Order of album releases

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

Saucerful of Secrets

More

Ummagumma

Atom Heart Mother

Meddle

Obscured by Clouds

Dark Side of the Moon

Wish You Were Here

Animals

The Wall

The Final Cut

Momentary Lapse of Reason

Division Bell

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn - 1967

Pink Floyd's debut was its only recording based on the vision of founding singer/guitarist Syd Barrett, an art student whose world revolved around music, mysticism and liberal doses of hallucinogens. The band's moniker was taken from the first names of Georgia bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council (an album of theirs was a favorite of Barrett's), and the album's title came from a chapter of Kenneth Grahame's children's classic "The Wind In The Willows" (also a staple of Barrett's library).

Recorded at Abbey Road at the same time The Beatles were cutting SGT. PEPPER, PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN was an avant-garde pastiche of neo-jazz improvisation and snappy pop snippets--a blurring of musical borders that went far beyond what the Fab Four were doing a couple of rooms away. (Producer Norman Smith had been The Beatles' chief engineer for much of the early '60s.) Instrumental space-jams like "Pow R. Toc H." and "Interstellar Overdrive" smashed the conventionality of the pop mainstream by lengthening and opening up traditional song structures, as bits of Rick Wright's reverb-soaked Farfisa organ and Barrett's scratchy guitar floated in and out of the mix. Barrett's appreciation of space is also revealed in the various experimental soundscapes Floyd used--phased guitars, pinging notes, and Middle Eastern tonalities expanded the sonic palette the group worked with.

The other side of Barrett's musical expression was an ability to write shorter "pop" songs that were similar to traditional fare only in length. Despite the ominous imagery, his acid-fueled observations dove into simple topics and themes--a Siamese cat on "Lucifer Sam," child-like stories and observations on "The Gnome" and "Bike."

PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN was an auspicious debut, and a major influence on British pop music--its disciples include spacemen David Bowie and Marc Bolan and trippy popsters XTC, Robyn Hitchcock and Julian Cope. But it was a one-shot deal for Pink Floyd in terms of musical direction. Because of his increasingly erratic behavior, Barrett was asked to leave the band soon after the album's release

Tracks on Album

Astronomy Domine

Interstellar Overdrive (instrumental)

Lucifer Sam

The Gnome

Matilda Mother

Chapter 24

Flaming

The Scarecrow

Pow R. Toc H. (instrumental)

Bike

Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk

A Saucerful of Secrets - 1968

This is Pink Floyd's second album, and a major transition for them. After completing only one song, "Jugband Blues", founding member Syd Barrett left the group. He was replaced by his friend Dave Gilmour, who completed the line-up that would produce the band's most successful recordings.

Tracks on Album

Let There Be More Light

Corporal Clegg

Remember A Day

Saucerful Of Secrets (instrumental)

Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

See-Saw

Jugband Blues

More - 1969

MORE is the soundtrack to the movie of the same name. The 1996 repackaging of MORE includes an expanded booklet with many rare photos, lyrics and revised front cover artwork.

Tracks on Album

Cirrus Minor

Main Theme

The Nile Song

Ibiza Bar

Crying Song

More Blues

Up The Khyber

Quicksilver

Green Is The Color

A Spanish Piece

Cymbaline

Dramatic Theme

Party Sequence

Cirrus Minor (Waters)

Ummagumma - 1969

UMMAGUMMA features a set of live performances on Disc 1 and a collection of solo studio projects by various band members on Disc 2. Disc 1 was recorded live at Mothers, Birmingham, England and live at The Manchester College Of Commerce, England in June 1969.

Tracks on Album

Live

Astronomy Domine

Careful With That Axe, Eugene

Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun

A Saucerful of Secrets (instrumental)

Studio

Sysyphus (instrumental)

Grantchester Meadows

Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict (instrumental)

The Narrow Way

The Grand Vizer's Garden Party (instrumental)

Atom Heart Mother - 1970

ATOM HEART MOTHER is a collaboration between Pink Floyd and avant-garde composer Ron Geesin.

Tracks on Album

Atom Heart Mother Suite (Instrumental)

If

Summer '68

Fat Old Sun

Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast (Instrumental)

Meddle - 1971

MEDDLE was the first album to truly represent what Pink Floyd evolved into after David Gilmour's arrival. The albums that immediately followed PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN either retained traces of Gilmour's predecessor, Syd Barrett (SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS), were soundtracks (MORE), paired live tracks with solo experiments (UMMAGUMMA), or were collaborations with outside parties (ATOM HEART MOTHER).

Whereas any of them might have had traditional song structures dropped in at random, MEDDLE represents Pink Floyd attempting to approach a sequence of them. "Echoes," an ambitious 23-minute soundscape, harkened back to Floyd's earlier exuberances. Its length enabled former architecture students Roger Waters and Nick Mason to patch together Gilmour and Richard Wright's fragmented musical ideas into a piece soaked in aquatic and lunar imagery. The pinging of a module greets the listener before Gilmour's warm, open guitar and gentle crooning gives way to a middle section that devolves into a repetitious, workmanlike rhythm. From here, the music fades into an abyss of whale calls and eerie sonic

reverberations that slowly return to the opening section; it closes with the sound of howling wind. Spooky! Elsewhere, Floyd dabble with straightforward cocktail-hour jazz ("San Tropez") and a twisted slow blues ("Seamus").

But it was "One Of These Days," MEDDLE's opening track and lone radio staple, that hinted at the direction the band was headed. Waters' bass, played through a Binson echo unit, establishes the song's manically hypnotic groove, as Wright's synthesizer bursts in and out, Mason's off-kilter drum fills get tossed about, and Gilmour's guitar dive-bombs through it all. These varied sound effects, packaged in a song that clocked in at less than six minutes, were a precedent for the masterpiece that was two years away: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.

Tracks on Album

One of These Days

A Pillow of Winds

Fearless

San Tropez

Seamus

Echoes

Obscured By Clouds - 1972

OBSCURED BY CLOUDS is the soundtrack to the movie of the same name. Directed by Barbet Schroeder and starring Bulle Ogier and Jean Pierre Kalfon, the movie was originally known as "La Vallee" (The Valley).

Tracks on Album

Obscured by Clouds (Instrumental)

Mudmen

When You're In

Childhood's End

Burning Bridges

Free Four

The Gold It's in the...

Stay

Wots...Uh the Deal

Absolutely Curtains (Instrumental)

The Dark Side Of The Moon - 1973

DARK SIDE OF THE MOON was a benchmark record. It turned the musical world on its ear with a hitherto unseen combination of sounds, and changed things considerably for Pink Floyd. The pyramid-like prism refracting the thin white light into a rainbow became synonymous with the band, as did the album, a collection of epics steeped in Roger Waters' lyrics of paranoia, alienation and schizophrenia.

For this project, Pink Floyd resurrected older and unfinished numbers, some of which came from the multitude of soundtracks the band members had previously worked on. The film "Zabriskie Point," a study of American materialism from a foreigner's perspective, provided "Us And Them" (originally titled "The Violence Sequence"). Waters rewrote "Breathe" after its appearance on his and avant-garde composer Ron Geesin's score for

"The Body," a surreal medical documentary. To bring the songs into a clearer light, Floyd and their long-time engineer, Alan Parsons, used a multitude of sound effects--from stereophonically-projected footsteps and planes flying overhead ("On The Run") to a roomful of ringing clocks("Time").

The band brought in female singers to sweeten the harmonies throughout the album. Gospel singer Clare Torry was given a solo, albeit lyric-less, turn on Richard Wright's "The Great Gig In The Sky," shrieking, sobbing and sighing in orgasmic waves. Floyd also enlisted Dick Parry's saxophone on "Us And Them" and "Money," which became the group's first American Top 40 hit. Further adding to the record's mystique, barely audible spoken passages were sprinkled throughout--a result of hours interviewing random Abbey Road occupants about their views on insanity, violence and death.

The combination of creative and technological concepts must have struck a nerve; DARK SIDE OF THE MOON remained on Billboard's albums chart for an astounding fourteen years. It made Pink Floyd a household name, elevating them to the level of the Rolling Stones and The Who in the rock pantheon. Maybe most important, DARK SIDE found Roger Waters for the first time using the group as a tool for his own concepts and personal views, foreshadowing conflicts that would come to a head in the band's future works.

Tracks on Album

Speak to Me

Money

Breathe

Us and Them

On the Run

Any Colour You Like (Instrumental)

Time

Brain Damage

Breathe - Reprise

Eclipse

The Great Gig in the Sky (Instrumental)

Wish You Were Here - 1975

The breakthrough success of DARK SIDE OF THE MOON made WISH YOU WERE HERE a crucial follow-up in strictly commercial terms. Further pressure came from it being Pink Floyd's first recording for a new label, Columbia. Yet the demands on the band only provided Roger Waters with more fodder for his lyrics, which glanced at the band's roots as well as their new responsibilities.

The mechanized throb of a VCS3 synthesizer, fed through a repeat-echo unit, signals the opening bars of "Welcome To The Machine," a diatribe against an industry more concerned with money than creative music-making. "Have A Cigar" further establishes Waters' contempt by bringing in singer Roy Harper to play the role of a "faceless suit," who

none-too-innocently asks, "Which one's Pink?" The remaining songs indirectly look back to the first casualty of Pink Floyd's growing fame, the group's founder, Syd Barrett.The 20-minute-plus "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" has its roots in earlier pieces like "Atom Heart Mother Suite" and "Echoes." But rather than just another Floydian soundscape, its lyrics make it a paean to Barrett's genius and a requiem for his subsequent breakdown.

The first five of the song's nine movements open the album with sax player Dick Parry wailing as effectively as he did on DARK SIDE. The final four sections, which close the album, form a reprise that starts with the sound of wind and David Gilmour's guitar screaming and crying.

The band then settles into a laid-back jam that ends with Richard Wright's billowing synth delicately fading out.The title track deals also with Barrett, as well as the tension the idealist Waters was feeling in battling the greed that surrounded the band's success. The themes of disillusionment planted throughout WISH YOU WERE HERE would eventually sprout full-blown on THE WALL.

Tracks on Album

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (I-IV)

Wish You Were Here

Welcome to the Machine

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (VI-IX)

Have A Cigar

Animals - 1977

By 1977 England was in the throes of punk, a musical revolution that held hugely successful "dinosaur" rock groups in contempt. So ANIMALS, the album Pink Floyd released that year, found the band as musically stripped down as they'd ever been. The overabundance of soundscapes, ethereal synths and lush textures of the past gave way to a leaner, more guitar-driven Floyd. Yet thematically, Waters and co. still reached for the sky.

Inspired in part by George Orwell's classic novel, "Animal Farm," ANIMALS divides humans into three categories--dogs, pigs and sheep--and features each classification in song. The dogs are merciless opportunists, grasping for success at any price; the pigs are pathetic, self-righteous tyrants; and the sheep are the mindless followers, being used by the dogs and pigs.

This anthropomorphizing was Waters' view of the dehumanizing side of capitalism. And befitting such a lofty theme was the length of the album's three main pieces--none shorter than ten minutes."Dogs" was co-written by David Gilmour, and it features some of his most inspired playing. The greed driving these dogs towards grander heights of materialism eventually leads to a solitary death from cancer, cloaked in an air of self-importance. "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" overflows with biting lyrics that scorn high-minded censors in general, and Mary Whitehouse (a self-appointed guardian of British pop music morality) specifically. The grunting of pigs preceedes Waters' venomous delivery of each word, as Gilmour's scratchy playing and unsettling use of a Vocoder box become effective conduits for the song's malevolence.

"Sheep" starts out with the herd docilely grazing, blissfully unaware of the dogs lurking nearby. The sheep are led to the slaughter, before staging a revolt and killing off the dogs. The soundtrack of this defiance opens with Richard Wright's effect-free electric piano leading a galloping rhythm, before Waters' bass eases the group into a momentary lull. The pace picks up again, and Gilmour's slashing leads drive the song into a rousing climax, fading out with the peaceful sound of chirping birds.

Tracks on Album

Pigs On The Wing (Part One)

Sheep

Dogs

Pigs On The Wing (Part Two)

Pigs (Three Different Ones)

The Wall - 1979

THE WALL was Roger Waters' crowning accomplishment in Pink Floyd. It documented the rise and fall of a rock star (named Pink Floyd), based on Waters' own experiences and the tendencies he'd observed in people around him. By now, the bassist had firm control of the group's direction, working mostly alongside David Gilmour and bringing in producer Bob Ezrin as an outside collaborator.

Drummer Nick Mason was barely involved, while keyboardist Rick Wright seemed to be completely out of the picture. Still, THE WALL was a mighty, sprawling affair, featuring twenty-six songs with vocals--nearly as many as all previous Floyd albums combined.The story revolves around the fictional Pink Floyd's isolation behind a psychological wall. The wall grows as various parts of his life spin out of control, and he grows incapable of dealing with his neuroses.

The album opens by welcoming the unwitting listener to Floyd's show ("In The Flesh?"), then turns back to childhood memories of his father's death in World War II ("Another Brick In The Wall [Part 1]"), his mother's overprotectiveness ("Mother"), and his fascination with and fear of sex ("Young Lust"). By the time "Goodbye Cruel World" closes the first disc, the wall is built and Pink is trapped in the midst of a mental breakdown.

On disc 2, the gentle acoustic phrasings of "Is There Anybody Out There?" and the lilting orchestrations of "Nobody Home" reinforce Floyd's feeling of isolation. When his record company uses drugs to coax him to perform ("Comfortably Numb"), his onstage persona is transformed into a homophobic, race-baiting fascist ("In The Flesh"). In "The Trial" he mentally prosecutes himself, and the wall comes tumbling down.

This ambitious concept album was an across-the-board smash, topping the Billboard album chart for 15 weeks in 1980. The single "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)" was the country's best seller for four weeks. THE WALL spawned an elaborate stage show (so elaborate, in fact, that the band was able to bring it to only a few cities) and a full-length film. It also marked the last time Waters and Gilmour would work together as equal partners.

Tracks on Album

Disk 1

In the Flesh?

The Thin Ice

Another Brick in the Wall (Part I)

The Happiest Days Of Our Lives

Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)

Mother

Goodbye Blue Sky

Empty Spaces

Young Lust

One of My Turns

Don't Leave Me Now

Another Brick in the Wall (Part III)

Goodbye Cruel World

Disk 2

Hey You

Is There Anybody Out There?

Nobody Home

Vera

Bring the Boys Back Home

Comfortably Numb

The Show Must Go On

In the Flesh

Run Like Hell

Waiting For the Worms

Stop

The Trial

Outside the Wall

The Final Cut

Tracks on Album

The Post War Dream

Your Possible Pasts

One Of The Few

The Hero's Return

The Gunners Dream

Paranoid Eyes

Get Your Filthy Hands Of My Dessert

The Fletcher Memorial Home

Southampton Dock

The Final Cut

Not Now John

Two Suns In The Sunset

A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Tracks on Album

Signs of Life (Instrumental)

Learning to Fly

The Dogs of War

One Slip

On The Turning Away

Round and Round (Instrumental)

A New Machine - Part I

Terminal Frost (Instrumental)

A New Machine - Part II

Sorrow

The Division Bell

Tracks on Album

Cluster One (Instrumental)

What do you want from me

Poles Apart

Marooned (Instrumental)

A Great Day For Freedom

Wearing the Inside Out

Take It Back

Coming Back To Life

Keep Talking

Lost for Words

High Hopes

A brief history of The Pink Floyd Sound

It all began in 1965 when Syd Barrett, Bob Close, Rick Wright, Nick Mason, and Roger Waters joined a band called Sigma 6. Soon, Close left the band, missing the chance of a lifetime, and all the earlier members of the band had gone their own ways.

All that was left now was a guitarist (Syd Barrett), a bassist (Roger Waters), a pianist (Rick Wright), and a drummer (Nick Mason). The band had many names at different times such as, The Screaming Abdabs, T-Set, The Meggadeaths, and The Architectural Abdabs, until Syd came up with the name The Pink Floyd Sound, inspired by two jazz artists Pink Anderson, and Floyd Council.

For their first album "Piper At The Gates of Dawn" they used the name "The Pink Floyd" and the word, "The" , was dropped for their next album A Saucerful Of Secrets. Before the release of The Piper at the Gates Of Dawn, Pink Floyd had released several singles such as Arnold Lane, and See Emily Play. Syd was heavily involved into LSD, which was legal at the time, and was having trouble

dealing with all the pressure of being a star. So they hired Dave Gilmour, Syd's old friend to play rhythm guitar. Syd's condition got worse and the band decided not to pick him up one night. That was the end of Syd.

The new foursome released albums such as More, Ummagumma, Atom heart Mother, Relics, Meddle, and Obscured By Clouds. Pink Floyd were having trouble trying to find a style, and were still sounding like the band when Syd was present.

Then they released The Dark Side of the Moon. The Dark Side of The Moon sold over 25 million copies world wide, and remained on the billboard charts for 14 years, proving to be one of the greatest albums ever. Pink Floyd were having troubles creating something of equal quality to Dark Side. The release of Wish You Were Here proved that Pink Floyd were a very unique band. They released an album called Animals, known as the forgotten album, and then the album called The Wall followed. Roger was upset with Wright and wanted to fire him after the wall tour. Then Pink Floyd released another album without Wright called The Final Cut and then Roger left the band. It was in 1987 when Gilmour and Mason rejoined under the name Pink Floyd and made an album called A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

Then Wright joined them for the world tour. In 1994 Pink Floyd came out with the album The Division Bell and later released Pulse.