Pink Floyd - where do they fit in?

[shamustwin]

Saw Nick on Jools the other day, don't know if it was a recent show, but he has apparently written a book about PF.

[ozover50]

Got to keep my eye out for that one....... thanks for the tip, Jerry!

[sowhat]

Pink Floyd - where do they fit in?

Not in my music collection, that's for sure.
They were cool, they were great, influental, interesting and thought-provoking, etc, etc, but somehow they make me yawn. Well, with the exception of "Shine on you crazy diamond" — that's the song that almost makes me cry.

[iamthebassman]

Yikes! Have you ever heard "Bike"? What a fun song, you'd be a Floyd fan then.
I believe the Nick Mason book "Inside Out" has been out for a year now, seems like that's how long I've had my copy. Great book but a tuff read as it weighs a ton.
The Floyd is probably my fave band, possibly tied with The Moody Blues, my fave albums are "Piper","Meddle", and "DSOTM".

[sowhat]

Yikes! Have you ever heard "Bike"? What a fun song, you'd be a Floyd fan then.

Me? Yes i did. Didn't help, unfortunately. I'm afraid i'd become a Floyd fan only if it becomes a condition for safe and sound life of my family... They are definitely good, but not for me. Well, in fact, i've once called at a local radio station and asked the DJ to play a Pink Floyd song... in honour of Johnny Rotten's birthday.
Seriously, though, i cannot understand why Pink Floyd doesn't touch me. I mean, there are explicable reasons why i don't like the Beatles, or blues, or some other musical bands/genres; but when it comes to PF, i cannot find a reason in my childhood or teenage years. Not that i dislike them, their music just doesn't touch me no matter how i try...
Um. Sorry, guys.

[captsandwich]

I hated them when I was an angry young punk.
I can take'em or leave'em these days. A few songs I like, a few I can't stand. I appreciate their musicianship and songwriting, but it's just not my thing.

[iamthebassman]

Back in my Punk days(The Stiffs TX '78-'82) I still listened to everything I dug before, just maybe not as often as there was plenty of great stuff out at the time. I do miss those times, being part of the Texas Punk scene was a thrill, now I'm a BOF!

Little known (true) facts:
The Pistols tried to get Syd Barrett to produce their first album but he declined.
The Damned did get PF drummer Nick Mason to produce "Music For Pleasure" in '77.

[leftyguitars]

The Damned did get PF drummer Nick Mason to produce "Music For Pleasure" in '77.

...and I mixed their sound during 2006.

[sowhat]

The Pistols tried to get Syd Barrett to produce their first album but he declined.

Was it before Rotten got his (in)famous t-shirt?

[ozover50]

Not in my music collection, that's for sure.

Oddly enough, Sheena (or perhaps not so) I have absolutely zero punk in my collection...... or anything vagely resembling it! I probably didn't try as hard as you did with PF but I just couldn't (and still can't) come to grips with punk or any of its offshoots. I'm afraid that I find little 'musical value' in it - and that's not a criticism, just me and my tastes in music.

I have been criticized more than once for not being open-minded enough to embrace the many types of music that I don't enjoy but it's as simple as that..... if I don't enjoy it I'm not going to embrace it. Certainly I appreciate that there are many followers of music that doesn't appeal to me and it's great that we have forums like this where we can comment and put our positions and preferences forward and not be caned for it.

No need to be apologetic about it, Sheena........ I'm glad that you at least had a crack at PF. How else are we to decide what we like if we don't at listen once at least?

[sowhat]

I have been criticized more than once for not being open-minded enough to embrace the many types of music that I don't enjoy but it's as simple as that..... if I don't enjoy it I'm not going to embrace it.

So was i ("if you don't listen to such and such, you're stupid/you have no taste/you know nothing about music/your variant"). Especially when it came to the Beatles and the blues. So i can relate. Come to think of it, that was perhaps one of the major reasons why i never got into them.
(but truthfully speaking, i think i have a coupla PF albums on cassettes... somewhere... and i have about all Beatles studio albums as well)

How else are we to decide what we like if we don't at listen once at least?

Well, i've met people who said they didn't need to try "it" (whatever "it" was) to understand it wasn't (good enough) for them. But personally, i agree with you.

[8mileshigher]

Howard --- not quite sure what genre you would call their music. I'm one of those who think Floyd are among the best, and that very few guitarists are in the same league as David Gilmour, for the well constructed, thought provoking and soul-wrenching guitar solo's he has made famous. Comfortably Numb's solo ranking among the best.

DSOTM is, of course, a classic, especially considering that all the special effects etc. were painstakingly created with tape loops, delays and other Analog technology there in the early 1970s --- stuff that digital recording techniques today perform in the blink of an eye.

I think Animals is under-rated and deserves a second listen if anyone hasn't played it in a while. "Pigs Three Different Ones" with Gilmour's several over dubbed guitars (with different tunings) is fantastic.

I am not that much of an enthusiast of some of their later works, after The Wall, when Roger Waters prevented any of the others from contributing to any of the song authorship... and the records became Waters solo projects for all intents and purposes. Of course, to his credit, we should acknowledge that Waters was a Rickenbacker bass player in the early days... so he can't be all bad !

I recently finished reading the Nick Mason book --- I agree it is way too heavy to haul around in your briefcase.... fancy, heavy grade, coated paper and all the pictures. My one observation of the Mason book is that he has intricate, well detailed writings of the tours and concerts of the the last decade --- but the early years are sketchy, and obviously faded from memory or were just lost in a drug-induced haze back in the 60s and 70s. I also thought that Mason was too diplomatic and really avoided going into much detail at all on the big split that occurred between keyboardist Richard Wright and Roger Waters and Wright being kicked out. Mason only gave this subject a brief one or two sentence mention in his whole book. Mason went into a little more details on the Waters-Gilmour row over the years. But all in all, its a pretty good book if you are a Floyd fan.

Mason's book was also interesting reading from the standpoint of one of Brians' subjects in this forum on the "business" side of the music business. Mason's book has some interesting stuff on the amassing and spending of huge sums of money by Floyd with their extravagent stage shows and special effects over the years. On one later-day tour, where they "hired" back Richard Wright as a salaried keyboardist (and not as a member or partner in the enterprise of Pink Floyd) -- he was the only one who made money, because Gilmour and Mason ended up financing the millions of the extravaganza show.

Also there is an interesting DVD out on Floyd about The Making of DSOTM ... some of it is excerpts of the Abbey Road studios takes previously seen in the Directors Cut of Live at Pompeii. But the later-day conversations, remembrances and acoustic performances (seperately) by the gray haired Waters and Gilmore of the classic Dark Side tunes is really pretty good. In fact, the "Special Features" part of this DVD is almost as long as the main program, with so many indepth interviews, explanations and acoustic performances, etc. Good stuff !
Sorry if I babbled on too much here. Regards - Rich F.

[winston]

Great post Rich,

I enjoyed your thoughts on this subject very much.

[shamustwin]

Man I watch a lot of TV. Saw Johnny Rotten speak on the tube the other day and a Pink Floyd shirt was about all he had. He wrote I Hate above it as a joke and it got picked up as a banner for the Punk movement. He implied he didn't hate them at all, but of course it's good press to knock down what came before.

[ozover50]

Yes, Rich...... great post.

I have the DSOTM DVD you mentioned and it is really interesting stuff!

Have you heard Gilmour's solo in 'On The Turning Away' from the 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' album? If not, do yourself a favour and check it out. I think there's a live version on Youtube.