Pink Floyd history, videos and lyrics. In its early days, the band now know as Pink Floyd went with many names. Some of them include Sigma 6, The Meggadeaths, The Architectural Abdabs. They, for a while, adopted the name “Tea Set”, but when they were on the bill one time with a band with the same name, they switched to “The Pink Floyd Sound”, which referred to their influence of two blues musicians Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. They eventually dropped “Sound” from the name, but even as late as 1985, David Gilmour was found referring to the band as The Pink Floyd.
There were a lot of members coming and going and rejoining the band over the decades. The primary members are Roger Waters, Rick Wright, David Gilmour and Nick Mason. They contributed to varying degrees to the different albums during the band’s history.
There are five distinct eras in Pink Floyd’s history. The first one was the so called psychedelic era led by then-front-man Syd Barret. He was out of the band due to heavy LSD use by 1968, but his influence stayed with the band for many years both musically and emotionally.
The 1968-70 period in the history of Pink Floyd was an era of trying to find their identity and sound. The albums produced in this period are the not-so-popular-now “A Saucer Full of Secrets” and “Ummagumma.”
The “golden era” for Pink Floyd is considered the years between 1971 and 1975. It produced such classics as “Dark Side of The Moon”, “Meddle” and “Wish You Were Here.” All albums received critical acclaim and were also well liked by music lovers as well. They featured a very unique sound that made the band hard to categorize; and no one even attempted to imitate since then, even though a lot of contemporary musicians admit that they have been influenced by Pink Floyd to one degree or another. The several part “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” was a tribute and sort of a eulogy to the influence of Syd Barrett, who appeared totally unexpectedly during the recording session of the song after about seven years of no contact whatsoever. Members of the band described the event as “very powerful.”
Dark Side of The Moon featured the song titled “Money” which became a top 20 single on charts in the United States. The album itself was the first number one record in Pink Floyd’s history. It went on to become one of the most successful rock albums of all time selling 15 million in the U.S. and over 40 million units world wide. It remained on the Billboard Top 200 for 741 weeks, which included 591 consecutive ones between 1976-88, a world record.
During the years between 1976 and 1985, Rogers Waters took control of Pink Floyd’s direction musically. They released the album titled “Animals” that didn’t reach the success of previous albums. The now classic “The Wall” was also released during his reign.
David Gilmour took over between 1987 and 1995 producing “Momentary Lapse of Reason” that was moderately well received (the number two track being the most recognizable today titled “Learning To Fly”) followed several years later by “The Division Bell”, which became the second number one album both in the U.K. and the U.S. in the history of Pink Floyd.
Since then, the band only reunited for the Live 8 concert, and there is no official word on whether they will produce any more music together.