Pink Floyd, Earls Court, 1973 by TimDuncan, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
I hadn’t planned to explore Pink Floyd’s extensive catalog, but over time they managed to hit the five-review limit that earns an artist a spot on the main menu. I would have liked to explore their pre-Dark Side of the Moon period a bit more but chose to stop writing reviews before I could pull it off.
I’ll say upfront that I’m not a fan of Dark Side of the Moon, but I do recognize its value in terms of expanding Pink Floyd’s audience and, by extension, the audience for progressive rock. The overwhelming success of Dark Side of the Moon also imbued Pink Floyd with the kind of credibility that allows an artist freedom to experiment without having to worry about losing their audience, leading to long-form masterpieces like “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and “Pigs (Three Different Ones).”
Though I was born following the period in British music history when the punks made Pink Floyd their favorite punching bag, I too ran into anti-Floyd sentiments when I immersed myself in the Bay Area punk scene in the 90s. I’m glad I did, because I learned an important life lesson: purists in any field are invariably assholes, even when you share some of their tastes. I’d been listening to Pink Floyd on my parents’ stereo for as long as I could remember, and unlike my buds in the mosh pits, I thought they were pretty cool and that my fellow punks were narrow-minded dumb shits for believing otherwise.
Here are the Pink Floyd reviews I managed to complete:
