IanB wrote: I am the reverse. Don't get the fascination with the Syd era. I like the vibe but very little of the music. Generally speaking I think American psych went further longer. European voyagers were already working in more extreme areas of music.
What really interests me in PF is how their records chart the progress of expansive middle England liberal hippie optimism as it curdles into caustic cynicism. They are in their own way the only band who chart that journey from 67 - 77 without getting into the whole self-mythologising thing of The Stones or whoever. For me Animals is the rock n roll embodiment of Britain at the dawn of Thatcher. That this journey ended with Waters spitting on the audiendce does make perfect sense given what was about to happen to Floyd and the amount of spittle and phlegm that was about to start flying the other way. By comparison Syd seems a bit of a quaint flower power curio to me like a much more troubled Donovan.
Never really thought about the sociology of their lyrics much, but this makes perfect sense to me.
What attracted me (and I still got lots of time for Floyd) is the sense of an all-encompassing sound world. They're not quite prog, rock, pop or anything else; they just sound like Pink Floyd.
I think their peak era is roughly 1969-77 (Ummagumma through Animals) -- the first two LP's are some of the most interesting "UK psych that isn't too poppy and Beatlesish", but sound "of their time" and not as timeless as the Gilmour period.
The ones I go back to most often these days are MEDDLE and ANIMALS . . . probably heard DSOTM and WYWH enough times I could hum them in my sleep.
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