Pink Floyd Essays

Submitted By alycesmith1997
Words: 500
Pages: 2

By 1966, heavily under the influence LSD and Barrett, the group began to incorporate light shows to add to the psychedelic effect of their live performances. In 1967 they signed with EMI records and released The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. It is considered to be one of the best British psychedelic albums, second only to The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band album. Sadly they would never even have a chance to recreate a similar masterpiece, solely because Barrett’s involvement in the band was in its final stages. They tried to work out an arrangement where newly hired guitarist and close friend David Gilmour would perform live with the band while Barrett would make his contributions in the studio. This didn’t work. Syd Barrett left the group to pursue a solo career. The band decided to continue on without Barrett and Waters stepped in as the dominant composer and writer. Using Barrett’s vision as an obvious blueprint, but adding a more formal, somber, and quasi-classical tone, their 1968 follow-up A Saucerful of Secrets, made the British Top Ten and proved the band was to continue on. For the next four years they would work on their sound, keeping it within the range of psychedlia, but reaching out to the uses experimental rock, and using such instruments as organs and horns. They continued on in their journey of rock history with such classics as Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother, but never reaching that same plateau as they did with their debut. Nothing, however, prepared Pink Floyd or their audience for the massive mainstream success of their 1973 album, Dark Side of the Moon, which made their brand of cosmic rock even more approachable with state-of-the-art production, more focused songwriting, an army of well-timed stereophonic sound