Why Pink Floyd?

I tend to agree with you there, and remember being baffled, and slightly bored, as each new album was played endlessly by fully blissed out Floyd friends.

Although I have somehow ended up with most of their albums, I much prefer the David Gilmour incarnation, or Floyd Lite, as my mates refer to him.

I suppose that we all tended to focus on our particular favourites at the time, in my case, The Stones, Hendrix, and the 'OO.

Sandbags up, tin hat on.................incoming! 

Ah, well since I've been waxing lyrical about Pink Floyd on another thread, here's my two penn'orth.

For me I started with The Wall and went gradually backwards from there. It was a trip through time, ending up in late 60s whimsical psychedelia (the Syd Barrett era which, I confess, has aged badly, at least to my ears...)

That said, and I agree that's it's not consistently good, there are some moments of genius. Try the first side of Atom Heart Mother, written with Ron Geesin. Awesome IMHO.

Wish You Were Here works as a complete album (much like Dark Side before it and the lesser-known Animals, of which I'm particularly fond). Imagine the moment in the Wish You Were Here sessions when Gilmour's playing around and strikes the opening notes to Shine On You Crazy Diamond - 'hang on, lads, I might have something here...'

Anyway, what do I know - I listened non-stop to The Final Cut for ages and ages, and I think it's magnificent - and *everybody* knows that's rubbish. Right?

Anyway, it's back to listening to some scratchy indie guitar stuff for me...

Nick Peacock posted:

"..... there are some moments of genius. Try the first side of Atom Heart Mother, written with Ron Geesin. Awesome IMHO."

When I was at school, every now and again, our music teacher allowed us to bring in albums to listen to in our music class. I was immediately hooked when a class-mate brought in the newly released "Atom Heart Mother" by a group I had only vaguely been aware of and with a distinctly unusual album cover. Atom Heart Mother became one of my first album purchases, and I have loved most of Pink Floyd's music, and the individual music of each of the main contributors (Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and David Gilmour) ever since. Despite it not really being rated by the band members themselves, AHM is still one of my favourite albums.

Although my main musical genre is 'Blues based' acoustic and electric guitar, I find David Gilmour's soaring guitar solos to be absolutely hypnotic. I never tire of hearing them. And for all his neuroses, Roger Water's lyrics and simple melodies are equally hypnotic. I'm just not sure I would want to invite him for dinner, and I've never really forgiven him for causing the band to split up.

My personal favourite albums have been 'Atom Heart Mother', 'Meddle', 'Dark Side of the Moon', 'Wish you were here' and 'The Division Bell', but try also listening to the whimsical Syd Barrett solo albums. They are great fun. It would really have been something if Pink Floyd had been able to evolve with a line up including both Barrett and Gilmour.

My music tastes are pretty eclectic, and I don't listen to the Floyd back catalogue nearly as much as I used to, but if I was pressed to name the band that has given me most listening pleasure over the years, I would be hard put to name any other group. I love the Stones, Zeppelin, Allman Brothers and many, many others, but I would still have to put Floyd at the top of the list.        

When I think about it I just don't 'get' a bunch of other artists that are highly regarded.

Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie immediately pop into my head as being mystifyingly popular to me!

Bruce

Hmack posted:

Nick Peacock posted:

"..... there are some moments of genius. Try the first side of Atom Heart Mother, written with Ron Geesin. Awesome IMHO."

... I'm just not sure I would want to invite him for dinner...

True (ish) story alert. Friends of my parents (older generation, unfamiliar with works of PF)  are sitting at a dinner party with lots of other middle class people. Halfway through, she turns to her left and starts speaking to the nice man next to her. 'And what do you do?' she asks. 'Well, I'm a musician.' 'Really,' she sniffs, 'are you famous?' 'Er, well...' says Roger.

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

When I think about it I just don't 'get' a bunch of other artists that are highly regarded.

Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie immediately pop into my head as being mystifyingly popular to me!

Bruce

For me, Bob Dylan.

*ducks, takes emergency cover*

nickpeacock posted:

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

When I think about it I just don't 'get' a bunch of other artists that are highly regarded.

Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie immediately pop into my head as being mystifyingly popular to me!

Bruce

For me, Bob Dylan.

*ducks, takes emergency cover*

Oh god yes, totally awful!

Bruce

I liked Meddle and Obscured by Clouds, but felt they got too commercial with DSOTM!

another 50 something here, for me and you can't say this of many bands from Meddle to The Wall greatist run of albums - don't listen to them all the time but when you go back and re visit - the Music still comes through

played DSOTM on Sunday - still think it's bench mark - Wish you where here - Animals - really started to play Meddle more but for me is The Wall! - time the place late teens when it came out - saw it live!

know they are releasing albums on Vinyl - but I have them - would love them to do High Res - have Roger Waters The Wall on 24 bit WAV and its stunning!

agree with other comments (early Elton John)  David Bowie Kate Bush Genesis Peter Gabriel are all up there, but for me they are a the top of the tree

I tend to agree on all the above about EJ, BS & DB,  but with a few exceptional individual tracks & probably enough to make up enough for a 50 minute album, never did "get" Dylan tho'..    

Pink Floyd,  maybe better say post Barrett Pink Floyd,  95% agreed with HMACK, Gilmour's guitar solos are hypnotic. but he's only a genius when playing his own style,  he's not good at other genre (blues, jazz etc)  that genius is with Clapton & Beck.  But DG's solo material has been astonishingly good, & his stage performances in many respects are so much better than PF stage performances (I guess modern PA, effects & mixing has a lot to do with that)  His "Live in Gdansk" set is a masterpiece. Walter's lyrics are hypnotic,  but sorry to say he seems to have lost the plot since he's been away from PF, maybe thats what the fallout was all about.  I do play "Amused to Death" when in the right mood, its an outstanding recording,  but the lyrics are hard going.        

Talking lyrics;  Mark Knopfler,  yes he tends to sound musically the same & his solo stuff is a bit down beat,  but just listen to his lyrics, the downbeat music then makes total sense.   Try "So Far From The Clyde",  its a song about breaking up an old ship on a beach scrap yard,  hard to imagine, but the melody & lyrics can bring a lump to your throat. 

Why Pink Floyd ?

Because they embodied the psychedelic experience like no other band. For better or for worse.

I saw them in Montreal (1971, I think) and the combination of the circularity in their music and some very good LSD brought me to the edge of an abyss, possibly the one that Syd Barret never emerged from. Circularity = madness ? That was the association that I barely escaped from at the time.

Three years ago, Adrien Maben was in Montreal to show the remastered version of his Pink Floyd documentary Live in Pompeii, which captured the band at the beginning of their “Golden Age”, as he put it. Viewing the film was a trip once again down the same path of circularity, yet this time, I saw it not as a path to madness but as arriving back home at a safe place. That, I think, was the message of their music at the time. Follow us into this plunge into madness, into space, beyond the conventionalities of the collective hallucination we call reality. Trust us, we’ll take you there, and back. And they did, although Syd never returned.

Bruce, if you haven't seen Live in Pompeii, I would recommend it, as it gives you a good idea of where Pink Floyd were with their music at the time.

Jan

Jan

That is a fantastically eloquent response, thanks to you and others for taking this thread in the right spirit.

Bruce

Thanks Bruce. That's the Pink Floyd I prefer to remember, 

rather than the ones with the flying pig and Nick Mason's drumkit decked out with flashing lights and flame throwers.

Jan-Erik Nordoen posted:

Thanks Bruce. That's the Pink Floyd I prefer to remember, 

rather than the ones with the flying pig and Nick Mason's drumkit decked out with flashing lights and flame throwers.

Alas, Jan, late-40s newcomer/upstart that I am, that's the only era I saw them live (Wembley, 1988)...!

In answer to the question, because it is (mostly) great music, although I don't much care for last year's release of rearranged out-takes.

That you don't get it is simply a matter of personal taste: I don't get jazz, seemingly a beloved genre around here, nor 'pop', rap, C&W, soul, modern classical...   So I don't expect everyone else to get either the psychedelic/prog rock or if they do, the specifics of Floyd.

As for an album to convert you, as they evolved quite a bit it's hard to say,p.  I was hooked by "Saucerful of secrets" back in about 1969 (and it was an impressive piece of music to play on my then brand spanking new home-made hifi system, to friends who had never heard bass before - but that's another story...). I've always particularly liked the title track of Atom Heart Mother, ditto Echoes on The album Meddle - both of those are a full LP side long. DSOTM as a complete album is brilliant, then the next one that really stands out isThe Wall, the excellent music being coupled with a poignant theme that resonates for those of us who experienced similar things, and then The Final Cut, which lyrically was of its day but the themes are no less relevant today. That album also marked their experimentation with holophonics giving a greater spacial depth.  And for me, Roger Waters' Amused to Death is almost an extension of Final Cut, which perhaps is not surprising as FC was effectively a Waters album played by members of the band.

Pink Floyd gets an airing on my system quite regularly, some albums more than others... As for live, I saw them do Atom Heart Mother outdoors at Crystal Palace in 1970/71, then DSOTM, Wish You Were Here and The Wall. 

And the film Live at Pompeii takes me back to playing Ummagumma when I was at school, and taking my copy in to play in the sixth form common room when we all imagined we were free from school to part of the culture that was just happening around us...

I had never even heard of, let alone listened to, Atom Heart Mother before this thread mentioned it several times.

So I will have a listen some time

Bruce

I don't have a philosophical or sophisticated answer.  "I like their music" (from Meddle to The Wall) is my best answer.  My wife does too.  So we listen to them.  And spent exorbitantly to travel to New York to see David Gilmour play a few months ago at Radio City Music Hall.   It was a nice trip -- train down, out to a nice dinner, saw the show, stayed in a nice hotel, and the train back the next day.

I'm sorry Bruce but these sort of threads I see as mini trolls.

So I'll respond anyway, from my point of view why do people spend shed loads of money to listen to Frank Zappa or Miles Davis?

Or insert one (or more) of the 1000's of others available.

PS I like Pink Floyd from album 3 onwards, not too keen on Endless River or the price of the new super rip off 72 CD  set.       

I 'get' that some people don't 'get' Pink Floyd. I'm content that I do. No justification needed.

There are plenty of popular artists and musical genres I don't 'get'. Could list them here but what would be the point? There's no explaining taste, especially when it comes to the arts.

Jan-Erik Nordoen posted:

Why Pink Floyd ?

Because they embodied the psychedelic experience like no other band. For better or for worse.

I saw them in Montreal (1971, I think) and the combination of the circularity in their music and some very good LSD brought me to the edge of an abyss, possibly the one that Syd Barret never emerged from. Circularity = madness ? That was the association that I barely escaped from at the time.

Three years ago, Adrien Maben was in Montreal to show the remastered version of his Pink Floyd documentary Live in Pompeii, which captured the band at the beginning of their “Golden Age”, as he put it. Viewing the film was a trip once again down the same path of circularity, yet this time, I saw it not as a path to madness but as arriving back home at a safe place. That, I think, was the message of their music at the time. Follow us into this plunge into madness, into space, beyond the conventionalities of the collective hallucination we call reality. Trust us, we’ll take you there, and back. And they did, although Syd never returned.

Bruce, if you haven't seen Live in Pompeii, I would recommend it, as it gives you a good idea of where Pink Floyd were with their music at the time.

Jan

 

Syd did make it back out of the fractal dimension and was ready for more creative work with Floyd.. But he was publicly stooged out so later Pink Floyd material could have some interpretive meaning.

Not an attempt at trolling, sorry you think that.

As per most of my threads in the Music room it was about either sharing or finding new music and giving people a chance to share enthusiasms or views-something people seem to do so so willingly in the Forum about black boxes but with such reluctance about the important stuff!

If I said I did not really get the benefit of HiFi racks then I'm sure people would have been free fulsome with the whys and wherefores.

PF inspire such devotion and worship on here so I was interested to explore that.

I've actually picked up a music suggestion that I will follow to listen to an album that I had never even heard of. So result for me, even if I don't end up catching the bug.

Bruce

Bruce,

I've always enjoyed and respected your contributions here. I'd never accuse you of trolling (mini or otherwise), but insert any rock god (Beatles, Stones, Who, LZ) into your title post and some folks could come away with that inclination. It seems a bit difficult to see where a 50-something year-old person would not have been exposed to enough of PF's music in mainstream society not to draw their own line of pursuit, especially given all the online sampling available. Maybe you'll find something with the PF suggestions above, but if you don't, no biggie.

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

If I said I did not really get the benefit of HiFi racks then I'm sure people would have been free fulsome with the whys and wherefores.

Apples and oranges. HiFi racks have a perceptible result on the quality of music replay and there are some mechanics involved. The results can be expressed in objective terms. The 'likability' quality of the music itself is entirely subjective.  

Joe

Appreciate your point but I hardly think appreciation of HiFi performance is anything but 'subjective'.

I like it when people enthuse about music and are brave enough to write about their passions and tastes. It is never right or wrong.

Good music reviews/writing are interesting to me even if I don't like the music.  Lists of album covers don't interest me.

Bruce

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

Good music reviews/writing are interesting to me even if I don't like the music.

Bruce, have a read of some of the reviews posted by Alexis Petridis in The Guardian - there are some absolute classics - thoughtful, provocative, beautifully written (and you may pick up some more music tips to follow through on)! Nick

Thanks Nick

I do read the Grauniad. and enjoy his writing. That paper is a good source of music tips for me, along with Pitchforkmedia and NPR All Songs Considered.

Bruce