Pink Floyd – Pt. I

Long past time they get their due in my book. So here we go.

My first slight experience with Pink Floyd must have been through my sister's friends. I think maybe one of them was playing stuff from A Collection of Great Dance Songs (which, by the way, isn't). By the time I was in my early teens, of course I had heard "Money" and "Another Brick in the Wall (Pt. 2)," so hearing those here was no revelation. What was was "Shine On You Crazy Diamond." How much melancholy and feeling could be hung on one long, long, synthesized chord with little embellishments all around? Apparently, indicible loads. Entranced, I asked to borrow the CD so I could record just that song onto a cassette. And I did...well, up until the point where David & Co. started to sing. I thought that ruined the whole thing, so I stopped recording at the point during the first verse where they sing "Come on you target/ For fa..."

And that's where it ended for a while.

Maybe a few months on, I heard "Sheep" on the same disc, and was even more beguiled. Who even were these guys? What audio magic were they wringing out of thin air? This song was amazing. And it all started with the sound of sheep bleating faintly in the distance and a tossed-off plinking on an electric piano. And slowly, a lighthearted melody began to take shape, becoming more defined and solid. A fat strummed bass faded insidiously into the background, grounding the melody...but also sounding a bit menacing, a bit pernicious, drawing me in more and more as it proceeded. Then the bass lurched up, then down, like a hook that cleanly pierced my chest and yanked me in. Backwards cymbals and drums shut the door behind me, and a few more minor electric piano chords clinically marked a bit of time before the first verse slammed into me. And for the next nine or so minutes, I was useless, unable to turn away from this song. And I had to hear it, over and over again.

Though no albums of Pink Floyd's are part of my desert island list, the band as a whole has had more influence on my...well, at least teenage years than any other. Possibly even R.E.M. Possibly.

So here are the albums I had, in chronological order:

A Saucerful of Secrets – Yep, you read right. I never got Piper at the Gates of Dawn. I never got to appreciate the undiluted twisted lysergic genius that was Syd Barrett. Also, this was one of the very first Floyd albums I ever got. This is not one to start exploring Floyd with. This is, instead, what happens when you tell your parents (who know jackshit about music) you want Pink Floyd for Christmas, and tell them to just surprise you. It's saddled with two of the worst clichés in music: the transitional album and the sophomore album. Syd was on his way out, David was on his way in, and the music was kinda ennnh. The title song was pretty brilliant, though – a psychedelic English nightmare in three parts that I played over and over one night while finishing some English poetry assignment. Also, Syd, soon to be dismissed, got in a great final kick to the band on the last song, "Jugband Blues," where he pointedly sings, "It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here/And I'm most obliged to you for making it clear/That I'm not here."

Ummagumma – As a teenager, you look at some big albums and think they must be amazing and somehow mythical, just because of their size. Tommy, Physical Graffiti, Decade, heck, even Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I'm sad to say that Ummagumma did not live up to this billing in my mind. So. The first disc is a live set of four songs, all at least eight minutes long, all extended versions of previously released songs, and not bad. You just kinda get the feeling that you had to be there. (Watch the 1972 Live at Pompeii version of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene." Wow.) The second disc is basically the boys running rampant in the studio and having fun. Or at least trying to. It's what happens when the band decides to let each member write their own songs, then record it all. The end result is very warts-and-all. The best is probably Roger's bucolic, utterly lovely "Grantchester Meadows," all quiet acoustic reverie, "basking in the sunshine of a bygone afternoon." And, of course, one must hear "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict." That title is sheer clickbait, two generations before "clickbait" even was a word.

Meddle – I skipped Atom Heart Mother and the two soundtracks. Heard bad things about them, so there ya go. But this album? Not a damned regret. Floyd owned the 1970s, and here's the first shot. The first song, the crowd-pleaser, is "One of These Days," a tight, spacey nugget with distorted vocals and awesome rock star guitars, the fount from which much of the next album would spring. The next four songs, all folksy and mellow, complete the first side, and each is quite agreeable. But the single song on side two, "Echoes," is an extended masterpiece, a giant from which one can hear bits of nearly every aspect of the Floyd catalog, from Piper to at least The Wall. Beginning with a single distorted plucked piano string like a far-off candle in a fog, the song slowly fades in, gradually building to...well, if Pink Floyd can ever claim to be funky, it would be here. The haunted aural bad trip in the middle is as iconic as that middle part in Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." (Wanna get to the good part immediately? I kinda thought so.)

Dark Side of the Moon – Miles of pages have been written about this one, so I won't contribute much to it. Yes, it's great, but it's probably my least favorite of the '70s albums. I can see why it's so critically acclaimed, but it just doesn't hit me all that much. "The Great Gig in the Sky," however, is a stunner – some of the deepest, most soulful vocals in rock history without a single word and some gorgeous chord progressions, the complexities of which haven't been heard much from the bad before. I dunno...it's hard for me to evaluate this one in a vacuum, because so much of it has been played to death. Maybe a new generation will look at it and be able to reevaluate it. In the eyes of millions, it's an undisputed classic. In my eyes? Not quite.

Part II to come.