Hawkwind vs Pink Floyd

Floyd released seven albums of experimental music over a six year period before releasing DSotM. During that time they pioneered the fusion of several styles of music: psyche, avant garde/music concrete, electronic, folk/ethnic, symphonic, choral, brass, lounge, jazz in a framework of blues and rock that we now call Prog Rock. What started with Syd on Piper progressed through subsequent albums so they became confident of their art, how it is played and more importantly, how it is made. That they took new songs on the road and improvised and experimented with them before recording the final versions is something that carried on after DSotM - most of the music for Animals was aired live before WYWH was released, several projects and excursions were only ever played live and were never committed to disc (Moonhead, Embryo, The Massed Gadgets of Auximenes, Death Disco, The Big Spliff, etc.) . By the time of DSotM and WYWH they had served their apprenticeship and were now experts in using the studio as an instrument in the same way George Martin had for the Beatles - that tracks like "On The Run" were improvised in the studio rather than on stage does not distract from the fact that they were improvised and while the tape was recording, spontaneous.

shockedjazz wrote: THe second one involves mainly another step in the complexity  in the arquitectonic of (pop) music- now meaning experimentation the use of more complex previous arranges that determine the music absolutely beforehand. The first one is set to produce a musical space and the second a musical structure. The intention is almost opposite as i said but this trends get in to relation and complicates what we understand by prog.

What Floyd pioneered (perhaps because Waters, Mason and Wright were studying Architecture when they met) was a combination of both forms - they did not remain stuck in a process of live improv/spacial exploration that they originally started, (and that influenced and inspired others to follow), nor did they leap into a rigidity of pre-defined format and structure typified by Yes or Genesis, yet explored the complexity of an album as a whole piece, rather than the individual complexities of single songs.

shockedjazz wrote: Anyway the point with the Floyds for me is that they were the masters of the first trend when they were with Syd and then they just turn 180 grades and star to frosten this espontaneous springing of musical ideas effects and directions ( or un-directions) of Syd to make just the opposite kind of music! a neo-classical popular musical  full of cliches (for me) and in tune with the just borned symphonic prog.

That may have started with Syd, and undoubtedly by him, but they continued that course for many years without him. I think you are over-playing the Syd role - he was an important figure that is without question, but that ignores and underestimates the other members of the PF and their involvement in the improvisational and experimental process that made the band - Nick's Boogie and Interstellar Overdrive are not great examples of improvisation, they are ultimately a little dull and repetitive in their lack of structure, Astronomy Domine fares a little better but only after Syd's departure from the band - his greater skill and contribution was lyrical, something highlighted by his brief but fascinating solo career. Careful With That Axe, Saucerful of Secrets & Set The Controls were not part of the Syd legacy, the avant garde piece Sysyphus I-IV is pure Rick Wright with no Syd finger-prints, it had a life outside Ummagumma, being performed live several times in 1970; "Atom Heart Mother" and "Meddle" reflect nothing from the psyche days, and push boundaries that no psyche band would have dreamt of approaching, let alone pushing; Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast was also performed live as an improvised piece resulting in a 24 minute version of the 13 minute studio track; Echoes is a prime example of Floyd using improvisation, experimentation and unstructured development of a song on stage before recording the "final" version on tape. Echoes was known by four different titles before it became what we now know. Through familiarity with that "final" version on "Meddle" it may appear to be structured and planned, but later live versions show that it was still not fixed in time and space. Just because a piece doesn't sound like a rough improvised jam does not mean it wasn't conceived like that.

shockedjazz wrote: Im not saying the symphonic direction is #hit, i like a lot of these stuff (Bacamarte they are cool, Camel, Hackett, etc), but for me the other direction if have this special magic ( not profesional crafting) always win by the hand. Otherwise i find coldness and an excess of calculation and crafting, a representation when in fact in searching for an act. And degradate an act making it into a representation is like killing it, even if this killing is interesting. But what you can never do is kill an act and then praise it, it fells hypocrite (for me). Thats my problem with the Floyds.

Then it does seem that your problem is not with Floyd, but of your interpretation of Floyd. Their diversions into Symphonic Prog were just that, brief excursions during the formative years of both Prog and of Pink Floyd and they never really committed themselves to that direction. Floyd were Eclectic in the truest sense of the word, and Art Rock by virtue of the kind of songs they wrote on the "concept" albums, Psyche from their early years and Space Rock on a few of their early tracks, but not fully Symphonic in the accepted terminology.

shockedjazz wrote:   And im not saying they use they career for celebrate him, the relation is ambiguos. They kind of justifacating they are not mad and Syd is- Is like "you were great but you were weak"-( the reason of theyr biterrness). Anyway whats true is the shadow, its ghost is flying over the Floyds always, mainly because they let it fly, its their source of vicarian talent..........and The Dark side of the moon could speak of madness in general, im not gonna enter in that endless and undemostrable discusion, for me is clear the lunatic is Syd and also everyone of course, is obvious is talking about madness as a process but in what experience they grounded the conceptual framework? For me is clear.

Only "Brain Damage" is directly inspired by Syd, the rest of DSotM is about other subjects and the whole concept is not specifically about madness, but about the nature of humanity - I see no reason to discuss this either - I stopped doing that in 1973½.