This band is probably one of the most popular progressive bands which come to mind when people are speaking about this genre. Needless to say, Pink Floyd have been a widely recognized band across the globe for generations. This is one of those bands that never fail to capture any generation who listens to music with solemn attention. Throughout their musical journey, people experienced quite unique live shows, their extensive musical content and transcendence, devouring and surprising musical changes.
The beginning of Pink Floyd
The Pink Floyd’s roots go back to the London Polytechnic where Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright were the students of the architecture department. The three of them had already formed other bands with other members over the time. Yet, when they met Syd Barrett who was a student of Cambridge College of Arts, everything changed
Together, they were going through several ideas of names they would like to choose for their new band and finally, they set on Pink Floyd as its name. Prior to the moment, when the name for the band was chosen, they had to perform a gig with another band with same name, which was “Tea set”.
They started out playing club shows where they used to perform all night long with a quite long set lasting for almost four hours. This was the moment they realised they needed to extend the length of the pieces they were performing rather than repeating songs. This realisation started the experimental era.
The birth of progressive rock
Slowly, the musicians began to shift from the blues rhythm-based pace which was popular back in time and change the materials into longer, more eerie-sounding abstract pieces with rudimentary light shows creating a hypnotic atmosphere which had never failed to capture the attention of their audience. Pink Floyd had already coined as a psychedelic band by the top magazines of that time such as Financial Times and Sunday Times.
The band became a real buzz word on the underground music scene. With the record deal from EMI, they set out with their first studio album “The Piper At the Gates of Dawn” in 1967 and they quickly spread out their fame, keeping their album on a six-week span on the UK charts on number 6.
Changes in the band
With the Syd Barret’s unfortunate replacement due to his personal life and a heavy depression, David Gilmour joined the band as the lead guitarist. With Gilmour in the band, they released the album ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ which marked their heavy materials of psychedelic and progressive genres along with the latter three albums such as Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother and Meddle. Although, Atom Heart Mother was heavily criticized by the band.
Their most commercial breakthrough as well as the most crucial musical changes evolved with time and became particularly obvious in such albums as “The Dark Side of The Moon” and “Wish you were here”. In these albums, the band took their mystical magical musical content to the next level. They released one after another awe-striking albums and one psychological dram musical film “The Wall” which created a new dawn on their career capturing wide varieties of audience around the globe.
The Wall
This film is said to be the representation of some of the heaviest depressive moments of the life of Syd Barrett. The most popular song written by Pink Floyd until today known to anyone including the people who have no interest in any rock genres at all is certainly “Another brick in the wall”. This song with its deep lyrics is also the part of the album.
Later on, the conceptual mind of Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters left the band. This moment lead to the new era materials of Pink Floyd. Some of the most notable albums of the band of that period are “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” and “Division Bell”. The albums are filled with a complete new sound and concepts that still get any listener to the core of their feelings and keep in touch with the soul.