Pink Floyd Part 2

Pink Floyd was dependant on Barrett for the majority of their material as well as his vocals and guitar, but the other members were finding it impossible to work with him. Some believed that Barrett’s drug use was aggravating a previous condition such as schizophrenia or Asperger syndrome. By this time he was constantly high on acid and often stared blankly for hours while the rest of the band continued playing. During some concerts he would simply strum one chord for the entire show or randomly begin de-tuning his guitar. Also his songs would changed from one session to the next and were often too difficult for anyone to play. So in the beginning of 68', guitarist David Gilmour was brought into the band as its fifth member. They hoped that Barrett would still write song and contribute to records while Gilmour would handle performances. Unfortunately Barrett still couldn’t cope. He was unable to recover from his madness and within the a few months he left the group. Now the band was without a lead vocalist, lead guitar, and their primary composer. When Barrett’s departure was made official in April of 68' management decided to abandon the rest of the group and manage Syd as a solo act. Still this was not enough to end Pink Floyd. David Gilmour became a permanent member, assuming the position of lead guitar as well as contributing vocals. Waters and Wright also sang and all three shared composing responsibilities. With Barrett out of the way there was much more room to experiment as each of them created unique material. A Saucerful of Secrets was released in June of 68' and while it had been recorded at Abbey Road Studios from August 67' to April 68' it contained only one song written by Barrett, the majority of the songs were written by Waters and Wright. The album reached #9 in the United Kingdom but would be the only Floyd Album not to chart in the U.S. The title track is 12 minutes long and would pave the way for the long psychedelic masterpieces to come. At the time the album was received poorly by critics. Floyd’s subsequent releases would be much more focused than this work put together around Barrett’s breakdown. Next Barbet Schroeder invited Pink Floyd to record the soundtrack for his film, More, that premiered in May of 1969. The soundtrack was released as a Pink Floyd album titled Music from the Film More and was released in July of 68'. It is referred to by Floyd fans simply as More. It reached #9 in the U.K. and in the U.S. #153. The soundtrack was used as an opportunity to record an album that management most likely wouldn’t have approved of if it wasn’t a soundtrack. The same continued for future soundtrack recordings. More was mostly acoustic folk songs. Their next album was Ummagumma which was released in October of 1969 in the U.K. and November in the U.S. Ummagumma was a slang word used for sex at the time of the release. The album consists of two discs or records: one disc contains several track that are each written individually by a member, and disc two has four live recordings of three songs from A Saucerful of Secrets and "Careful with That Axe, Eugene". The idea was that each member would record a solo project taking up one half side of vinyl. The cover of the album varies from the U.S. to the U.K. to Canada but the back cover is an interesting picture of all of the bands gear sitting on a runway at Biggin Hill Airfield in London Borough of Bromley. The live disc featured fantastic live performances where the group experimented with the tracks and this caused critics to give this album better reviews than previous Floyd releases. The album peaked at #5 in the U.K. and #74 in the U.S. marking the first Floyd Album to break the Top 100 in the U.S. It was verified Platinum in the U.S. in March of 1994. Their next release, Atom Heart Mother, debuted in October of 1970,was named for its title track and was also recorded at Abbey Road. The song’s name was originally The Amazing Pudding but the band saw a newspaper article about a pregnant woman with an atomic pacemaker and change the name. The first track, "Atom Heart Mother Suite" is 23 minutes and 45 seconds long. It features a full orchestra, is mostly instrumental and has no lyrics from band members. Ron Geesin arranged the orchestra and co-composed the track(he previously worked with Roger Waters on Music From the Body). Alan Parsons(of the Alan Parson’s Project) also engineered the album. After "Atom Heart Suite" the album had three songs written by individual by the vocalists of the group. The last track, "Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast" has three distinct sections joined by the sounds of a man cooking breakfast and his thoughts. At one time the title track was split into 6 songs and the final track split into 3. The original LP had a groove at the center of the record so when the last track finished there was a continuous sound of water dripping from a faucet. This was Pink Floyd’s first album to contain incidental sound effects and voice samples, something that would be become an important part of their future works. While the original cover had a very plain picture of a cow standing in a field on it, it has a much more interesting story. This was because of all the space rock imagery associated with the group. For this album the group wanted something plain for their cover since they wanted to explore all styles of music without being limited by one genre or type of music. So their photographer drove into the English countryside and took a picture of the first cow he found. Strangely the album was considered a step back for the group even though it reached #1 in the U.K. and #55 in the United States, making it popular enough to earn them their first full tour of the U.S. The group released a compilation album, Relics in 1971. It features several songs from previous albums and previous single releases, most notable a non-live version of "Careful with That Axe, Eugene". It also features "Biding My Time", a studio recording of a previously unreleased song written by Roger Waters. The album reached #34 in the U.K. and #153 in the United States. After their tour and the release of Relics, Pink Floyd was ready to return to the studio. Since the departure of Barrett the band had matured and evolved. They were now ready to really break through, to record music that would be remembered for a long time.


wrote this tonight until about 5, it's pretty bad but I'm too tired