Pink Floyd Discography

and Career Overview

important work in color

1967: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (8-5-67). 1968: A Saucer Full of Secrets (6-29-68). 1969: Ummagumma (10-25-69) * More (7-27-69). 1970: Atom Heart Mother (10-10-70). 1971: Relics (5-71) * Meddle (11-11-71). 1972: Obscured by Clouds. 1973: Dark Side of the Moon. 1975: Wish You Were Here. 1977: Animals. 1979: The Wall. 1983: The Final Cut (3-21-83). 1987: A Momentary Lapse of Reason (9-8-87). 1988: Delicate Sound of Thunder (11-22-88). 1994: The Division Bell (4-5-94).

Syd Barrett

1970: The Madcap Laughs (1/70) * Barrett (12-70). 1988: The Peel Sessions (2/88) * Opel.

Roger Waters

1984: The Pros and Cons of Hitch-hiking. 1987: Radio K.A.O.S. 1990: The Wall Live in Berlin (8-27-90). 1992: Amused to Death (7-11-92). 1999: In the Flesh (12-5-99).

David Gilmour

1978: David Gilmour. 1984: About Face.

Pink Floyd was not represented at all in The Rolling Stone Record Reviews, Volumes 1 and 2, released in 1971 and 1974. Although in the early days of rock criticism it wasn’t necessary to defend an artist just because they were symbolic of a section of the mass market’s taste, Syd Barrett’s work still seemed unduly neglected.

Syd Barrett helmed the early Pink Floyd and the results are found too briefly on the band’s debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and on a few selections from a Saucer Full of Secrets and Relics. Barrett was everything that the later Pink Floyd was not: he was humorous, spontaneous, imaginative, musically adept, lighthearted and given to spooky, demented fun. When Barrett’s schizophrenia sidetracked him in 1968, everything that came naturally to him was forced on the rest of the members of Pink Floyd. There is creative scope to the songs Barrett wrote for The Piper at the Gates of Dawn as he moves from light themes to dark themes ("Flaming"/"Astronomy Dominie"), from mystical impressionism to minimalist realism ("Chapter 24"/"The Scarecrow"), from childish simplicity to spacey exploration ("Bike"/Interstellar Overdrive"). Barrett’s Pink Floyd was colorful; the later incarnation simply dreary. Barrett’s songs were musical; Pink Floyd’s songs became increasingly contrived and leaden – in their pursuit of soundtrack-like atmospherics (Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, Obscured By Clouds) the band neglected its musicianship. Barrett’s guitar playing, despite it’s quirkiness, remains the best the band ever attained (his guitar approach would show up later in all kinds of post-new wave bands). The melodies Barrett wrote were more memorable than the tuneless material that culminated in Roger Waters’ last Pink Floyd album, the disatrous The Final Cut. A few of the songs on The Wall seem to be modeled on Leonard Cohen songs, and Waters’ weak mimicry, both lyrically and vocally, shows by default how far apart Cohen and Waters are intellectually. Barrett’s musical approach included odd tunings, odd meters, odd juxtapositions, and a startling clarity of intention. Without Barrett, Pink Floyd flaunted one of the most boring, unambitious rhythm sections at the top of the pop charts; as instrumentalists, the band members have always been doodlers of consistent indistinction. With an unvarying lack of intensity, they’ve trudged through long, wordy, cynical works like Wish You Were Here, The Wall, Animals, and The Final Cut. Their psychedelia was all hot air, which usually took on momentum only when Nick Mason shifted into tom-tom patterns. These windy excursions ("A Saucer Full of Secrets," "Careful With the Axe, Eugene," "Echoes," "Atom Heart Mother," Wish You Were Here) lacked any kind of thematic musical development or transcendent playing. Richard Wright’s organ work was of the simple, fill-in-the-gap variety; and, an unclever rhythm guitarist, David Gilmore saved his lead-playing for what became overly predictable flourishes meant to liven up the deadly proceedings. All of Floyd’s foreplay seemed doomed to end with a wanking Gilmore solo. Comparing Floyd’s quasi-psychedelic "ensemble" work to even unintentional psychedelia like "The Gates of Delirium" ((Yes), "Eight Miles High" (The Byrds), or "Sky Pilot" (the Animals) shows the band has more in common with mediocre Hollywood soundtrack producers than with inspired musical combos.

But, yes, Dark Side of the Moon is a good album – the only time it all came together for Pink Floyd, post Barrett. Why? Because Dark Side of the Moon contained concise songs rather than long-winded and redundant blathering. On the other hand, the follow up, Wish You Were Here, shows an ignorance and insensitivity to mental illness that does Syd Barrett’s possible pop genius a harrowing disservice, making a pseudo-mystical, pop-rebel icon out of a much more common, and much more interesting, tragedy. This seems consistent with Water’s style: a lack of balance often becomes the cynic’s indulgence.

For some reason, all of these problems have been duly noted in Roger Water’s solo work.

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