The best album of the 1970s, according to Jerry Garcia: “Captured the world’s imagination”
Despite being two of the most era-defining groups of the 1960s and ’70s, Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead rarely crossed paths physically, instead providing the perfect stoner jams for a range of millions of music lovers.
However, despite the two bands being often regarded as falling under the same broad umbrella, their approaches were markedly different.
They came from opposite sides of the Atlantic, after all, and they delivered the same high-quality jam sessions with completely different ethics and much the same jaw-dropping results.
Pink Floyd were distinctly art-driven. Their approach and their abilities came directly from their dedication to both their craft and their desire to be creatively different from the rest of the rock set. Pink Floyd were in London trying to make things swing in a new direction. Paradoxically, on what felt like the other side of the world, the Grateful Dead seemed to be employing many of the same ethoses but with different techniques. Instead of being specific in their approach to reach an otherworldliness, the group just let the music run through them until it reached its far-out destination. Pink Floyd were more culture and precise, while the Dead were casual and potent.
That contrast also explains why the two bands cultivated such different fan cultures despite often being grouped together under the psychedelic umbrella. Pink Floyd concerts gradually evolved into meticulously crafted audiovisual experiences, with every sound effect, light cue and transition carefully designed to serve the larger concept. The Grateful Dead, meanwhile, thrived on unpredictability, building their reputation on sprawling live improvisations where no two performances of the same song were ever quite alike.
Even their approaches to songwriting reflected those opposing philosophies. Roger Waters often treated albums like tightly constructed narratives, with recurring themes and emotional arcs carefully threaded together from start to finish. Garcia and the Dead were far less concerned with cohesion in the traditional sense, preferring to chase spontaneity and musical chemistry in the moment rather than force songs into rigid conceptual frameworks.
That is partly why Garcia’s praise for The Wall feels so significant. Although Pink Floyd’s precision-heavy style sat far away from the free-flowing looseness of the Dead, Garcia still recognised the emotional power buried inside Waters’ ambitious vision. For someone who rarely handed out compliments to other artists, his admiration suggests that The Wall transcended stylistic boundaries and reached even musicians whose philosophies about music-making could not have been more different.
Before the homogenising effect of the internet, a band’s geography had a noticeable impact on its output. Whereas The Grateful Dead’s music is enriched with uniquely American genres such as R&B, bluegrass and gospel, albums like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here seem more a product of Germanic avant-garde styles such as Kraftwork-era electronica and Krautrock.
In truth, the only connection the two groups share is that they were both featured on the soundtrack for Michelangelo Antonioni’s cult film Zabriskie Point. In fact, pretty much the only evidence we have that Jerry Garcia had even heard of Pink Floyd comes from an interview he gave in 1980, in which he talked about some of his favourite bands of the ’70s.
Garcia rarely shared his love of much music outside of his own and was famously curt about that. So, finding an interview in which he professes his love for another record is truly astonishing. It’s a reminder of just how turbulent a character the Dead leader truly was.
During that interview, Garcia was asked what he’d been listening to on the radio during that explosive decade: “Just the stuff that hit everybody. I like The Wall a lot. Everybody likes that. I like Elvis Costello. I’m a big Elvis Costello fan,” he said. “I like Warren Zevon a lot, I mean, I’ve heard good stuff from almost everybody, just like I’ve heard bad stuff from almost everybody.” The Wall certainly captured the world’s imagination.
Released in 1979, the album was Pink Floyd’s first venture into the world of rock opera. It follows the story of a jaded rock star who gradually withdraws from society. His isolation from the rest of the world is the very thing that forms the metaphorical wall from which the album gets its name. The record’s central character was based on a mixture of Pink Floyd’s tragic one-time frontman Syd Barrett, who was forced to leave the band after suffering a mental collapse as the result of his frequent use of LSD and, of course, Waters himself.
Although The Wall, an album largely derived directly from the songwriting mind of Roger Waters, received mixed reviews in release, with many accusing Pink Floyd of being overblown and pretentious, the LP gave Pink Floyd their only UK and US number-one single with ‘Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2’.
Today, the album, which features tracks like ‘Comfortably Numb’ and ‘Run Like Hell’, is regarded as one of the best concept albums of all time and one of Pink Floyd’s best works, imbued with all the tension of a band on the cusp of implosion.
The Wall also marked the beginning of a slump in Pink Floyd’s creative output throughout the 1980s. But, as Garcia noted: “I don’t think there’s anybody who’s consistently putting out great stuff, time after time after time. But everybody’s got something to say and there’s moments in all of this that are real excellent. I go for the moments. I keep listening till I hear something that knocks me out.” This is not only indicative of how many people listen to music but exactly how Garcia made music and precisely the point that separates the Dead and Pink Floyd. The latter tried to craft these signature moments, while the former simply let them happen.
For Garcia, The Wall was one of those moments, an exhilarating and impactful album that, so many years later, still feels as prescient as ever.
