Pink Floyd(Pink Floyd) is a British progressive/psychedelic rock band from Cambridge. Known for its philosophical lyrics, acoustic experiments, album art innovations and grandiose shows. It is one of the most successful in rock music, is in seventh place in the world in terms of the number of albums sold. Was founded in 1966, last album (" The Division Bell") and the tour took place in 1994. The last performance was in July 2005.
The name "Pink Floyd" came about after a series of renamings of the bands "Sigma 6", "T-Set", "Meggadeaths", "The Screaming Abdabs", "The Architectural Abdabs" and "The Abdabs". Moreover, at first the group was called "The Pink Floyd Sound", and only then simply "The Pink Floyd", (in honor of two blues musicians from Georgia - Pink Anderson (Pink Anderson) and Floyd Council (Floyd Council)). The definite article "The" was dropped from the title by the time the band's first record was released.
The first Pink Floyd line-up included London Architectural Institute classmates Richard Wright (keyboards, vocals), Roger Waters (bass guitar, vocals) and Nick Mason (drums) and their Cambridge friend Syd Barrett(vocals, guitar). At the beginning of its work, Pink Floyd was reworking rhythm and blues hits such as "Louie, Louie" ("Louie, Louie"). The band formed Blackhill Enterprises, a six-party business venture that included four musicians and their managers, Peter Jenner and Andrew King.
Released in August 1967, the group's debut album " The Piper at the Gates of Dawn"("The Piper at the Gates of Dawn") is considered the finest example of English psychedelic music. The tracks on this record showcase an eclectic musical mix, from the avant-garde "Interstellar Overdrive" ("Interstellar Overdrive") to the whimsical "Scarecrow" ("Scarecrow") , a melancholy song inspired by the rural landscapes surrounding Cambridge, the album was a success, reaching number six in the UK.
However, not all members of Pink Floyd ( Pink Floyd) withstood the burden of success that fell on them. Drug use and constant performances broke the band's leader Syd Barrett. His behavior became more and more unbearable, nervous breakdowns and psychoses were repeated more and more often, infuriating the rest of the group (especially Roger). It happened more than once that Sid just "turned off", "withdrew into himself" right at the concert. In January 1968, Roger and Syd's longtime guitarist David Gilmour joined the band to replace Barrett. However, it was planned that Syd, although not performing, would continue to write songs for the band. Unfortunately, nothing came of this venture.
In April 1968, Barrett's "retirement" was formalized, but Jenner and King decided to stay with him. The six-party Blackhill Enterprises has gone out of business.
Despite the fact that Barrett wrote most of the material for the first album, for the second album " A Saucerful of Secrets"(" A saucer full of secrets "), released in June 1968, he composed only one song in its entirety, "Jugband Blues" ("Blues for a noise orchestra"). "A Saucerful of Secrets" reached ninth place in the UK.
After writing the soundtrack for the film " More("More") directed by Barbet Schroeder, in the same year, 1969, the album "Ummagumma" was released, partly recorded in Birmingham, partly in Manchester. It was a double album, the first disc of which was the first (and for almost twenty years the only official ) by recording a live performance of the group, and the second was evenly divided into four parts, according to the number of members of the group, and each of them recorded, in fact, his own mini-solo album. The album became the highest achievement of the group at that time. It took the fifth position in the British chart and hit the US hit list at number seventy.
In 1970, the album " Atom Heart Mother"(" Atom, Heart, Mother ") and took first place in the UK. The Pink Floyd group (Pink Floyd) grew musically, and now a choir and a symphony orchestra were needed to implement the ideas. The complicated arrangement required the involvement of an outside specialist, which became Ron Geesin He wrote the intro to the title track, as well as the album's orchestration.
A year later, in 1971, came out " Meddle"(" Intervention ") is practically a twin of the previous one (in the form and length of the songs, but not in music, except perhaps without an orchestra and choir). The second side of the disc was reserved for a 23-minute "epic sound poem" (as Waters called it ) called "Echoes" ("Echo"), where the group first used 16-track tape recorders to replace the four-channel and eight-channel equipment that was used on "Atom Heart Mother", as well as the Zinoviev VCS3 synthesizer.
The album also included "One of These Days", a Pink Floyd live classic, where drummer Nick Mason promised in a terribly distorted voice to "cut you into little pieces" ("One of these days, I"m going to cut you into little pieces" ), the light and carefree "Fearless" and "San Tropez" and the mischievous and hooligan "Seamus" (Seamus is the dog's nickname), where a Russian greyhound was invited to the vocal part. "Meddle" took third place in the British hit parade.
A lesser known album by the group was released in 1972 under the title " Obscured by Clouds"("Hidden in the Clouds"), as the soundtrack to the movie Barbet Schroeder" La Vallee"(The Valley). The album is one of Nick Mason's favorites. Only 46th place in the US Top 50 and sixth place at home.
1973 album" The Dark Side of the Moon"("The Other Side of the Moon") became a high point for the group. It was a conceptual work, that is, the album was not just a collection of songs on one disc, but a work imbued with a single, connecting idea of the pressure of the modern world on the human psyche.
The idea was a powerful catalyst for the band's creativity and together its members compiled a list of themes revealed in the album: the composition "On The Run" ("On the run") told about paranoia; "Time" ("Time") described the approach of old age and the senseless waste of life; "The Great Gig In The Sky" ("The Show in Heaven", originally called "Mortality Sequence" - "Death Series") and "Religious Theme" ("Religious Theme") are about death and religion; "Money" is about money that comes with fame and takes over a person; "Us And Them" ("We and them") speaks of conflicts within society; "Brain Damage" is about insanity. Thanks to the use of new 16-track recording equipment at Abbey Road Studios, almost nine months (a fantastically long time for that time!) to record, and the efforts of sound engineer Alan Parsons, the album turned out to be unprecedented and entered the recording treasure trove of all time.
The single "Money" hit the US Top 20, and the album became N1 (only N2 in the UK) and remained on the US Top 200 for 741 weeks, including 591 consecutive weeks from 1973 to 1988, and several times in first place. The album broke many records and became one of the best selling albums of all time.
"Wish You Were Here("Wish You Were Here") was released in 1975 and features alienation as the title theme. In addition to the classic Pink Floyd title track, the album includes the critically acclaimed track "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" ("Shine Mad Diamond"), dedicated to Syd Barrett and his mental breakdown. In addition, the album includes "Welcome to the Machine" ("Welcome to the machine") and "Have a Cigar" ("Light a cigar"), dedicated to the soulless The album was number one in the UK and number two in America.
By the time the album was released animals" ("Animals") in January 1977, the music of Pink Floyd (Pink Floyd) began to be increasingly criticized by the emerging direction of punk rock for being excessively "weakness" and arrogance, moving away from the simplicity of early rock and roll. The album contained three long main songs and two short ones that complement their content.The concept of the album was close to the meaning of George Orwell's book Animal Farm.The album uses dogs, pigs and sheep as metaphors to describe or denounce members of modern society.The music of "Animals" is much more based on the use of guitars than previous albums, possibly due to the growing tension between Waters and Richard Wright, who did not contribute much to the album.
Rock opera " The Wall("The Wall") was created almost entirely by Roger Waters and once again received an enthusiastic reception from the fans. The single from this album is "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II" ("Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2") Pedagogy and Education, hit No. 1 on the Christmas Singles Chart in the UK In addition to No. 3 in the UK, "The Wall" spent 15 weeks on the US Singles Chart during 1980.
The album became very expensive in the process of writing and brought in a lot of expenses due to the massive shows, but the record sales brought the band out of the financial crisis they were in. While working on the album, Waters expanded his influence and strengthened his leadership role in the group, giving rise to constant conflicts in it. For example, Waters tried to persuade the band members to fire Richard Wright, who had little to no involvement with the album. Wright eventually took part in several concerts, for a fixed fee.
Ironically, Richard was the only one who managed to make any money from these shows, as the rest of the band had to cover the exorbitant costs of the show" The Wall The Wall was co-produced by Bob Ezrin, a friend of Roger Waters who co-wrote the song "The Trial". Waters later kicked him out of the Pink Floyd camp after Ezrin inadvertently spoke to a journalist relative about the album The Wall remained on the best-selling album list for 14 years.
In 1982, a feature-length film based on the album, Pink Floyd The Wall, was made. Bob Geldof, founder of the Boomtown Rats and future organizer of the Live Aid and Live 8 festivals, starred as rock star Pink. The film was written by Waters, directed by Alan Parker, and animated by acclaimed cartoonist Gerald Scarfe.
The film can be called provocative, since one of the main ideas was a protest against established ideals and the English passion for order. Also, the film was a certain manifesto in defense of rockers. After all, as you know, in the 1970s, a person could be arrested only because he was wearing torn jeans or because he had a mohawk on his head. The movie "The Wall" does not directly show any of the problems. The whole film is woven from allegories and symbols, for example, faceless teenagers who, one by one, fall into a meat grinder and turn into a homogeneous mass.
The making of the film was accompanied by a further deterioration in the relationship between the two most powerful personalities of the group: Waters and Gilmour.
In 1983, the album " The Final Cut(The Final Cut or Mortal Wound) subtitled Pink Floyd's Requiem for Roger Waters' Post-War Dream. were relevant, and remain so to this day.
This included Waters' dissatisfaction and anger at the fact that Britain is involved in the Falklands conflict - the composition "The Fletcher Memorial Home" ("Fletcher's Memorial House"), where Fletcher - Waters' father - Eric Fletcher. The theme of the track "Two Suns in the Sunset" ("Two Suns at sunset") is the fear of nuclear war. Wright's absence from the recording of the album led to some lack of keyboard effects characteristic of Pink Floyd's previous works, although guest musicians Michael Kamen (Michael Kamen, piano and harmonium) and Andy Bone (Andy Bown, musician of the group " Status Quo") have made some contributions as keyboardists.
Among the musicians of the group " Pink Floyd tenor saxophonist Raphael Ravenscroft was featured on "The Final Cut". went platinum upon release.
The most hit songs according to radio stations were "Gunner's Dream" ("Artilleryman's Dream") and "Not Now John" ("Not now, John"). Friction between Waters and Gilmour during the recording of the album was so strong that they never did not appear in the recording studio at the same time.The band did not tour with this album.Waters soon officially announced his departure from the group.
After "The Final Cut", the members of the band went their separate ways, releasing solo albums until 1987, when Gilmour and Mason began recreating Pink Floyd. This gave rise to heated legal disputes with Roger Waters, who, after leaving the group in 1985, decided that the group could not exist without him anyway. However, Gilmour and Mason managed to prove that they had the right to continue their musical activity as a group" Pink Floyd". Waters at the same time retained some of the traditional imagery created by the group, including most of the props and characters from " Walls"and all rights to" The Final Cut".
As a result, Pink Floyd, led by David Gilmour, returned to the studio with producer Bob Ezrin. While working on the band's new album titled " A Momentary Lapse of Reason" ("Short-term loss of sanity", N3 both in the UK and in the USA) Richard Wright joined the band, first as a session musician with a weekly payment for his work, then as a full-fledged member until 1994. This year the last work of the Floydists was released " The Division Bell("The Bell of Separation", N1 in the UK and US) and the subsequent tour, which became the most profitable in the history of rock music to date.
All members of the group have released their own solo albums, reaching varying levels of popularity and commercial success. "Amused to Death" by Roger Waters was most warmly received by the public, but was still met with mixed reviews from critics.
Pink Floyd hasn't released any studio material and there aren't plans to release any in the near future. The only results of the group's work were the 1995 live album " PULSE"("Pulse"), live recording of "The Wall" compiled from 1980 and 1981 concerts" Is There Anybody Out There? - The Wall Live 1980–81("Is Anyone Outside? The Wall Live, 1980–81") in 2000; a two-disc set containing the band's biggest hits" echoes("Echo") in 2001; a 30th anniversary re-release of "Dark Side of the Moon" in 2003 (remixed by James Guthrie in SACD); a re-release of "The Final Cut" in 2004 with the added single "When the Tigers Broke Free" ("When the tigers broke free").
Album " echoes caused a lot of controversy due to the fact that the songs flow into each other in a different order than on the original albums, significant parts are torn out of some, and also because of the very sequence of songs, which, in the opinion of fans, is not subject to logic.
David Gilmour in November 2002 released a DVD of his solo concert " David Gilmour in Concert("David Gilmour in Concert"). It was compiled from recordings of the show from June 22, 2001 to January 17, 2002 at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Richard Wright and Bob Geldof were invited to the stage as guests .
Due to the fact that the members of the group are mostly engaged in their own projects - for example, Mason wrote the book "Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd" (" Inside Out: The Story of Pink Floyd's Identity"), due to the death of Steve O "Rourke (Steve O" Rourke) October 30, 2003 - the band's manager for many years, due to the solo project of David Gilmour (album On an Island and the concert tour of the same name) - the future of the group is unclear .
Although on July 2, 2005, putting past differences aside for one evening, Pink Floyd performed in their classic line-up (Waters, Gilmour, Mason, Wright) at the Live 8 worldwide show dedicated to the fight against poverty.
The Pink Floyds are known, among other things, for their incredible performances, combining visuals and music, creating a show in which the musicians themselves practically fade into the background. In their early days, the Pink Floyds were practically the first group to use special light show equipment in their performances - slides and video clips projected onto a large round screen.
Later, lasers, pyrotechnics, balloons and figures were used (the most notable of these is the huge inflatable pig that first appeared on the album " animals").
The largest performance on stage was associated with the album " The Wall", where several session musicians played the first song in rubber masks (showing that the members of the group are unknown as individuals); then, during the first part of the show, workers gradually built a huge wall of cardboard boxes between the audience and the group, on which cartoons of Gerald Scarfe were then projected , and at the end of the performance, the wall collapsed.
This show was later recreated by Waters with the help of many guest musicians, including Bryan Adams, the Scorpions and Van Morison, in 1990 amidst the ruins of the Berlin Wall.
Pink Floyd, English rock band. Formed in 1965 in London. The backbone of the group was made up of classmates at the Cambridge school Sid Barrett (real name Roger Keith Barrett, Roger Keith Barrett; b. January 6, 1946; guitar, vocals) and Roger Waters (Roger Waters; b. September 6, 1944; guitar, vocals).
In 1965, the first performance of a group called Pink Floyd took place along with drummer Nick Mason (Nick Mason; b. January 27, 1945) and keyboardist Rick Wright (Rick Wright; b. July 28, 1945 - September 5, 2008). The name was borrowed from blues musicians from Georgia, whose names were Pink Anderson and Floyd Counsel. Pink Floyd's performance at the opening of the London underground organ The International Times on October 15, 1966 can be considered a real debut.
The performance of Pink Floyd attracted not only bizarre melodies, but also unusual lyrics. The song "Arnold Lane," for example, was about a transvestite who stole women's clothes from clotheslines. Despite the BBC's ban on broadcasting this song, it entered the top twenty of the top 20 English singles. Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (August 5, 1967) was a pioneering album in the field of rock music - a mysterious "cosmic" music with a variety of effects and tension-inducing guitar solos, which reflected the state of mind of a person in the modern world.
The music and lyrics written by Barrett captured their almost apocalyptic cosmism, and each of his performances was on the verge of real and otherworldly. There was a danger of a shift in his psyche, which had already been broken by the constant use of LSD. In order to keep Barrett as a songwriter, he was asked to forego performances during the grueling tours and focus only on creativity. To do this, in February 1968, Waters' longtime friend David Gilmour (David Gilmour; b. March 6, 1947; guitar, vocals) was introduced into the group, but Barrett rejected this offer and left the team in April, starting his own solo career, which turned out to be very short.
Despite the fact that the Pink Floyd group lost its leader, the musicians released the next album "A Saucerful Of Secrets" (June 29, 1968), which included only one song by Barrett. The other two - "A Saucerful Of Secrets" and "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" - have become indispensable participants in Pink Floyd's live concerts. 
With this album, a long period of art-rock creativity of the group began (Pink Floyd's music until 1973 can be qualified as psychedelic art-rock).
With the arrival of Gilmour, the group became less "weird", but more efficient. The musicians began to release at least one album a year: "More" (July 27, 1969) and "Ummagumma" (October 25, 1969), the soundtrack to the film by M. Antonioni "Zabriskie Point" (March 1970) and "Atom Heart Mother" (October 10 1970), "Meddle" (30 October 1971), "Obscured By Clouds" (03 June 1972). The soundtracks of the albums were filled with multipart compositions, different styles of exercises, electronic experiments... Philosophically, the band's music tried to embrace the entire universe in all its perfection and disharmony at the same time. Popularity grew by leaps and bounds: in 1969, a group concert took place in London, which gathered 100,000 spectators. Another important event in the life of Pink Floyd was a performance in the crater of a volcano near Pompeii (1971), which was recorded on tape and released as a concert film.
In the 1970s the group reached the peak of popularity and skill. One of the most famous albums "Dark Side Of The Moon" (March 24, 1973) became a truly bestseller in the history of rock music (more than 30 million copies were officially sold). It was during the recording of this album that the talent of the lyricist Waters and the unsurpassed skill of the guitarist Gilmour truly manifested themselves. The album is a whole story about a person's life on this earth: birth ("Breathe"), entry into modern life and acquaintance with its basic values ("Time" and "Money") and, finally, the gradual loss of reason and departure to the "dark side of the moon" ("Brain Damage" and "Eclipse").
1975 was the year of the zenith of fame for the group. The song "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (dedicated to Syd Barrett) from the new album "Wish You Were Here" (September 15, 1975) was unanimously recognized as a masterpiece, and the album itself set a record for staying on the charts. Also very strong was the work of Pink Floyd - "Animals" (January 23, 1977), composed based on the story-parable of J. Orwell's "Animal Farm". The album uses dogs, pigs and sheep as metaphors to describe or denounce members of modern society. The Animals' music is significantly more guitar-based than previous albums, possibly due to the growing tension between Waters and Richard Wright, who did not contribute much to the album.
In 1978, Wright and Gilmour released their solo albums, and rumors arose that the group might break up. But in 1979, Pink Floyd recorded his, one might say, cult album in the genre of rock opera "The Wall" (November 30, 1979), which was second only to the album "Dark Side Of The Moon" in sales. The rock opera "The Wall" was created almost entirely by Roger Waters and received an enthusiastic reception from the public. The song from this album "Another Brick In The Wall", which sharply exposes the education system, became a number one hit. 
The Wall remained on the best-selling album list for 14 years.
In 1982, film director Alan Parker created a wonderful film of the same name based on this work (famous rock musician Bob Geldof starred as Pink). The film can be called provocative, since one of the main ideas was a protest against established ideals and the English passion for order. Also, the film was a certain manifesto in defense of rockers. None of the problems are directly shown in The Wall. The whole film is woven from allegories and symbols, for example, faceless teenagers who, one by one, fall into a meat grinder and turn into a homogeneous mass.
In 1979, due to disagreements with Waters, the excellent keyboardist Wright left the band. Relations between the group members did not improve. When asked why the musicians are still together, Gilmour, not without black humor, replied: "Because we have not figured out each other yet." The album The Final Cut (March 21, 1983), dedicated to the problems of modern politics, went almost unnoticed, and only the single "Not Now John" entered the top thirty. In 1984, Waters decided to start a solo career, followed by Mason and Gilmour, but none of these musicians could even come close to the achievements of their joint performances. Roger Waters' album Amused to Death received the greatest success.
In 1987, Mason and Gilmour, who sued Waters in a lengthy litigation for the right to the name of the group, decided to return to the banner of Pink Floyd; Wright followed suit. Soon, many months of tours abroad took place. The Pink Floyd reunion resulted in the release of three albums: A Momentary Lapse of Reason (September 08, 1987), Delicate Sounds Of Thunder (November 22, 1988) and Division Bell (March 30, 1994).
Pink Floyd hasn't released studio material since 1994. The band's only results were the 1995 live album P*U*L*S*E (June 1995); live recording of "The Wall" compiled from the 1980 and 1981 concerts "Is There Anybody out There? The Wall Live 1980-81" ("Is anyone out there? The Wall Live, 1980-81") in March 2000; a two-disc set containing the band's biggest hits "Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd" (November 05, 2001); the album's 30th anniversary re-release of "Dark Side of the Moon" in 2003 (remixed by James Guthrie in SACD); reissue of "The Final Cut" (March 22, 2004) with the added single "When the Tigers Broke Free" ("When the tigers broke free"); reissue of the band's debut album in mono and stereo, with added songs, some of which have never been released before; anniversary box set "Oh By The Way" (December 04, 2007; "By the way"), 
includes reproductions of all the band's studio albums as mini-vinyls.
On July 2, 2005, putting past differences aside for one evening, Pink Floyd performed for the last time in their classic line-up (Waters, Gilmour, Mason, Wright) at the worldwide Live 8 show dedicated to the fight against poverty. This performance temporarily increased sales of Pink Floyd's album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd by 1343%. Gilmour donated all proceeds to charities, reflecting Live 8's goals.
After the Live 8 concert, Pink Floyd was offered £150 million for a US tour, but the offer was turned down by the band. David Gilmour later admitted that by agreeing to perform on Live 8, he didn't let the band's story end on a "false note."
The members of the group are mostly engaged in their own projects - for example, Mason wrote the book "Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd" ("Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd"), David Gilmour - solo work, the result is the album "On an Island ” and the concert tour of the same name. The group's manager, for many years, Steve O'Rourke - died on October 30, 2003, five years later, on September 15, 2008, Richard Wright died.
David Gilmour and Roger Waters performed together at a charity event on July 10, 2010 benefiting The Hoping Foundation. The organizer of the charity evening held Bella Freud (Bella Freud) shared her impressions about the main result of this event - the reunion of David Gilmour and Roger Waters. “David came first, followed by Roger, and I saw Roger take David into his arms. This was great!" Bella said.
In 1965, a new group appeared on the world musical horizon - Pink Floyd. It was founded by students of the Faculty of Architecture of the London Polytechnic, four rock enthusiasts: Roger Waters (vocals and bass guitar), Richard Wright (vocals and keyboards), Nick Mason (drums) and Syd Barrett (vocals and slide guitar). In 1968, when Barrett left the band, he was replaced by David Gilmour, a well-trained guitarist who also had vocal abilities.
From birth to collapse
The acknowledged head of the group musically and administratively was Roger Waters, a natural leader and talented poet. From 1973 to 1984 he single-handedly wrote the lyrics and was the main author of the most recognized album - The Wall. Three significant events occurred for "Pink Floyd" in 1994, when the penultimate disc The Division Bell was released, the last tour and the unofficial breakup of the group took place. In their classic line-up, the Pink Floyd group took the stage in the summer of 2005, at the Live 8 concert, for the last time.
A bit of history
And they met at the architectural department of the University of Westminster in London. There already existed a group organized by students Clive Metcalfe and Keith Nomble. We started playing with four, it turned out well. Richard Wright then joined the quartet. The group was called Sigma 6 and played compositions by student Ken Chapman, who later became the band's impresario and songwriter.
In September 1963, Waters and Mason moved into an apartment rented by one of the university's professors, Mike Leonard. There the musicians began to gather. As usual, some began to leave the group, and others came. In October, a friend of Roger's arrived and joined the band as a guitarist.
After the departure of Metcalfe and Nobel in 1964, the group was left virtually without vocalists. They began to look for singers. Close soon introduced Chris Dennis to the musicians, who had a good blues timbre and could perform any song with little or no accompaniment. The updated band changed its name to The Pink Floyd Sound. The musicians were satisfied, and Barrett was just happy. He constantly reminded that the Pink Floyd group took its name from the names of the bluesmen Floyd Council and Pink Anderson.
swing intonations
Thanks to Chris Dennis, the repertoire could now include spirituals, gospel, and even soul. In the early sixties of the last century, the blues was held in high esteem, and the musicians took advantage of this circumstance. However, the Pink Floyd group (its members) decided not to play pure blues, so as not to become another performer of "black" music. They only inserted a blues rhythmic pattern into the composition, but it turned out, nevertheless, very beautifully.
The concerts of the Pink Floyd group went on uninterrupted, the audience liked the young musicians who tried to create something unusual. Thus, the group quickly became popular, first in London and then outside the UK.
Timbre and its meaning
Speaking in clubs, the musicians played mostly rhythm and blues hits that were on everyone's lips. This technique fully justified itself, and one day a certain Peter Jenner drew attention to them. This man was not a professional musician, he taught economics in one of the London schools. But he was struck by the acoustics, rare in terms of purity of timbre, that Wright managed to create together with Barrett.
Jenner became a friend of the musicians and took up their promotion. By the fall of 1966, the Pink Floyd group had become one of the most popular and successful.
First entries
In January, two recordings were made at the Polydor studio: Interstellar Overdrive and Arnold Layne. Then the musicians signed a contract with another studio - EMI, and the records that were made on good equipment were now successfully replicated and went on sale. Thus began the commercial era, quite successful considering the millions in album sales.
Not all participants withstood the burden of success, the first to be "retired" was Syd Barrett, who abused drugs. The guitarist went to live with his mother and became a hermit until he died of cancer.
In 1973, the stellar album "The Dark Side of the Moon" was released, which became the quintessence of the group's creativity and a powerful catalyst for the future.
In the early 1980s, Pink Floyd began putting on incredible stage performances, complete with special sound and visual effects. A show was created in which the music was no longer heard. Lasers, balls and figures, pyrotechnics - all this destroyed a group that rock music fans have known for many years.
"Pink Floyd", the composition of the group
At the time of the collapse, the musicians worked in the following lineup:
- Waters Roger - vocalist, bass guitar.
- Wright Richard - keyboards, vocals.
- Nick Mason - percussion instruments.
- - Vocalist, guitar.
Most famous albums
- "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" (1967).
- "Music from the Film" (1969).
- "Mother's Heart" (1970).
- "Cloudy weather" (1972).
- "Dark Side of the Moon" (1973).
- "Animals" (1977).
- "The Wall" (1979).
- "Endless River" (2014).
Pink Floyd's albums have sold 74.5 million copies in America, which is a kind of record considering the very short sales period. In the world, without taking into account the solo compositions of the albums, almost 300 million copies were sold.
With the arrival of Gilmour, the group became less "weird", but more efficient. The musicians began to release at least one album a year: Ummagumma and More (1969), Atom Heart Mother and the soundtrack to M. Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (1970), Meddle (1971), Obscured By Clouds (1972). The soundtracks of the albums were filled with multipart compositions, different styles of exercises, electronic experiments. Philosophically, the group's music tried to embrace the entire universe in all its perfection and disharmony at the same time. Popularity grew by leaps and bounds: in 1969, a group concert took place in London, which gathered 100,000 spectators. Another important event in the life of Pink Floyd was a performance in the crater of a volcano near Pompeii (1972), which was recorded on tape and released as a concert film.
The Best of Pink Floyd
hip art
In the 1970s, the group reached the peak of popularity and prowess. One of the most famous albums, Dark Side Of The Moon (1973), became a truly bestseller in the history of rock music (more than 30 million copies were officially sold). It was during the recording of this album that the talent of the lyricist Waters and the unsurpassed skill of the guitarist Gilmour truly manifested themselves. The album is a whole story about a person's life on this earth: birth (Breathe), entry into modern life and acquaintance with its basic values (Time and Money) and, finally, the gradual loss of mind and going to the "dark side of the moon" (Brain Damage and Eclipse).
1975 was the year of the zenith of fame for the group. The song Shine On You Crazy Diamond (dedicated to Syd Barrett) from the new album Wish You Were Here was unanimously recognized as a masterpiece, and the album itself set a record for staying in the charts. The work of Pink Floyd 1977 - Animals, based on the story-parable of J. Orwell "Animal Farm", was also very strong. The album uses dogs, pigs and sheep as metaphors to describe or denounce members of modern society. The Animals' music is significantly more guitar-based than previous albums, possibly due to the growing tension between Waters and Richard Wright, who did not contribute much to the album. In 1978, Wright and Gilmour released their solo albums, and rumors arose that the group might break up. But in 1979, Pink Floyd recorded his, one might say, cult album in the genre of rock opera The Wall (“The Wall”), which was second only to the album Dark Side Of The Moon in sales. The rock opera The Wall was created almost entirely by Roger Waters and received an enthusiastic reception from the public. The song from this album Another Brick In The Wall, which sharply exposes the education system, became a number one hit. The Wall remained on the best-selling album list for 14 years.
The British rock band Pink Floyd was founded in 1965 by fellow students of the architecture department of the Polytechnic Institute in London. The founders of the group: Richard Wright (keyboardist, vocalist), Roger Waters (bass guitarist, vocalist), Nick Mason (drummer) and their friend from Cambridge - Syd Barrett (guitarist). Initially, the group was called "The Pink Floyd Sound", after which shortened the name in honor of the blues musicians: Pink Anderson and Floyd Cansil.The article "The" was dropped only after the 70s.Three years later, the band was assembled into the "Golden Lineup" with lead guitarist David Gilmour.The group began its career in in clubs where she played rhythm and blues compositions.In 1966, London School lecturer Peter Jenner, who was delighted with the use of acoustic effects in songs, became seriously interested in them.He, along with his friend Andrew King, became the group's managers. currently one of the most influential and successful bands in rock music, they held their last tour and silently disbanded in 1994. Despite the disintegration of the group, each member made a successful career for himself.
In August 1967, the debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, was released. The album's tracks carry a mixture of avant-garde and whimsical music. Not all participants survived the success that fell on the group. Due to excessive drug use, the leader, Syd Barrett, leaves the group. At that time, the second album was almost ready, but the group revised all the material and began to create it from scratch. On the second disc "A Saucerful of Secrets" only one song by Sid - "Jugband Blues" got. After the release of the album "The Dark Side of the Moon", the band was in a period of high point. The main idea of the album is the pressure of the modern world on the human psyche. The album “The Wall” was also a concept album, which was in rotation for a whole year on all world charts. It became very expensive and brought great popularity to the team. The band's last performance took place in 2005 at the Live 8 concert, where they put on a grandiose show that will forever remain in the memory of the listeners. In total, the team has sold about 74.5 million albums in the US and about 300 million records worldwide. All the albums written by the group contained elements of innovation, and the live performances were thought out as a grand show.
The author of almost all the songs of the group was Waters, which is why he secured the status of a permanent leader. The team is famous for its philosophical texts and acoustic experiments. The first recordings were made in 1967 at Polydor, then the compositions were written: “Arnold Layne” and “Interstellar Overdrive”. The first song was banned from the radio because it was about a transvestite who stole lingerie from ropes at night. The group's most famous songs are "Time", "Money", "Wish You Where Here" and "Another Brick in the Wall".
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