With Timeless Rock Records, Pink Floyd is Still Here by Alexis Andrews - December 16, 2008 Pink Floyd I have been listening to a lot of Pink Floyd lately – in particular, Wish You Were Here, the Pink Floyd record that was released in 1975 as the title track to the progressive rock album of the same name. To me, it’s the ultimate quarter-life crisis soundtrack. I love the lyrics: “We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year, running over the same old ground.” No one ever writes songs like Pink Floyd anymore, or so I think, which should explain why, more than thirty years later, the band continues to shine on – with over 210 million albums sold worldwide. The band also has endured tough times and major tragedies to become one of the most storied musical acts in history. When it started out in 1965, Pink Floyd was recognized initially for its psychedelic and space rock music, and they were known for a unique, sometimes discordant sound that tinkered with electronics and special effects and pushed the boundaries of musical creativity. The original members of the band were Nick Mason, Roger Waters, Rick Wright, Bob Klose, and Syd Barrett, Barrett being the one who would eventually be replaced by David Gilmour. When Barrett was replaced because of his erratic behavior (drug-related), Pink Floyd evolved to become one of the major progressive rock bands of the time, releasing such albums as Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. With these albums, Pink Floyd was considered to have broken new ground, combining psychedelic elements with classical traditions to form a new brand of music and showing a lyrical vision that was very ambitious, very philosophical, and very poetic. Many music scholars agree that as time went on, Pink Floyd records became harder and harder to classify. Dark Side of the Moon may have been the most commercially successful Pink Floyd album ever, having stayed an astounding 741 weeks at the Billboard albums chart, but my favorite is the follow-up to that: Wish You Were Here. It was released in 1975 by EMI and Harvest in the UK, and Columbia and Capitol in the US, where by then the band had become a well-known progressive rock band. They were blurring common song structures and weren’t being driven by the idea of hit singles; instead they played around with symphonic elements to create longer forms – such as suites – while composing. At the time it was released the critics didn’t exactly give Wish You Were Here glowing reviews, but later on it came to be regarded as one of the greatest Pink Floyd albums of all time. (It was number one in a list of 200 Greatest Albums of All Time by WDR 2, a major radio station in Germany, as well as in Slitz Magazine’s best produced rock album ever.) And rightly so, I say. Wish You Were Here captures what Pink Floyd is all about. It exposed and reinforced the band’s jazz influences, with extended saxophone solos fused brilliantly with incidental sound effects, atmospheric keyboards, guitar-based blues, and synthesized instruments. More importantly, the Pink Floyd album ushered in a new wave of musical innovation – one that’s more eclectic, ambitious, and grandiose. Having taken those risks, it’s no wonder they’re still here – shining on like a crazy Diamond.  Subscribe to Latest Articles

1 Response

Alexis Andrews March 1, 2009 11:45 AM Pink Floyd is the most insane music out there, especially for the time period, they are way ahead of their time, with their studio albums and audio/visual light shows people will be talking about them long after were all gone.

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