Pink Floyd (1 Viewer)

[Marvin]

As others have mentioned, DSotM was much more commercial sounding than their earlier stuff. But a lot of music - especially what was called 'progressive rock' - that was commercially popular in the early to mid-70s wouldn't be popular now except on "classic rock" (hate that term) radio stations. But I don't think you'd call that progress. Maybe in 30 years people will wonder how someone like M&M could have been popular in the early 2000's.

And if you think Pink Floyd was 'stoner' music, wait until you start listening to the Grateful Dead.

 

[Gary->dee]

I started listening to Pink Floyd late myself. I'm 33 now and when they were in their prime with Dark Side, Wish, Animals, and The Wall, I was into ABBA, disco, and other forms of pop music. My older sister listened to Floyd and Zeppelin and I couldn't get into it I guess because of how young I was. I'd heard the actual song The Wall on the radio a few times and sure the "we don't need no education" theme was familiar and I grew up in Australia so I could relate to some of the themes of superiority and inferiority in a strict school environment, but I knew Floyd was out of my league so I didn't try to get into their music then. Besides, there was too much other stuff going on. After I went through my hip hop phase, which began in '79 and ended around '97, I started to get more into classic rock like The Doors, Steely Dan, Floyd and Zeppelin.

I was blown away by what I was listening to: real music.

It began to dawn on me what I was missing or at least what my sister and millions of others around the world were getting that I didn't back when the albums first came out. The production values are amazing. After listening to hip hop for so many years I wanted to get to rock'n roll and I threw myself into bands like Floyd and Zeppelin, but Floyd in particular. I knew Floyd had a unique rock sound and I wanted to fully explore it so I started to getting their huge 70's albums such as Dark Side through to The Wall. I ate it up like a starving anorexic suddenly seeing the light. Yeah it's stoner music but it's more than that. It's fantastic, very well-produced rock'n roll on the same order as The Beatles, who I'm still in the process of exploring. Simply put, Floyd is Grade A rock'n roll, only perhaps surpassed by The Beatles and Zeppelin. Their music is timeless.

Now I've gone back and started to explore the earlier Floyd albums like Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which I don't really care for except for the song Bike. I picked up the Relics CD which features a lot of their early stuff and I absolutely love it. I also have More which I also like a lot and Obscured By Clouds which, considering is the album right before Dark Side, is a friggin' amazing album. I love listening to the evolution of Floyd from the early 60's psychadelic London times with Syd Barrett to the droll and dour conclusion of Waters' war themes. It's utterly fascinating in terms of musical scope.

I hope to also eventually explore Syd and Roger's solo albums.

Most of their songs are complicated, dark, and depressing.

Have you heard any of todays so-called rock'n roll or whatever the hell they call it? It's essentially loud noise with a lot of screaming. I'm probably showing my age but I'll take music I can at least understand and appreciate over a lot noise with no style and f'ed up looking kids calling themselves punk rockers. It's really laughable what serves as punk rock these days. I was wearing my yellow sneaks, some jeans, a cut-off black T-shirt and I have long straight hair and someone said I looked like a punk rocker. I thought WTF? A punk rocker is someone with spike hair, mohawk, chains, tats, etc to me. And then my young cousin says she wants to be a in a punk band and I'm thinking 'oh geez'. Sorry I started getting into rant mode there for a second.

Anyway, yes Floyd rules.

 

[JordanS]

I should clarify that in my posting of this thread, I am referring to Pink Floyd from Meddle through The Division Bell.

 

[Carl Miller]

I think one of the things that make Floyd so popular is that no other band has ever sounded quite like them.

I was only 9 when DSOTM came out, and I guess I grew up in the middle of the corporate rock rage. What I remember most about getting into Floyd as a teenager is that if you wanted to hear something that sounded like Pink Floyd, you had to put Pink Floyd on the turntable.

For almost every other type of music back then, like arena rock, disco, new wave, harder stuff, brit invasion etc, you had a lot of choices. For something like Floyd, you only had Floyd.

Far as them being Stoner music, no question about it. But when they played at the Fillmore in San Francisco in the late 60's, they were known as an Acid Rock band, along with a few other bands that were especially good to trip out to like Jefferson Airplane...And they were often called Acid Rock throughout much of the 70's. I don't know where or when they became a Prog Rock band.

I saw Floyd on the Wall tour....No doubt there was plenty of pot smoking going on, but no more so than any of the other bands of the time. There really was very little difference in the level of pot smoking at concerts in the late 70's and you'd find just as many people getting high at a Floyd show as you would at a Styx concert.

Outside of an arena though, there's no question more people got high listening to DSOTM than they did listening to Boston or other arena bands.

And for whatever it's worth, the concert with the most drug use going on that I've ever seen is the Allman Brothers, hands down.

 

[Thomas_Berg]

Have you heard any of todays so-called rock'n roll or whatever the hell they call it? It's essentially loud noise with a lot of screaming. I'm probably showing my age but I'll take music I can at least understand and appreciate over a lot noise with no style and f'ed up looking kids calling themselves punk rockers. It's really laughable what serves as punk rock these days. I was wearing my yellow sneaks, some jeans, a cut-off black T-shirt and I have long straight hair and someone said I looked like a punk rocker. I thought WTF? A punk rocker is someone with spike hair, mohawk, chains, tats, etc to me.

just as there was Floyd to balance out disco and pop back in the 70's, today there is still some great music to balance out all the utter shit that calls itself 'mainstream'. the entire progressive rock genre is full of fantastic music. some noteworthy rock bands of today are Radiohead, Tool, A Perfect Circle, Dream Theater, Opeth (particularly the 'damnation' album), and Dredg.

yes, Floyd rocks (they are among my favorites of all-time), but please understand there's still some fantastic music being created by non-mainstream artists.

 

[Gary->dee]

Hey there's always good music being made somewhere in the world, I'm aware of that. But I don't see it being exposed much compared to the corporate crap bands that Pink Floyd foresaw a very long time ago. They knew where rock was headed which is how they can turn around and make an album like The Wall.
A lot of today's bands are banging their heads against the wall, intentionally and they like the pain but they also think it qualifies as entertainment. It's beyond me for sure I'll admit, but I know what I like.

 

[John Wes]

Huummm...stoner...well yes at first the psychdelic thing..acid probably more than pot..but the original premise of the band and to the last concert was/is to be a visual audio experience....not a lot of bands like that.

Another thing that's unusual about the band..they have been discribed as an enigma..why? It was alluded to earlier. Ever seen a pic of them on an album other than UmmaGumma?

Dark Side has this perception also of the band getting high and trying to duplicate that acid feel to record...simply not true. The fact is when they started recording it..they had a bottle of wiskey...when they finished, there was a third left...another fact..they worked their butts off. Sometimes as long as 18 hour days...(Except for soccer days) and even then..Alan Parsons never rested much......


One of my favorite stories about them..when Waters was asked about "A Momentary Laspe of Reason" ..he quipped.."It's a pretty fair forgery." lol


Another great story is how the idea for The Wall, came about.....you spit in one fans face and create a monster...

 

[Marvin]

Another thing that's unusual about the band..they have been discribed as an enigma..why? It was alluded to earlier. Ever seen a pic of them on an album other than UmmaGumma?

Yeah..on the inside of the Meddle LP, at least the British version (had a soft cover). Are they pictured on the inside of the US release of that album?

Also on 'A Nice Pair'; does that one count? And the DSotM LP had a poster with pictures of the group.

 

[KevinJ]

another good band to check out[kind've pink floydish]is porcupine tree

 

[Jordan_E]

I was a senior in high school when THE WALL was released and our school wouldn't allow 'Another Brick in the Wall, part 2' to be played on school property (the student parking lot) because of the line "we don't need no education." Ah, memories! Of course, we all cranked it!

 

[Ron Etaylor]

Don't underestimate the growing popularity of car stereos around the time of DSOTM. Cool sound effects, and swirly keyboards all around the car sold a lot of Floyd. Being a Floyd fan also had a certain cache for many years--i.e., if you were a fan you were cool, and probably wouldn't object to sharing a joint in the car, where you could listen to Pink Floyd

 

[Jeremiah]

If you guys think Pink Floyd is "stoner" music, you obviously haven't a clue to what you are talking about.

It is "stoner" music but it is also LSD music, which is what I assume you are talking about.

Pink Floyd obviously is great to listen to being sober, or drunk, and it is better stoned than being either of the first two. I am not a huge fan of Pink Floyd on LSD though, it is just too slow of a pace.

It is odd that they are so comercialy popular but if they came out today would they still be? Or was it just the continuation of their late 60's fame? Their lyrics are dark and their sound is one of a kind; great, great band.

 

[Gary->dee]

It is "stoner" music but it is also LSD music

I classify the very early years as Floyd's acid years as they made their mark in the late 60's London that eventually all but left founding member Syd Barrett out of the loop because of his trips. Once Waters started playing leader it morphed into pot smoking music climaxing with Dark Side, which eventually lead to the cocaine and big corporate music machines of Wish You Were Here, the laughter and realization of Animals and finally the heroin and isolation of The Wall.

That's essentially how I equate Pink Floyd to drugs. But their music supercedes any intoxicating substances because their music is the purest drug of all.

wa-wa-wa-waaaaa...

 

[Ken Stuart]

I am 31, and have only recently delved into their work. I was too young to be there during this period. I barely remember The Wall. I never got into their music at the time, because I always thought it was "stoner music".

In the 1970s, almost the entire music industry were "stoners" (to some degree), and most of what we now call the "media" as well.

Supposedly, the Allman Brothers got stoned in the White House in the late 1970's (this may not be true, but just the fact that it is plausible tells you something).

It was not unusual in the 1970's at concerts to not be able to see the stage clearly due to all the smoke.

The 1980 election brought a sea change. During the 70's, such things could be depicted in the media as cool and hip, and in the 1980's, suddenly the message the media was required to dispense was "just say no".