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Pink Floyd Bio Page |  |
One of the greatest bands in Rock music. With at one time four members to five to four to three to two, now down to three. The first lineup of the band was Roger Waters, Syd Barrett, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason. After that David Gilmour joined. Then Barrett got kicked out of the group. Then in the early 80's Waters lefted the group. They continued after Roger with two studio ablums and two live albums.
Pink Floyd started back in the early 60's in a art school in Cambridge, Enland. They when through different lineups and different name before it ended up being Waters on bass, Barrett on guitar and vocals, Wright on keyboards, and Mason on drums as Pink Floyd. The name Pink Floyd came from two American Blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. By 1966 at underground clubs in Britain Pink Floyd was a popular band playing original music. It was a fancy light show with weird psychedelic rock played at incredible volumes. EMI released their first single, "Arnold Lane," in March of 1967. It made it to No. 2 on the U.K. charts. The follow-up single, "See Emily Play," only made it to No. 6, but stayed there for almost 2 months. Later that year following the singles the band released their first full-length album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.
The album made it high on the U.K. charts like the singles, but the band was faced with personnal problems. Syd Barrett's constant use of LSD had made him unable to perform with the band. He often stared into space during performaces while the band played, missed recording sessions and shows, and even disappered for days at a time. In January of 1968 the band had to look in to getting a replacement for Barrett. That is when they got David Gilmour,who play in a local band Joker's Wild. Gilmour filled in for Syd, when he was not all there. After a few shows as a five-piece, they knew Barrett could not perform any longer. That's when one night, they just didn't pick him up for a show. A few months later he was officially fired, all though they remained friends and helped him with two solo albums later on (Barrett retired from music in the early 1970's).
A Saucerful Of Secrets Pink Floyd's second album was released during the summer of 1968. It was less of a wierd sound to the music because Syd was only on two of the tracks. This album expanded the space-rock sound of thier music. In 1969 the band did a soundtrack to a anti-drug art flim called More,which was released the same year. Later that same year Pink Floyd released thier 4th album. It was a doulbe album, which had one live album and and studio album. The studio work was erratic new material. One of the songs was the longest titled and oddest Pink Floyd song called, "Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict."
The 5th ablum of Pink Floyd's was released in the fall of 1970 entitled Atom Heart Mother. Which had a experimental psychedlic song called "Atom Heart Mother", which featured 23 minutes of tape loops and effects, odd sounds, feedback, and strange lyrics. That same year they contributed seven songs to a soundtrack for Zabriskie Point.
Relics was the next release by Pink Floyd, which was release in early 1971. It was as it said on the front "A Bizarre Collection Of Antiques & Curios". It had singles, other albums releases, and two unreleased songs. Then in the fall of that year they released Meddle, with 23 minute long song "Echoes" filling the B-side of the album. This classic Floyd album sat work for the next ablum Obsured By Clouds. Released in 1972, it had shorter more mainstream rock songs on it made for the soundtrack of an French art film La Valee or The Valley.
In 1973 Pink Floyd released the album that made the best impact on rock music. This album was named Dark Side Of The Moon, which made No. 1 in the U.S. and stayed in the Billboard Top 200 for almost 800 weeks. It has sold over 25 million copies in the years it has been release, that has made it the fourth-best selling rock ablum of all time. After the record comany saw the sucess of Dark Side Of The Moon they released A Nice Pair, which included The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and A Saucerful Of Secrets. It didn't bring in the money like the record company had hoped for. After touring they got back in the studios to do thier next classic. In 1975 Wish You Were, which was deciated to Syd Barrett. It also marked changing of Capitol to CBS.
After more touring they when back to the studio, then in 1977 they release the concept album Animals. Then back on the road again on another stadium tour, at one show Roger yelled at a fan during a song and at another in Montreal Roger spit on a fan. This believe it or not is where Roger got the idea for The Wall, a story of the gradual breakdown of a rock star and alienation. It took them a while to get back in the studios, so the record company released a statment saying the next Floyd LP will be entitled Walls. This upset the group. December of 1979 they released The Wall, it gave them thier first No. 1 single since the 60's, "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)." They only toured in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Dortmund, Germany, but it was the most elaborate and expensive live production ever taking by a rock group.
In 1981 the record company released a complication of singles called A Great Collection Of Dance Songs. Then in 1982 the movie version of The Wall was made staring Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats as Pink and became a cult classic. Then yet another complication was released in 1983, this one entitled Works. I think it enincluded an unreleased song "Embryo". This was the same year Roger kicked Richard Wright, because of Wright's cocaine addiction. So the next ablum of Pink Floyd was recorded as a three-piece. The Final Cut released later in 1983 failed commercially.
Roger and David struggled with artistic differences released solo albums in 1984 and went on tour in 1985. Roger quit the band later that year to work on another solo album. While Roger was doing his own thing David, Nick, and Richard, who joined back after Roger quit, began work on the next Pink Floyd album. While working on that, Roger unsuccessfully sued David over the Pink Floyd name, eventually settling out of court. In 1987 Pink Floyd released A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, then went on tour in the U.S. and Europe. Then in 1988 released a live ablum of stuff recorded on the tour called The Delicate Sounds Of Thunder. After all that fans were spilt into three groups one who loved Roger Waters, ones who loves David Gilmour, and ones who love both side of it.
During the next years the band took time off. While Waters released another solo album and did a production of The Wall Live In Berlin featured an all-star cast. In 1992 a Pink Floyd box set, Shine On, was released which included A Saucerful Of Secrets, Meddle, Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason and a CD of early singles, plus a book about Pink Floyd. In 1994 Floyd released thier lastest studio album The Division Bell. Then went on a world tour which they used to to make thier next album a live LP called PULSE releasd in 1995. In 2000 they went back to the wall tour and released it as a double live album called Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980 - 81. Pink floyd is reportedly working on the next album. Maybe they are , who knows?
By Troy Powell
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