It’s satisfying to see a comprehensive assessment of Pink Floyd’s catalog. I roll my eyes every time I have to endure another long-winded spiel on Syd Barrett’s incomparable genius and how Pink Floyd became irrelevant sometime around the ‘68 election. Yes, I enjoy “Astronomy Domine” too and Syd’s erratic, singular talents. Yes, I could probably do without hearing “Learning to Fly” again. But let’s not pretend that Pink Floyd’s multiple identities didn’t each have their own moments of inspired brilliance equal to their paisley and reverb days in Swinging London.

My own band recently undertook the challenge of covering Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. I’ve blogged about the experience for anyone interested in hearing how a longtime Pink Floyd fan re-evaluated his relationship with an old love: http://www.burningdirtyband.com/news.html

Comment by Ben Whitlock from Winchester, VA — February 8, 2008 @ 8:51 am

Those are some very low scores for the band that pioneered so much.  Only a 9 for Piper, from the band that started underground rock in Britain?

Animals is no better than the piece of crap Volta album by Bjork you reviewed? Come on.

An 8 for the Wall, which contained these songs:

Mother
Comfortably Numb
Hey You
Nobody Home
Run Like Hell
Young Lust
Another Brick
Goodbye Blue Sky
In The Flesh
Vera

That’s patently absurd. Find me an album made in the last five years that has as many good songs on it as the ones just mentioned. If someone did release an album in the last five years with that many great song on it, Popmatters would be fawning all over itself proclaiming them the next Jesus of Rock.

Then we have More, which was Kraut Rock before Kraut rock even existed. It’s an excellent experimental mood album, way ahead of it’s time.

Incredibly low scores. This band didn’t get huge because they released a bunch of mediocre albums as you would suggest. You review also failed to mention how important they were in terms of the live concert experience, and what they pioneered, and how many of these albums were forged in a live setting prior to recording.

Piper shold be a 10(come on, it’s the best psych rock record of all time), Saucerful should be an 8, Animals is a 10 (see Pitchfork), More should be an 8, and the Wall without question is a 10.

Your review is so off base, so inaccurate that you even forgot to include Meddle in your album ratings, which is also a 10.

Comment by Eric — February 9, 2008 @ 8:23 am

I enjoyed reading this overview of Pink Floyd’s work, which puts the band’s music into context while being readably succinct. Also, it’s refreshing to see someone write about Floyd without being in the corner of any one band member.

However, I urge the writer of this article to listen again to the band’s two soundtracks.

“Cymballine” from “More” one of the band’s most gorgeous ballads, with a vocal tag that shows David Gilmore’s jazzy side. And “Obscured by Clouds” has “Free Four,” a philosophical Waters song that’s easily as good as anything on the two studio albums that bookend it. It’s also the first song to reference the death of Waters’ own father—something he would return to repeatedly on in later works.

In fact, the bootlegs from around this time (which I recommend getting) show the band working out ideas that were later used for “Dark Side” tracks like “Us and Them.”

Comment by Tony Sclafani — February 11, 2008 @ 10:54 pm