Pink Floyd Appreciation Thread

As a young prog listener, only 15 years old, I would have never gotten into this music without Floyd as a gateway. An amazing band and as far as Ive noticed, the only "progressive" band to consistently put out 4-5 star albums throughout their career. So go ahead, share!

Pink Floyd is the first band I fully fell in love with. Twenty years later, owning the entire catalogue of music (and more), I can say they are the backbone of my music collection and the launchpad for my entire music library.

Good news for me, Roger Waters is comming to Lima in March.

We needed a PF appreciation thread! There seems to be too much resentment and shallowness around the great names. Let's start appreciating some more.

jtullprog wrote: As a young prog listener, only 15 years old, I would have never gotten into this music without Floyd as a gateway. An amazing band and as far as Ive noticed, the only "progressive" band to consistently put out 4-5 star albums throughout their career. So go ahead, share!

Well, PF is definitely a great place to start. My favorite PF era or phase is their earlier or psychedelic period. The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, Obscured By Clouds, Atom Heart Mother, Relics, and Meddle. My favorite all-time Floyd album is Umma Gumma. Yes, i do like Dark Side Of The Moon, which will probably be considered the best prog album in the whole universe when the world ends. After that they pretty much lost me.
    

One of my favorite bands for over 30 years.  I remember playing Meddle as a young teenager when my dad walked in and heard Echoes.  He walked out of my room with a copy of the tape.

Until AMLOR, there is not a single bad PF album. AMLOR and afterwards... that's another story...

I'd rank order PF as follows, though it rotates fairly often:

Animals
Meddle
Dark Side of the Moon
Ummagumma
Wish You Were Here
The Piper At the Gates of Dawn
Atom Heart Mother
The Wall
The Final Cut
A Saucerful of Secrets
Obscured By Clouds
More
Division Bell
A Momentary Lapse of Reason

I think I got them all, if not... I'll have to get tested for memory loss...

Got into Floyd around 1990 when I saw the movie The Wall, not sure whether I really liked it, but I have to say I was impressed (I was 11 then) and bought the album. I started to get into the music by 1993-94 and it was like discovering a whole new universe, and also started listening to progressive bands such as Marillion, Yes, Genesis (that I still listen to after all these years) and Dream Theater (that I don't any more). It also marked the beginning of my gradual loss of interest in my then favourite Purple, Rainbow, Maiden, etc. So it wouldn't be exaggerated to state that Pink Floyd is the most important band in my entire life and I still find most their albums (bar the last three) a turning point for modern music. Needless to say I own dozens of live bootlegs (or is it hundreds?), rare tracks, etc. Also, I have kinda obsession with the Animals album and tour... I think I'd better stop writing because this could go on forever :)

Edited by dedokras - January 19 2007 at 09:04

I would say they were certainly my introduction into the prog world.  But personally, I never thought of them as prog, even after I became a serious prog-head.  Their compositions were always to simplistic I felt, to be considered prog (I've never had any problem learning any of their songs just by listening and playing along.........the same can not be said for other prog "giants" like Yes or early Genesis).  Now though, I think they fit in the space rock sub genre of prog (like Hawkwind or Ozrics), though the later albums are certainly "symphonic".

My favorite era is still the pre-Darkside stuff.  My favorite album is still Meddle.  Dark side is a great album, but I just can't listen to it anymore.  I've heard it WAY too many times.  And I think it's popularity is blown out of proportion to how good the music is.

Still, all their albums had a profound effect on my early musical life, and certainly led the way for my appreciation of prog rock in general.  And I spent many hours painstakingly learning Gilmour's solos note for note, bend for bend, and nuance for nuance.  He had a tremendous impact on my guitar playing style and technique.

So, overall, though I almost never listen to them anymore, I have a very deep appreciation for everything they did and contributed to the music world and to my life.


Edited by infandous - January 19 2007 at 10:01