The first was a goofy and absurdist pop-rock band, led by one Syd Barrett, whose contributions were limited basically to a couple of singles and one album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn more on him anon. “ Round and Around ,” A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987): To understand Pink Floyd, you have to understand that there are at least four, or arguably five, Pink Floyds. In its massive confusion, this accounting - which, whether we like it or not, hangs above our cultural world, as the band itself might have put it, motionless upon the air, like an albatross - is a testament to the good humor of the gods of rock, which now and again smile upon otherwise unemployable, gangly British nitwits.ġ65. The list that follows ranks all of the band’s officially released studio work, from the worst song to the best. If you’re not familiar with Barrett’s tragic tale, read on. Few Pink Floyd fans can read those words, taken from a chapter heading of The Wind in the Willows by the band’s fey original leader, Syd Barrett, without a twinge of sadness. Much of the rest of it was filled by wildly veering musical approaches, big misfires, aesthetic excesses, pratfalls, and wide-ranging acts of buffoonery you wouldn’t find surprising in a This Is Spinal Tap outtake reel.Īnyway, this month marks the 50th anniversary of the band’s first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Floyd recorded over a longer period, of course, but both groups have released about the same number of albums, and had about the same span of decades to sell their work to new generations - and in new configurations.Īnd yet … the band’s famous works were recorded over an extremely short period, in a recording career that has now stretched nearly to five decades. The upshot: Pink Floyd has sold more albums worldwide than the Beatles. You can read his 51 pages of Pink Floyd sales data here.
He obsessively collects worldwide sales data. Over the years, I’ve become extremely impressed with an amateur music-industry analyst who lives in France, Guillaume Vieira. The members of the band - Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright - approached their work seriously and blew minds in the process.Īnd it’s possible this perennially popular band has had its popularity underestimated. Its mid-’70s sonic triumphs - including The Dark Side of the Moonand Wish You Were Here - are both aural delights and meaningful works of art whose message is conveyed through sound. Learn more at Patreon.Pink Floyd may be the only rock band that can credibly be compared to both the Beatles and Spinal Tap. There are a bunch of exclusive perks only for patrons: playlists, newsletters, downloads, discussions, polls - hell, tell us what song you would like to hear covered and we will make it happen. Want more? Check out our list of the 40 best Pink Floyd Covers Ever! Cover Me is now on Patreon! If you love cover songs, we hope you will consider supporting us there with a small monthly subscription. It’s an impressive feat of musicianship that shows you don’t need a studio and tons of overdubs to do Pink Floyd justice. Where things really take off is in the final jam, with the Kitchen Dwellers fully leaning into their bluegrass sound and taking the song a little out of the “Pigs” but acoustic! comfort zone. (No pig noises on this version.) The only time the band strays is when someone tries to mimick David Gilmour’s talkbox. Banjo substitutes for the iconic keyboard opening and bass, guitar and mandolin fill in the other instruments.
For volume two, they’re tackling Pink Floyd, giving them the full Hayseed Dixie treatment, minus the wink – and the fiddle.Īside from the fact it is played on nearly entirely acoustic instruments, he cover is pretty straightforward. Kitchen Dwellers are a bluegrass band already known for their cover EPs – in 2018 they released an EP of covers of The Band called Reheated Vol. Animals is one of those Pink Floyd albums you discover later in your fandom, because there are basically no short songs – it’s an album that hardcore Floyd fans end up insisting is a favourite, but it usually takes time to get there. Instead of Floyd’s animals representing archetypes in the USSR, the animals in this version represent archetypes in western capitalism. “Pigs” is one of the three epic-length tracks from Pink Floyd’s mammoth Animals, an unauthorized reinterpretation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm as three prog suites (book-ended by two unrelated love song fragments for reasons only Roger Waters knows).