Pink Floyd :: essays research papers

The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. Oh by the way, which ones Pink? In the middle 60s Syd Barrett formed a psychedelic band, with fellow Englishmen Roger Waters, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason. Barrett on lead guitar, Waters on bass, Wright on keyboards, and Mason on drums. The name came from two of Barretts favorite American blues-men, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. They began experimenting with intense instrumentals of feedback, electronic screeches, and unusual, eerie sounds created by loud amplification, reverb, and such tricks as sliding ballock bearings up and down guitar strings. 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. Peppers Lonely heart and soul Club Band a lbum. Sadly they would never even have a chance to recreate a similar masterpiece, solely because Barretts involvement in the band was in its final stages. Barrett was becoming heavily involved in mind-altering drugs like LSD and was showing alarming signs of mental instability. They tried to manoeuver 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 didnt work. Syd Barrett leave 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 Barretts imagery 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 beside four years they would work on their sound, keeping it within the range of psychedlia, but reaching out to the u ses experimental rock, and using such instruments as variety meat 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 tableland as they did with their debut. They later released Meddle in 1971which further showcased their development of albums as whole masterpieces instead of just individual songs. Nothing, however, prepared Pink Floyd or their earshot for