Pink Floyd and Prog Music

Hello, I've been a lurker here for a while and first of all just wanted to commend the forum for it's intelligent discussion (so many forums aren't like this). But anyway, I just thought I'd present my viewpoint regarding some recent thoughts on Pink Floyd. For some time, I've thought of them as one of the very biggest names in prog rock and I still do believe that, but I now find a shift in how I would label them. Of course, the Syd Barrett years are most definitely psych, but I now believe that Pink Floyd remained a psychedelic rock group all the way up through Dark Side of the Moon and didn't turn progressive rock until Wish You Were Here. Being quite familiar with their work (I have all their albums through Momentary Lapse of Reason), I don't feel like I'm making an uninformed judgment here. Now I love both prog and psych, and I realize, like so many things, that there is not necessarily a clear-cut line between the two. Dark Side seems to be the culmination of what came before as a result of their prior ongoing evolution. Everything just happened to fall into place perfectly however, which has probably led some to believe that it took longer to create. From comments by the band's members though, it was actually one of the quickest albums they did. Wish, on the the other hand, feels much more carefully planned than Dark Side which has a more free flowing feel to it. Even those first four opening notes of David Gilmour's treated guitar on Wish are an indicator of this - you can just tell there was a lot of effort to make each of those notes have the perfectly desired sound quality - and it succeeded! So in the end, I place Wish You Were Here as the beginning of Pink Floyd's prog rock stage while Dark Side of the Moon was the finalization of their psychedelic rock journey. Any comments on this?

I can see why to someone who isn't really into the Floyd wouldn't group them in with Yes and ELP, but I think from Atom Heart Mother on they were absolutely a prog rock band.  If Atom Heart Mother, One Of These Days, Echoes, all of DSOTM, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Dogs, Pigs, Sheep.....etc etc etc aren't progressive rock.... then what is exactly?  All they lacked was an emphasis on virtuosity, but their stuff was more spacey and mellow, so it fit that they weren't doing frantic solos and instrumentals. 

Edit: come to think of it, Saucerful Of Secrets (the song) and most of the Ummagumma studio tracks are pretty proggy as well. 

I believe they are prog rock.  I think the reason people disagree is the lack of complexity in their music.  I feel like they have everything else though.

Repner wrote: I believe they are prog rock.  I think the reason people disagree is the lack of complexity in their music.  I feel like they have everything else though.

This

Probably quite idiotically, I don't consider them to be as "proggy" as YES or GENESIS... Mostly because they aren't as complex in music writing or in technicality.

That isn't a bad thing though, simple can be good.
And Pink Floyd is a perfect example of this.

Once again, that being said, Pink Floyd aren't very simple really. Perhaps comparatively simple, not otherwise though.

Great band.

I agree with you about the change they made between dark side and wish you were here.  For a while I was a prog fan, but I really didnt like pink floyd because I didn't like their psych stuff.  I like all their music now, but wish you were here was the album that made me change my mind about them because I think it was definitely their most progressive album and a big step from proggish psychedelic music to music that was difinitively progressive

I still can't understand why is psychedelic rock incompatible with progressive rock. We have a whole subgenre here dedicated to this mix!

harmonium.ro wrote: I still can't understand why is psychedelic rock incompatible with progressive rock. We have a whole subgenre here dedicated to this mix!

I didn't mean that just because it's psych doesn't mean it isn't prog, it's just really good space rock 
Is it just me or does anyone else think that Space Rock (excluding PF of course) gets underrated/ overshadowed by other subgenres? It doesn't get talked about a whole lot, maybe more people would help dispel and clear up confusion as to whether psych/space is prog.

Anyways, IMO if you want to get into PF it is best to start with Dark Side, then Meddle, then Wish You Were Here, that way you see the best of both sides, both the experimental and the more symphonic side. If those three albums can't get you to admit PF is prog, then you probably aren't going to think the rest is prog. I'm not saying that you have to like PF or think they are prog, but those three albums are IMO some of their best in each "phase" of their career.

Barrett/Floyd were the most progressive of all the psychedelic bands - and their music was absolutely not run of the mill psychedelia.

Hi,