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Pink Floyd - Meddle
 Pink Floyd evolved from an earlier rock band, formed in 1964. When the band split up, some members — guitarists Rado "Bob" Klose and Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason, and keyboardist and wind instrument player Richard Wright — formed a new band called "Tea Set". Blues and folk guitarist and vocalist Syd Barrett joined the band, with Waters moving to bass and Wright to full time keyboards. When The Tea Set found themselves on the same bill as another band with the same name, Barrett came up with the alternative name The Pink Floyd Sound, after two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The Sound was dropped fairly quickly, but the definite article was still used regularly until 1970. The group's UK releases during the Syd Barrett era credited them as The Pink Floyd as did their first two U.S. singles. 1969's More and Ummagumma albums credit the band as Pink Floyd, produced by The Pink Floyd, while 1970's Atom Heart Mother credits the band as The Pink Floyd, produced by Pink Floyd. David Gilmour is known to have referred to the group as The Pink Floyd as late as 1984. As their popularity increased, the band members formed Blackhill Enterprises in October 1966, a six-way business partnership with their managers, Peter Jenner and Andrew King,[13] issuing the singles "Arnold Layne" in March 1967 and "See Emily Play" in June 1967. "Arnold Layne" reached number 20 in the UK Singles Chart, and "See Emily Play" reached number 6, granting the band its first national TV appearance on Top of the Pops in July 1967. Released in August 1967, the band's debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, is today considered to be a prime example of British psychedelic music, and was generally well-received by critics at the time. The music reflected newer technologies in electronics through its prominent use of stereo panning, tape editing, echo effects and electric keyboards. As the band became more popular, the stresses of life on the road, pressure by the record company to produce hit singles, and a significant intake of psychedelic drugs took their toll on Barrett, whose mental health had been deteriorating for several months. In January 1968, guitarist David Gilmour joined the band to carry out Barrett's playing and singing duties. With Barrett's behaviour becoming less and less predictable, and his almost constant use of LSD, he became very unstable, occasionally staring into space while the rest of the band performed. The absent expression in his eyes inspired Waters' lyrics in 1975's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", "Now there's that look in your eyes/ Like black holes in the sky.' The band's live shows became increasingly ramshackle until, eventually, the other band members simply stopped taking him to the concerts. The last concert featuring Barrett was on 20 January 1968 on Hastings Pier. Once Barrett's departure was formalised in April 1968, producers Jenner and King decided to remain with him, and the six-way Blackhill partnership was dissolved. The band adopted Steve O'Rourke as manager, and he remained with Pink Floyd until his death in 2003. After recording two solo albums (The Madcap Laughs and Barrett) in 1970 (co-produced by and sometimes featuring Gilmour, Waters and Wright) to moderate success, Barrett went into seclusion. Again going by his given name, Roger, he eventually moved back to his native Cambridge and lived a quiet life there until his death on 7 July 2006. As Barrett had been the lead singer during his era, Gilmour, Waters and Wright now split both songwriting and lead vocal duties. Waters mostly wrote low-key, jazzy melodies with dominant bass lines and complex, symbolic lyrics, Gilmour focused on guitar-driven blues jams, and Wright preferred melodic psychedelic keyboard-heavy numbers. Unlike Waters, Gilmour and Wright preferred tracks that had simple lyrics or that were purely instrumental. A Saucerful of Secrets was released in June 1968, reaching #9 in the UK and becoming the only Pink Floyd album not to chart in the U.S. Somewhat uneven due to Barrett's departure, the album still contained much of his psychedelic sound combined with the more experimental music that would be fully showcased on Ummagumma. Its centrepiece, the 12-minute title track, hinted at the epic, lengthy songs to come, but the album was poorly received by critics at the time. Pink Floyd were then recruited by director Barbet Schroeder to produce a soundtrack for his film, More, which was premičred in May 1969. The music was released as a Floyd album in its own right, Soundtrack from the Film More. The next record, the double album Ummagumma, was a mix of live recordings and unchecked studio experimentation by the band members, with each member recording half a side of a vinyl record as a solo project. Though the album was realised as solo outings and a live set, it was originally intended as a purely avant-garde mixture of sounds from "found" instruments.The title is Cambridge slang for sexual intercourse. Atom Heart Mother (1970), the band's first recording with an orchestra, was a collaboration with avant-garde composer Ron Geesin. The name was a last minute decision by the band when they were inspired by a newspaper article about a woman who had given birth with a pacemaker. The use of noises, incidental sound effects and voice samples would thereafter be an important part of the band's sound. While Atom Heart Mother was considered a huge step back for the band at the time and is still considered one of its most inaccessible albums, it had the best chart performance for the band up to that time, reaching #1 in the UK The band's sound was considerably more focused on Meddle (1971), with the 23-minute epic "Echoes" a smooth progressive rock song with extended guitar and keyboard solos and a long segue in the middle consisting largely of synthesised music produced on guitars, organs, and synths, along with backward wah pedal guitar sounding like samples of sea gulls or albatross and an entire whale song playing over the top, described by Waters as a "sonic poem". Meddle was considered by Nick Mason to be "the first real Pink Floyd album. Meddle also included the atmospheric "One of These Days", a concert favourite featuring Nick Mason's menacing one-line vocal ("One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces"), distorted and bluesy lap steel guitar, and a melody that at one point fades into a throbbing synthetic pulse quoting the theme tune of the cult classic science fiction television show Doctor Who. Meddle was greeted both by critics and fans enthusiastically, and Pink Floyd were rewarded with a #3 album chart peak in the UK. Today, Meddle remains one of their most well-regarded albums, it set out the Pink Floyd path. The sound became polished and collaborative, with the philosophic lyrics and distinctive bass lines of Waters combining with the unique blues guitar style of Gilmour and Wright's haunting keyboard melodies... 01 - One Of These Days (5:51) 02 - A Pillow Of Winds (5:05) 03 - Fearless (6:02) 04 - San Tropez (3:38) 05 - Seamus (2:12) 06 - Echoes (23:25) Link |
