Pink Floyd / Биография
Pink Floyd originally consisted of Bob Klose (lead guitar), Syd
Barrett
(vocals, rhythm guitar), Richard Wright (keyboards, vocals), Roger
Waters
(bass, vocals) and Nick Mason (drums) and named in tribute to two blues
musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The band initially covered
rhythm and blues staples such as "Louie, Louie". As Barrett started
writing
tunes more influenced by American surf music, psychedelic rock, and
British
whimsy, humor and literature, the heavily jazz-orientated Klose
departed and
left a rather stable foursome whose configuration would last for
several
years.
The sound was hardened somewhat in 1968 when guitarist David Gilmour
joined
the band. In 1969, Barrett suffered a mental breakdown, attributed to
prolonged usage of hallucinogenic drugs (especially LSD). With
Barrett's
state becoming less and less predictable, the band's live shows became
increasingly ramshackle until eventually the other band members simply
stopped taking Barrett to the concerts, with Waters and Gilmour taking
his
place as lead vocalists.
Whilst Barrett had written the bulk of the first record, Piper at the
Gates
Of Dawn (1967), he contributed little to the second A Saucerful of
Secrets
(1968), forcing the band in a new direction. With the loss of their
main
songwriter the band was perceived as losing focus and a distinctive
sound:
the next record, the double album Ummagumma (1969), was a mix of live
recordings and unchecked studio experimentation by the band members,
with
each recording half a side of vinyl as a solo project (Mason's wife
makes an
uncredited contribution as a flautist).
1970's Atom Heart Mother, a UK number one album, is sometimes now
considered
a dated psychedelic period piece and has been described by Gilmour as
the
sound of a band "blundering about in the dark". The title piece owes
much to
orchestration by Ron Geesin.
The band's sound was considerably more focused in Meddle (1971), whose
23-minute epic "Echoes" is heard by many critics today as one of their
best
works ever, and which also included the atmospheric "One of These Days"
(now
regarded as a concert classic, with a distorted, disembodied one-line
vocal)
and the pop-jazz stylings of "St. Tropez". Their forays into
experimentation
and trying new things were expressed on "Seamus" (earlier,
"Mademoiselle
Nobs") a pure-blues number featuring lead vocals by a Russian
wolfhound.
Despite having never been a hit-single driven group, their massively
successful 1973 album, Dark Side of the Moon featured a US number one
track
("Money"), and more importantly remained in the top 100 for over a
decade,
breaking many records on the way, and making it one of the top selling
albums of all time. Dark Side of the Moon itself was a concept album
dealing
with themes of insanity, neurosis and fame which, due to the use of
Abbey
Road studio's new 16-track recording equipment and the investment of an
enormous amount of time by the group and engineer Alan Parsons, set new
standards for sound fidelity. Dark Side of the Moon has also been the
source
of a persistent, but false, urban legend that it was conceived as a
kind of
synchronized soundtrack for the film The Wizard of Oz.
Dark Side of the Moon and the three following albums (Wish You Were
Here,
Animals and The Wall) are often held up as the peak of Pink Floyd's
career.
The first of those, Wish You Were Here, released in 1975, is a tribute
to
Barrett in which the lyrics deal explicitly with the aftermath of his
breakdown, including the critically-acclaimed, mainly instrumental
"Shine On
You Crazy Diamond" and the classic title track.
By 1977, and the release of Animals the band's music came under
increasing
criticism from some quarters in the new punk rock sphere as being too
flabby
and pretentious, losing its way from the simplicity of early rock and
roll.
Animals contained more lengthy songs tied to a theme, taken in part
from
George Orwell's Animal Farm, which used pigs, dogs and sheep as
metaphors
for contemporary society.
1979's The Wall gave Pink Floyd renewed and highly enthusiastic
critical
acclaim and another hit single with the track "Another Brick in the
Wall,
Part II," and its youth catchphrase "We don't need no education, we
don't
need no thought control," as well as the extraordinary track
"Comfortably
Numb" which, though never released as a single (and interestingly,
hated
during sessions by both Waters and Gilmour), became a cornerstone of
AOR and
classic-rock radio playlists and is today probably their best-known
song. It
is also the only song on Pink Floyd's four concept albums to not segue
at
either the beginning or end. The album also became a vastly expensive
and
money-losing tour/stage show. During this time, Roger Waters increased
his
artistic influence and leadership of the band, prompting frequent
conflicts
with the other members and causing Wright to quit the band, though he
would
return, on a fixed wage, for the album's few live concerts.
Paradoxically,
he was the only one of Pink Floyd to make any money from the "Wall"
shows,
the rest having to cover the excessive costs. The album was co-produced
by
Bob Ezrin, a friend of Waters who shared songwriting credits on "The
Trial".
The Wall remained on best-selling-album lists for 14 years. A film
starring
Boomtown Rats founder Bob Geldof was adapted from it in 1982 written by
Waters and directed by Alan Parker, and featuring animation by noted
British
cartoonist Gerald Scarfe.
After 1983's The Final Cut, bandmembers went their separate ways till
1987,
when Gilmour attempted to revive the band with Nick Mason. A bitter
legal
dispute with Roger Waters (who left the band in 1985) ensued, but
Gilmour
and Mason achieved the legal right to release an album as Pink Floyd
(Waters, however, gained the rights to some traditional Pink Floyd
imagery,
including almost all of The Wall). Richard Wright re-joined the duo
during
the recording sessions of A Momentary Lapse of Reason as a session
musician,
and was paid a weekly salary. By any account, Wright was a member of
the
band for the 1994 release of The Division Bell and its subsequent tour.
All of the members of Pink Floyd have released solo albums which have met with varying degrees of commercial and critical success. Waters' Amused To Death was especially praised.
Syd Barrett died Tuesday, July 11, 2006. He was 60.
Източници
http://www.myclassiclyri...ography.htm
Последна редакция от evil_monkey - 13.04.2010, 11:11
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