on an album recorded in 2009. For their part, Easy Star All-Stars recorded a tribute to The Dark Side with influences of reggae and hip hop that was called Dub Side of the Moon, while the heavy metal group Ministry did the same by naming it as Dark Si of the Spoon to their 1999 album. In the classical sphere, the String Quartet, consisting of two violins, a viola and a cello, covered The Dark Side, while the The London Philharmonic Orchestra did the same on the album Us and Them: Symphonic Pink Floyd.

Members

• Roger Waters - low, leading voice, guitar, keyboards (1965-1985, 2005)
• Rick Wright – keyboards, voice (1965-2008)
• Nick Mason – drummer, percussion (1965-2014)
• David Gilmour – guitar, bass, leading voice, keyboards (1968-2014)

Formations

Timeline

Between 1979 and 1990, Rick Wright continued to be a part of the group on tours and recordings (with the exception of The Final Cut), though only as a salaried musician due to legal disputes with Waters.

Collaborators

• Session
  • Roy Harper (vocalist at "Have Cigar")
  • Ron Geesin (orchestrator and composer Atom Heart Mother)
  • Michael Kamen (orchestrator and keyboardist The Wall and The Final Cut; orchestrator in "The Division Bell"
  • Tony Levin (bajist and Chapman Stick on A Momentary Lapse of Reason)
  • Guy Pratt The Division Bell)
  • Bob Ezrin (producer, songwriter and key player in The Wall)
  • Jon Carin (compositor and multi-nstrumentist, 1987-1994)
  • Dick Parry The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Division Bell)
  • Alan Parsons Atom Heart Mother and The Dark Side of the Moon)
  • Tim Renwick (guitarrist. 1987-1994)
  • Gary Wallis (Percussion Helper for The Division Bell)
  • Clare Torry (the Great Gig in the Sky)
• Live
  • Scott Page (saxon and guitar for tour A Momentary Lapse of Reason)
  • Snowy White Animals and The Wall)
• Disc design
  • Vic Singh (Photograph of the album cover The Piper at the Gates of Dawn)
  • Hipgnosis (Storm Thorgerson, Aubrey Powell and Peter Christopherson) (showers from various albums in the group)
  • Gerald Scarfe The Wall)

Discography

Studio Albums

• The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967)
• A Saucerful of Secrets (1968)
• Music from the Film More (1969)
• Ummagumma (1969)
• Atom Heart Mother (1970)
• Meddle (1971)
• Obscured by Clouds (1972)
• The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
• Wish You Were Here (1975)
• Animals (1977)
• The Wall (1979)
• The Final Cut (1983)
• A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987)
• The Division Bell (1994)
• The Endless River (2014)