Pink Floyd

The Pink Floyd devised a compromise between the free-form tonal jam, the noisy, cacophonous freak out, and the eccentric, melodic ditty. This amalgam and balance is inspired and nourished by Syd Barrett's gentle madness on their first two albums, which remain their masterpieces: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (1967), that includes the pulsating, visionary trips of Astronomy Domine and Interstellar Overdrive (the bridge between space-rock and cosmic music); and A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968), that contains the stately crescendo and wordless anthem of A Saucerful Of Secrets and the subliminal raga of Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun. The ambitious Ummagumma (1969), a failed attempt at establishing their credentials as avantgarde composers, and the eponymous suite from Atom Heart Mother (1970), a failed attempt at merging rock band and symphonic orchestra, marked the end of the epic phase. For better and for worse, the Pink Floyd understood the limits and the implications of the genre, and kept reinventing themselves, slowly transforming psychedelic-rock into a muzak for relaxation and meditation. The other half of Atom Heart Mother (1970) already hinted at the band's preference for the languid, mellow, hypnotic ballad, albeit sabotaged by an orgy of sound effects. Echoes, the suite that takes up half of Meddle (1971), sterilized and anesthetized the space-rock of Interstellar Overdrive, and emphasized not the sound effects but meticulous studio production. The Pink Floyd did not hesitate to alter the letter and the spirit of psychedelic music. The delirious and cacophonous sound of their beginnings slowly mutated into a smooth and lush sound. Rather than just endorsing the stereotypes of easy-listening, the Pink Floyd invented a whole new kind of easy-listening with Dark Side Of The Moon (1973) and Wish You Were Here (1975). A tactical move soon became a strategic move. In the end, the Pink Floyd reshaped psychedelic music into a universal language, a language that fit the punk as well as the manager, just like, at about the same time, jazz-rock was "selling" the anguish of the Afro-American people to the white conformists. Roger Waters' existential pessimism and historical angst became the pillars of the band's latter-day melodramas, such as The Wall (1979). These monoliths of electronic and acoustic sounds, coupled with psychoanalytical lyrics, indulge in a funereal pomp that approaches the forms of the requiem and the oratorio.