“Not something we felt comfortable with”: The genre that Pink Floyd ran away from
Rock and roll has never been tied to certain rules and regulations. The entire mentality behind those first artists bringing the genre to the forefront was that anything goes with a guitar in one’s hand, and from the 1960s onward, every single band seemed to put their own spin on what rock and roll was supposed to be. Although Pink Floyd had started bringing their strange visions to life alongside the heavy hitters of the 1960s, they knew they had some work to do before they were looked at as true legends in their field.
After all, comparing the Syd Barrett era of the group to how they sounded later on Dark Side of the Moon is like comparing apples and oranges a lot of the time. Barrett was clearly a much different songwriter than Roger Waters would ever be, and while their first albums were dripping with creativity, it took them a while to figure out the kind of band that they wanted to be later on in their career.
Although there were always space themes coating some of their transitionary albums, Barrett’s departure on ‘Jug Band Blues’ was a definite sign that they were going to go through some massive changes. And while some people were prepared, listening to Ummagumma right after The Piper at the Gates of Dawn isn’t for anyone who claims to have a weak stomach. They were finding things out as they went along, and everyone could tell when they hit a creative wall.
When everyone started having an equal say in the matter, though, things started to really come together. Waters had the lyrical front covered, but when working on a track like ‘Echoes’, everything from Richard Wright’s keyboards to David Gilmour’s crystalline approach to soloing sent them into the stratosphere. They had actually made music that could touch people, and now it was a matter of getting everything down on record.
But while Dark Side of the Moon was one of their greatest triumphs, there were always going to be some old fans comparing them to their old selves. Tunes like ‘On the Run’ may have created a strange psychedelic atmosphere to capture the frenetic energy of walking through an airport, but if the band had their way, they would have never been associated with that genre since the day that Barrett left.
As far as they were concerned, that phase of their career was in the past and should not be repeated again, with Nick Mason saying, “In all honesty, psychedelia had been a bloody good launch pad, but it was not something we felt comfortable with. It was tied in with all these hippy concepts – love, crystals and all the rest of it. Whereas we were heading down this darker road, towards Dark Side…, which is a very technical piece about much more introverted ideas. It soon seemed quite important that we lose the tripping-on-acid image.”
If anything, it was also a way for them to get over the loss of Barrett in their own way. Many of their songs did get technical, but whenever they turned a tune into a jam, there must have been some faint memories of that crazy diamond who took the avant-garde approach whenever he strapped on his guitar.
There will always be pieces of Pink Floyd that lean towards psychedelia, but when listening to their albums, this wasn’t the kind of atmospheric storm that made people want to trip on acid. It certainly wasn’t a drug PSA in song form or anything, but the more that people listened to it, the more they started to realise what they were doing. Floyd was creating sonic tapestries, and we were left to figure out what it all meant.
