Referat - Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd is a British progressive band it is one of rock's most successful acts, ranking seventh in number of albums sold worldwide.
Pink Floyd formed in 1964 from earlier bands whose names included Sigma 6, T-Set, Meggadeaths, The Screaming Abdabs, The Architectural Abdabs, and The Abdabs. The band was again renamed The Pink Floyd Sound and then simply The Pink Floyd (after two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council).
Pink Floyd originally consisted of Bob Klose (lead guitar), Syd Barrett (vocals, rhythm guitar), Richard Wright (keyboards, vocals), Roger Waters (bass, vocals) and Nick Mason (drums). They covered rhythm and blues staples such as "Louie, Louie". As Barrett started writing tunes more influenced by American surf music, psychedelic rock, and British whimsy, humour and literature, the heavily jazz-oriented Klose departed and left a rather stable foursome. The band formed Blackhill Enterprises, a six-way business partnership with their managers, Peter Jenner and Andrew King. Released in August 1967, the band's debut The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is considered to be a prime example of English psychedelic music. The album's tracks showcase an eclectic mixture of music, from the avant garde free form piece "Interstellar Overdrive" to whimsical songs, such as "Scarecrow", a melancholic song inspired by the Fenlands, the rural region surrounding Barrett's home town of Cambridge. The album was a hit, peaking at #6 in the UK charts.
In January 1968, guitarist David Gilmour joined the band to carry out the playing and singing duties of Barrett, whose mental health had been deteriorating for several months, but nevertheless was intended to remain as the band's figurehead and songwriter. With Barrett's behaviour becoming less and less predictable, and use of LSD almost constant, he became very unstable, often staring into space while the rest of the band performed. The band's live shows became increasingly ramshackle until, eventually, the other band members simply stopped taking him to the concerts.
Once Barrett's departure was formalised in April 1968, Jenner and King decided to remain with him, and the six-way Blackhill partnership was dissolved.
Whilst Barrett had written the bulk of the first record, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, he contributed just one song "Jugband Blues" to the second A Saucerful of Secrets, released in June 1968, reaching #9 at home.
After the film soundtrack More, the next record, the double album Ummagumma (part recorded at Mothers Rock Club, Birmingham, and in Manchester in 1969), was a mix of live recordings and unchecked studio experimentation by the band members, with each recording half a side of vinyl as a solo project (Mason's wife makes an uncredited contribution as a flautist). The album was Pink Floyd's best performing release yet, hitting UK #5 and making the US charts at #70.
1970's Atom Heart Mother, is a UK #1 album that is often overlooked today, sounding somewhat dated, and has been described by Gilmour as the sound of a band "blundering about in the dark". However, the album was a transitional piece for the group, and it hints at future musical territory. The title piece, a 23-minute long work with symphonic leanings, owes much to orchestration by Ron Geesin. The band's sound was considerably more focused on Meddle (1971), with the 23-minute epic "Echoes" (in this track the band used the Zinovieff's VCS3 synth for the first time, as well as a theremin in the spacey middle part) . This album also included the atmospheric "One of These Days" (a concert classic, with a distorted, disembodied one-line vocal, "One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces" — courtesy of drummer Nick Mason — and a melody that at one point segues into the theme tune of the cult classic sci-fi TV show Doctor Who) and the pop-jazz stylings of "San Tropez". Their taste for experimentation was expressed on "Seamus" (earlier, "Mademoiselle Nobs"), a pure-blues number featuring lead vocals by a Russian wolfhound. It was about this time that Roger Waters started to lead the musical direction of the band, in both lyrical and musical content. Indeed, "San Tropez" was the first song that Waters brought to the band in a completed state, requiring little work from the other band members. Pink Floyd were rewarded with a #3 peak in the UK for "Meddle".
A less-well-known album, Obscured By Clouds, was released in 1972, as the soundtrack for the film "La Vallee" and was the band's first US Top 50 album, hitting #6 at home.
Despite their never having been a hit-single-driven group, their massively successful 1973 album, Dark Side of the Moon, featured a US number Top 20 track ("Money"), and more importantly remained in the US Top 200 (where it hit #1) for 741 weeks (including 591 consecutive weeks from 1973 to 1988), breaking many records on the way, and making it one of the top selling albums of all time. Dark Side of the Moon was a concept album originally intended to be about the different pressures applying in modern life. It proved a powerful catalyst for the band and together they drew up a list of themes: "On The Run" was dedicated to travel; "Time" depicted the encroachment of old age; "The Great Gig In The Sky" (originally named "Mortality Sequence" and "Religious Theme" during development) dealt with death and religion; "Money" naturally spoke of the money that often comes with fame; "Us And Them" entailed violent conflicts within society; and "Brain Damage" touched on themes of insanity and neurosis. Thanks to the use of new 16-track recording equipment at Abbey Road Studios and the investment of an enormous amount of time by engineer Alan Parsons, ...


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