The Smiley Smile Message Board

It is 5:20am in the morning here in New York and Coming Back to Life from Pulse just came on my MP3. I think we need a Pink Floyd thread for general music discussion here. They were certainly Beach Boys fans, as evidenced throughout their career. IMO, they have lots in common with the 'Boys while at the same time contrasting them.

Anyone else here at SMileySmile dig them or is this thread a lost cause?

I am no fan. But I hear that the Flaming Lips are planning to cover the entire Dark Side album. Now there's a thought...

Bike is freaking cool. PF with Syd was the best!!!

A couple of random thoughts....

I'll always have a great appreciation for the Syd Barrett year(s).

I think Saucerful Of Secrets is underrated, although I'm not a huge fan of some of those marathon instrumental passages.

VH1 Classic has been showing a lot of Dark Side Of The Moon stuff; I still enjoy it, despite hearing it a trillion times.

I can see why some people are turned off by Pink Floyd, but I do think they were influential in their own "space rock" way.

"Comfortably Numb" is a personal favorite.

The Live Eight reunion was an emotional moment; I'm glad they did it. It's very sad that two of the members passed relatively young. I hope they all made up.

The Floyd...probably my 2nd favorite band of all time (right after the BB). My favorite period just so happens to be Saucerful thru Dark Side, and I am a huge fan of those marathon instrumental tracks. The Wall is probably my least favorite album, oddly enough, followed by the post-Waters albums. Favorites are Meddle & Obscured by Clouds. I liked Piper, but I actually prefer Barrett solo.

Echoes is one of my top tracks...yeah I'm a keen Floyd fan. Love Dark Side, love the Wall, love Meddle. Like the post-Waters albums. Far more of a Gilmour fan than a Waters one...although his work during 1973-1980 was classic to be sure. I like his writing just not his attitude. Love almost all aspects of Gilmour and especially Richard Wright.

I like it all. Not some tie-dye wearing pot head or misguided teen. Just enjoy the tunes. Can appreciate all phases of the group. Love Piper. Probably my fave. Very special record. Love the directionless post-Syd Floyd, noise jams and zany experiments. Man & Journey thing is swell. Big fan of Cymbaline and Cirus Minor. Ummagumma is a odd but flavorful cracker. Very big on Atom Heart Mother. Title cut is something I never tire of. Meddle is great, except for Seamus. I still love Dark Side, still play it, even though radio has beaten that horse to death. Still a great, great listening experience. Very pleasing. My dirty secret - not that big of a Wish YOu Were Here fan. Love Shine on, stuff in between not my favorites. Love Animals. Great guitar work. Especially Dogs. The Wall....well, I enjoy most of it. I don't play it too much. Goodbye Blue Sky is great song. Vera, Nobody Home....all of Side 3, really. Final Cut not really a group effort but has moments of beauty and is a powerful, personal expression from Roger. I never play Momentary Lapse. I probably should. Oooh, but I LOVE Division Bell. I think it's a terribly overlooked record. Yes, it is packed with Floyd cliches, but I think the songs themselves are rather good, namely Poles Apart, Rick's song "Wearing the Inside Out", "High Hopes", and "Cluster One". "Coming Back to Life" is the only track I flat out skip. I'm sad Rick left us, but I am glad the band managed to reunite one final time and play so well together. Seeing Live8 was a very moving experience and filled my heart with joy.

I agree with this, I love their 'meandering' years when frankly they didn't know what they were doing but still putting out good stuff (and some filler, but thats life). My favourite of this period is 'More' from 1969, I love the sound and vibe of it, I love Rick Wrights keyboard sounds on it too. I always take this album on holiday with me, it has a good mediterranean feel.
My favourite post DSOTM album is certainly 'Animals', its dark and unmelodic for the most part, but quite uncompromising and is the album I always put on when I can't sleep (in fact a lot of Floyd albums are great at making you sleep, not because they're boring but because you enter a strange world of sound and you often don't know where you are), in fact these days I don't listen to 'Animals' in any other context, I can usually fall asleep by the end of 'Dogs'.

I only like their early stuff before they went boring (after "Dark Side..." if not earlier). Their first 45s are great (collected on "Relics")

GLad I'm not alone. I like all phases of Floyd. Someone mentioned Obscured by CLouds, and I think that is their most overlooked album. Cymbaline, Green is the Colour, and Cirrus Minor all rule. Dang, I could write a thesis statement on these guys.

IMO, SmileySmile Message Board is way more insightful and enjoyable than any of the FLoyd boards I've scoped out.

I came across The Wall Demos and was blown away. I like it better than the finished album.

It's too bad they never toured with Roger after the Live 8 thing but at least the four of them rocked out together for one last evening.



(.........more to follow)

All I have to say is whoever did the stereo mix of Piper should have never been allowed to make mixes/produce again. Try listening to it on headphones. It's like the old Beatles stereo albums but significantly worse. For most of "Scarecrow", for example, ALL of the instruments are in the right ear, except for one brief guitar part in the chorus. It's very disconcerting, it actually makes the songs less immersing, although the intent was probably to do the opposite.

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn has to be among my favourite sixties records period. What they did after Barrett left the group is a bit too prog-rock for my personal taste, however.

"Jugband Blues" probably is the one song of theirs I love best. Great lyrics too.

I would've loved it if Scream Thy Last Scream and Vegetable Man had made it onto Saucerful. I consider The Madcap Laughs to be the true third Floyd album.

The shorter songs on THE WALL brought me in as a fan in '79 (I wasn't too keen on 20-minute epics at the time), but I grew to like everything from '67 to '83. Waters leaving was a huge blow, even though I agree that the albums were becoming solo Roger records (at the same time, THE FINAL CUT is just a magnificent piece of work). I dislike MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON because it really is a David Gilmour solo album dressed up as a Pink Floyd record; the attempt to address profound subject matter is embarassing. THE DIVISION BELL is more enjoyable because Gilmour doesn't feel the need to make it anything more than a solo album with Mason and Wright guesting; the result is less pretentious and more geniune. For years my favorite material was DARK SIDE OF THE MOON through FINAL CUT, but the older I get, the more I'm drawn to the period from SAUCERFUL through OBSCURED BY CLOUDS which remains mysterious in a way; you can never quite get a finger on it.

Love those two songs. Love 'em. But I can understand why they were left off Saucerful. Unless Waters or Gilmour would've cleaned them up a bit musically, those songs were a bit "too out there", even for a Pink Floyd album. They're fascinating, but they can be a hard listen.

Love Pink Floyd.  Wife hates it.  Maybe cause of the low key psychosis and hypnotic state  i am apt to slip into while listening.  Not conducive to light conversation and marital bliss.

Having said that, I am partial to the Umma gumma album with the odd pieces such as Grantchester Meadows and SSSOFAGTIACAGWAP.  And the live performance of Astronomy Domine.  Of course there are the early classics of Emily and Arnold which have aged exceedingly well.

I have come to adore On an Island as possibly the last great piece of Floyd related music.  It has that dreamy, wistful....sometimes ominous quality.... and heavy support from the recently departed Rick Wright.

I really could go on but I'll yield to another to have a turn.

I like it too, "Smile" is a really ace track.

On the Turning Away is a solid tune IMO, much better on Delicate Sound of Thunder. The Final Cut is vastly underrated, IMO; and like Donald said, "not conducive to light conversation..."

Obscured by Clouds is a very solid album, even though it got Obscured by DSOTM. Burning Bridges, Wots... Uh the Deal, Mudmen. Great works of art. Also, as I mentioned earlier, they really had a respect for the Beach Boys.

A good Pink Floyd board is an unattainable goal, due to the prevalence of Waters fans who overly fellate him at the expense of Syd and Dave. Like the Beach Boys, Pink Floyd are the proud owners of small and simple-minded fans.

But they're pretty much untouchable.

The more prevailing trend I've seen lately is for Dave to be fellated and for Roger to be made into a divine object of hatred and a small faction of 'it was all crap after Syd left' types. It's sad that most Floyd fans seem to be more caught up in "which one's Pink?" than the music. Also it seems to me the Floyd member that really seems to get forgotten in the whole thing is Richard Wright and he was so integral to the group sound with his keyboard textures, vocal harmonies, the songs he co-wrote with Roger and the underrated songs he contirbuted on his own. I think his Summer '68 is the strongest track on Atom Heart Mother.

I personally love all the Floyd music up to '83, like a couple of songs from the Dave led years but the group lost a lot of quality I think without Roger to provide lyrics and concepts and give things a darker edge as he teneded to do and like a lot of Roger, Dave and Syd's solo material. Unfortunatley Richard was a bit of an under-achiever on his early solo work but Pink's Song off Wet Dream is good and his last solo album Broken China was a solid showing.

I agree about the Final Cut being underrated, I really like Your Possible Pasts, The Gunner's Dream, Paranoid Eyes, the title track and Two Suns in the Sunset off that one.

The radio broadcasts of live shows from Amsterdam '69 and ones for the BBC from 1970 and 1971 are worth hearing to hear how incredible and powerful Floyd could be live. Fat Old Sun became an entireley different prospect live, it goes into a jamming section that becomes like a proto version of the instrumental work in the second half of Shine on You Crazy Diamond.

Round of applause. I love "Summer '68"

I love Pink Floyd, too, especially from "Piper" through "The Wall."  Saw 'em live in '87, and though Roger was long departed, they still sounded great (and had the giant flying pig).

The Floyd definitely did have a lot of respect for the Beach Boys.  Listen to "The Show Must Go On," a brief song on side 4 (or CD 2) of "The Wall."  The song has a VERY BBs intro, and the harmony vocals carry throughout it.  They actually got Bruce to help them with the arrangement on that song, and he sang backing vocals on it and on several other "Wall" songs.

The original plan had in fact been to have all the Beach Boys sing harmony on the Show Must Go On and Waiting for the Worms.

Mike Love could have sung lead on IF and the lead guitar on Steamboat sounds just like the solo on If.

Think about it.

Not to mention that apparantley after Final Cut the band flirted with an album of BB covers. At least that's what I heard on this message board.

Now.  That is just plain bullshit!

Apparently ML didn't think the Floyd was compatible with the BB's image at the time of The Wall.

Been listening to the Final Cut a lot lately....must be rather introverted I suppose....

Not quite, although David Gilmour at one point was rumored to (and in fact used to do BB songs with Jokers Wild).


YES! Actually, I love the whole album. There are many who hate it because of the recycled melodies. I wonder what those same people think of BWPS...

IMHO the recycled melodies in BWPS are exquisite and very apt.  The Floyd have also used recurring musical themes as motifs in much of their best work; however, on TFC, Roger Waters seems to be recycling older Floyd melodies, and not very strong ones.  Anyway, I prefer BWPS not just because of the stronger melodies (and more positive subject matter) but because the singing - autotuned or not - is much better!  As much as I love Pink Floyd and much of Roger Waters' writing, I prefer it when he's only the occasional lead vocalist.

I had forgotten about editing merda to merda.  In the future I will endeavor to edit my own merda to merda and save someone from sorting merda from Shinola.

Sheeeeeeeiiiiiiit!!

Back to the thread.

Just did a you tube tour of Gilmour.  Yet again.


I'll go out on a limb.  David Gilmour is the greatest living still powerful and creative of the 60's British blues lead guitars.  Not with speed and technical proficiency necessarily, ....but with a power and sensitivity,  a sense of minimalism, of just what is perfect, not a note wasted or redundant,  a level of "feel" that goes straight to the heart....that makes technicians like Beck, Page, and Clapton seem irrelevant.   

I am satisfied after hearing On an Island live.   Satisfied that it can't be touched.  True art and pure auditory poetry.

Gilmour's guitar tone and phrasing is much more expressive IMO than Beck or Clapton's, IMO.. I've been listening to Amused to Death and Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking and Gilmour is SORELY missed. On an Island can be a bit too sleepy for me, at least the album version...I am going to have to check out the You Tube stuff....

When On an Island first came out, my first few times listening I too felt it was sleepy...I referred to it as a bit of smoke punctuated by piercing guitar licks.


But I have changed my mind obviously.   I really can't compare Gilmour to any other guitar player.  More akin to something like Miles Davis. Very, very satisfying and distinctive.

I guess I'm one of those "It was all crap after Syd left" people...but that's what growing up hearing 70s Floyd endlessly overplayed on classic rock radio will do to you!!!

This sums up my Pink Floyd appreciation perfectly. I feel a bit like a goof liking Dark Side but it's an enjoyable record every time. I enjoy the Syd Barrett years but I have a lot of appreciation for Roger Waters too.

My personal favorite album is probably Wish You Were Here - just a great record all the way through.

Why would you feel like a goof? It's one of the greatest records of all time!

simple yet complicated

Mainly because of its associations with neo-hippie culture and stoners. It's the default "hippie" record of choice. But it really is a fantastic record and it doesn't make me like it any less.

I'm a hippie stoner :lol but I liked the album as a kid too.

Gilmour shines through it all.....to this day.


If you haven't really spent some time with Island, you should.  And check out the live Island material...on the web and at your cd store.

Thought I'd start up this topic again as I've been listening to the Floyd quite a lot recently. Used to love them as a stoned teenager then went off them for years then learned I could appreciate them without the need for drugs. The period I'm only really interested these days is up to Obscured By Clouds. Think in many respects Dark Side is the beginning of the end. Waters cutting the marvelous Rick Wright out of the picture songwriting wise, Dave's guitar playing getting more formulated, Waters becoming obsessed with concepts and doing all the singing.... anyone else agree? I like the earlier experimental stuff. Went a little wonky after Syd left but soon picked up the pace. They lost something the second they all became rich. My favourite record by them is Atom Heart Mother. That is just brilliance.

You ever get the feeling that, listening to a Pink Floyd song, it doesn't sound written or recorded so much as it's just there? They didn't so much make songs as they did sweeping experiences.

Syd's stuff was pretty song-based.

I agree...DSOTM is about as good as it could get, cohesively for the band, while WYWH was a bit more forced. After that, it was never the same, for better or worse... However, I listen to their stuff from 77-83 the most... the Waters era, and I guess 68- 70, including AHM...

I too was a teen like yourself, and then about a year ago after listening to the BB too much, I gave the Floyd a spin with a clean head, and heard and appreciated in a brand new light.

...Oh, I hear Roger will be touring the Wall soon...

I agree. Musically, Dark Side of the Moon is great, as is some of the other later stuff, but I get tired of Waters's personality drenching everything with this dark know-it-all sarcasm. I've heard it so many times that when songs like "Another Brick in the Wall" come on the radio, I have to change the station. It's not that I hate the music - I just don't want to hear Waters acting smug.

Pink Floyd rule!!!!!

Also my second favorite band!

Pink Floyd is perhaps the BEST example of the individual parts creating this insanely great whole and the whole becoming far more important than the parts!

Waters argues that it's his lyrics that make Pink Floyd so great, Gilmore argues that it's his musical ability!

Tricky thing is....... they are both right!!!!!

But let's not stop with those two glory whores!

RICK WRIGHT!!!!!!!

I'm sorry, but when you have Rick Wright you could have swapped in any other guitarist/bassist/lyricist, and it still
would have been awesome!

But here's the thing: Rick Wright and David Gilmore could have both easily joined any prog band and kicked ass and fit in and been virtuosos! But you toss in Waters and Mason, and things get really interesting. You put two prodigies in with two architects without the same musical ability and you have this freaking awesome fusion of talent and ideas! Waters and Mason couldn't play as well or fluidly as Wright/Gilmore, so what they seemed to do is make the idea of what they were playing as important as how they played it! I can't think of anyone who plays drums like Nick Mason. The closest I can get is Jerry Garcia on guitar. Meaning, they both just went on little journeys in their playing. Listen to the drums on Careful With That Axe Eugene! Mason sounds like he's trying to get somewhere rather than just play the song. He lopes from tom to tom to tom to cymbal to snare to cymbal to tom as if he is arriving at something or  trying to battle his way to the song's center or core! It's freaking mind numbingly intoxicating! Now, if you had some bass god riffing and slapping away with the drums, it might be impressive but not as commanding of that ancient mythical searching part of our brains. Instead, Waters played these simple yet muscular lines that, as they repeated over and over, tore into your psyche as the chaos of the drums somehow fit in with and danced around these aggressively simple but mighty bass notes that Roger played at the very end of his bass!

Then you toss in Gilmore and Wright and it's freaking magic!!!!

Ok, I'm babbling away like a maniac, but no one ever goes off about how great Mason is or Waters (as a bassist)

Frankly Water's songs without Dave's musical backing is just coma inducing* and no amount of Clapton's or Beck's have been able to hide this.

On the other hand without Roger's concepts to build from Gilmour can do nothing but rehash parts of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" over and over.

What made them great was they were a team! Each complemented the other perfectly. Such a shame that by the time Roger finally started to realise this Rick passed away and it put an end to any hope of a decent Floyd reunion. Maybe the Beach Boys should look at this and learn from it.






* however no amount of Dave's guitar playing could save "The Final Cut".

Any hopes of a full Floyd reunion died in '06.

Yes Dave said out of respect for Rick he would never use the Pink Floyd name again. A simple Waters/Gilmour collaboration would still be interesting to hear. Now that the drugs and (hopefully) the egos have been put away can these two ever make music together again? Like so many of my favourtie groups from the 60's-70's I feel there is still unfinished business here.

If that's the case, let's get a fantasy thread going about what Floyd era we'd enjoy hearing of what BB songs....I'm gonna give some time and thought into this.

Speaking of associating hippies/stoners with "default hippie records," can we discuss the top cliche hippie albums/songs, I was gonna give it a number like top 5 but, I'd like to see however many you think are typical of those likenesses. There's a lot of stuff I feel people just associate it with, just random examples like Incense Peppermints or the Sgt. Pepper album, make sense?

Of course we'd like to imagine what PF could do with Smile material, but mostly, I really pictured Floyd covering latter stuff like Wild Honey through Holland, which I'd still include some of the Smile tracks released on those albums. I'd like to hear the Meddle/DSOTM/WYWH era, something along the lines of:

-Little Bird
-Cabinessence
-Be With Me
-Cool Cool Water
-You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone
-This Whole World
-Steamboat
-All This Is That
-Funky Pretty
-Slip On Through
-Busy Doin' Nothing
-Mt. Vernon Fairway (mix all the themes as one song)
-Can't Wait Too Long
-A Day in the Life of a Tree with Til' I Die
-I Went to Sleep
-Feel Flows
-Never Learn Not To Love
-All I Wanna Do
-Marcella

i barely became a pink floyd fan last week :)
the only song i ever knew by them before last week was "money" smh
now i almost have everything by them :D
my fav. albums by them is "animals","obscured by clouds","dark side of the moon" & "wish you were here" :)

Love Pink Floyd. My favorite post-Syd album by them is Meddle, which I think is underrated. But like others have mentioned before, the Syd Barrett stuff is my favorite. Piper at the Gates of Dawn sounds far out and whimsical at the same time. I think that's why I like it so much.

I've listened to Pink Floyd a lot over the years, but now find much of their music too pessimistic and defeatist. But like you I still love Piper that combination of fantastical and whimsy does it for me too. I have two others that I still listen to and they are Atom Heart Mother, the title track is just so inventive and Meddle it captures a unique dreaminess. No denying Dark side of the Moon was well constructed I just don't like the place it takes me to.

Well said...that goes for a lot of music I've grown out of; and why I love the BB's that much more than ever.

..and agreed about AHM.

I didn't know you like the Floyd and Syd!
I have become a big fan over the last few years. My favorite period is 1965-68 "Lucy Leave" until "Point Me At The Sky. I do like the 1969-72 stuff a lot as well. I've come to enjoy the 1973-81 period too, but that music wouldn't have grabbed my ear too strongly had Syd and the early Floyd not existed.  Syd to me is one of the best songwriters and innovators in rock and roll. I love his solo work too. Nobody wrote like Syd.

Oh here is a video re-edit I made for Point Me At The Sky.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPU3Mj3td3M&feature=youtu.be;

Oh that is just lovely!  8)

Glad you like it!

Recently been obsessed with their music. Can any band beat their run of great albums from meddle to animals? ( the wall is a bit much IMO). This band really came into their own jamming their songs instead of doing Syd Barrett pop songs .  My favorite album is animals by them.

My favorite Floyd song is Echoes, one of the most  amazing  rock songs I've ever heard.  My second favorite is Shine On You Crazy Diamond followed by Comfortably Numb.

Try calling Interstellar Overdrive and Astronomy Domine pop songs!

And I find it hard to believe that you prefer Pink Floyd over the Beach Boys...

Love the Barrett-era stuff. Not crazy about the Waters-led Floyd, with the exception of Wish You Were Here, which sees them baring their collective souls as never before or since...

Animals and Wish You Were Here have been my favorites recently. PF knows how to really play long songs extremely well.

He wasn't calling them pop songs. He was referring to songs like See Emily Play and Arnold Layne.

I liked their 'Classic Rock' stuff ok enough. For whatever reason, about 12 or so years ago they came out with a double cd of stuff, 'Echoes', and I bought that. I really got into the Syd stuff. Astronomy Domine is probably my favorite Floyd song. And there was something about the song 'Bike' that was appealing. It was very childlike, and very odd; the cadence of it is quite different to what I'm used to hearing. And of course there are times where Jugband Blues almost brings me to tears; 'What exactly is a dream? And what exactly is a joke?'

Pixeletwin, that's what I meant. I like Floyd doing less commercial jams than the shorter Barrett era songs.

I don't like the Barret era so much - See Emily Play, Astronomy Domine and Interstellar Overdrive are fantastic - but their first album...guh, I just can't get into it, no matter how many times I try and listen to it. The songs released on his first two solo albums were of much higher quality than on Piper - the good songs anyway.

Animals is my favorite too SB. I'm having trouble finding a copy of it locally, but I'm sure I'll come across one eventually.

Of the Meddle to Wall albums, Wish You Were Here is my least favorite. Everyone loves it, but I just can't get into - not that SOYCD isn't awesome. I saw a really cool shirt on redbbble with the name of the song spread across the front, with SYD made all colorful, and Syd's face behind the words. Can't find that one anymore  :-[

I bought Atom Heart Mother and Obscured By Clouds today. 2 really underrated albums. I was going to get Meddle but freaking JB Hi-fi didn't have it!

These are the Pink Floyd CDs I have so far:

Atom Heart Mother
Obscured By Clouds
Dark Side Of The Moon (Experience Edition)
Wish You Were Here (EE)
Animals
The Wall (EE)

I'm addicted to their music at the moment. There's really nothing like it. My favourite ATM is The Wall.

I hated The Wall the first few times I listened to it - that's an album that really has to grow on you. But it is a great piece of work.

Atom Heart Mother (the song) is too long, but it has a few "oh my god" moments, like when the orchestra really gets going near the beginning, or when it all folds in to just Rick Wright's synth and Roger's bass. I heard some story about them recording the backing track all the way through in one go....must have been tough.

Wall fans should really check out the ITAOT live album. It easily surpasses the studio version of the Wall!

I really want to get that but it's out of print. I'm gonna look for it at the next record fair in bendigo. Or I'll just get The Wall Immersion box set

I really like the title track but I do think they repeated the main theme too many times and they shouldn't have included a reprise of Breast Milky.

My favourite song on the album is Summer '68. Again, really underrated.

I wouldn't say it surpasses the studio recording, but it certainly does it justice as a live recording. There's a lot of energy in the band, and that includes Snowy White's contributions. The couple extra songs in there are also a plus.

Yeh, the three 'meat' tracks, Summer '68, If and Fat Old Sun are VERY good. Fat Old Sun is a mainstay on my 'stoned' playlists for the occasional times I need to play it  ;)

Nobody Home....sigh

delete   

It does not. But it's a great live album.

One of those bands that is difficult to talk about, because there's so much to be said...I love just about everything they've done up to and including The Final Cut. I guess you can call me a fanboy. I think Animals is their best effort objectively, but Dark Side means much more to me. I've been going through so many obsession phases with The Wall that it's not even funny anymore. Saw Roger Waters performing it last year and cried like a baby. But maybe in the end my favourite is Final Cut, just because it so rarely gets as much praise as the others and I think it's just as good, albeit in a different way. And Piper may just be the most representative example of that late 60's rockin', guitar-driven psychedelia that I love so much together with things like King Crimson and Jimi Hendrix.