Atom Heart Mother is awful. It’s an hour of noise. Blegh.
My favorites are Division Bell, The Wall, DSOTM, and Wish You Were Here, but not necessarily in that order.
I also own Momentary Lapse of Reason, Meddle, Adam Heart Mother, Animals, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Saucer Full of Secrets, Ummagumma, Echoes, Obscured by Clouds, Pulse (which is excellent, BTW) and a few others which I can’t remember.
By the time DSOTM came out, I already owned Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother, and Meddle, and had seen them in concert in Boston. The cash registers didn’t all that innovative after that concert, when Floyd actually left the stage and played a tape that was as good as any of their music. And, of course, they had done some great things with concrete music like that on “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” and “Seamus.”
DSOTM was Floyd made accessible. That was obvious the first time I heard it. I was delighted when they became popular, but amazed that their best work is consistently overlooked.
There is that. But Dark Side was much less interesting musically than the stuff they had done before it. It sort of the Lion King of their album – massively popular, but inferior to what came before and immediately after.
The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think
Oh, by the way…
The first Floyd album I bought was " The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" which is very good. I own all the studio released albums except the last two.
Hard to pick a favorite album, but at this time I would say “The Final Cut” or “Meddle”.
Favorite songs are “Julia Dream”, “See Emily Play”, “Echoes”, “The Gunners Dream” and “When The Tigers Broke Free”
Ha! I actually did mine on Wish You Were Here. Got a 98 on it 
Hands down, the greatest is Obscured by Clouds. I fall apart listening to it.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention the Gilmour related stuff brought up in the OP.
I’m not a big fan of the Post-Waters Floyd; however, I listen to “Sorrow” from Pulse on a regular basis. That is a quality song, I think.
Ah. How can you listen to Atom Heart Mother (the tune, dude, not the whole album—but I do love marmelade!) without thinking about[ul][li]Churchhill’s speach in Kansas (or was it Missouri?) (“A giant iron curtain has fallen…!”)[]General Ike’s dislike for Stalin[]the stationing of Nukes in Turkey, just across the border from the Soviet Union[]the scramble for bomb shelters[]the Great K v. K Debate over Cuba, done with the “chess pieces” of Nuclear equipped B-52’s and ICBM’s[]the almost-to-the-brink over Berlin[]a dozen others[/ul]All this MADness can be heard (–by me, anyway–) in the all-too-(but so historically accurate)-discordant Atom Heart Mother.[/li]
Gives me the “Nuclear Warefare Shivers” every time I listen to it;–better even than T.'s 1812 Overture, IMHO. :eek:
[singing]
Do you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain…
[/singing]
Lesse here…an entertainment discussion combined with a poll and MPSIMS. Biffer, you like giving the Mods headaches? 
The band, it is true, is great; but . . . which one’s Pink?
BS - I have the Relics CD. And I am glad to see that I’m not the only one who thinks Julia dream is one of their best songs.
My fave album is WYWH, hands down, followed by Meddle, TDSOTM, Animals, OBC and the Wall.
Favorite songs: Shine on you crazy diamond (by a mile), Julia dream, Echoes, A pillow of winds, Mother and Wish you were here.
Well, due respect all round, but DSOTM really is my favourite and I won’t pretend otherwise. For me, ‘Time’ is a sadly overlooked contender for one of the greatest rock songs ever written (I’m referring to the section after all the clocks and synth fx, when the actual song kicks in). I mean, just the lyrics alone… how perceptive and thought-provoking and disturbing do rock lyrics ever get?
Plus, Gilmour’s guitar break in the middle is also, for me, one of the very greatest solos ever played - haunting, evocative, plaintive, searing, strident… achingly beautiful and the kind of thing only Gilmour could deliver.
Okay, I’ll shut up now.
Radio interview I once heard with Roger Waters:
Interviewer: Would you ever consider working with Pink Floyd again?
Waters: Well…(thinks for a moment)…if I thought I had another Dark Side of the Moon in me I’d consider it. But if you asked me to make another Atom Heart Mother I’d tell you to fuck off.
Aah…the memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime. You shuffle in the gloom of the sick room and talk to yourself as you die…
There is, of course, no dark side of the moon, as a matter of fact, its all dark.
hahahahahaha…hehehehehe…HAHAHAHAHAHA…HEHEHEHEHEHE…WAAAAAAHAH…WAAAAAAAHAH…WAAAAAAAHAH…
I’ve been a huge Pink Floyd fan for a few years now. Probably the only person turned on to Pink Floyd due to a lovve of Roger Waters’s solo work (Amused to Death was an incredibly great album, IMHO). Saw them live May 20th, 1995. Favorite album: Wish You Were Here. Favorite song: Shine On You Crazy Diamond.
I’m not going to dispute the relative quality of the earlier and later work, as that’s simply a matter of taste, but I will disagree with the notion that their later work was imitative of their earlier work. The Final Cut, for example, is nothing like anything before Dark Side. Unless you mean Division Bell and Momentary Lapse of Reason only, in which case you’ve got a point.
Listing favorite albums would be pointless. The only one I could leave out is Final Cut. More wasn’t really one of my favorites either, but I still listen to it when I’m in the mood.
Favorite semi-obscure, less commonly cited great tracks: Chapter 24 [Piper]; The Gnome [Piper]; Scarecrow [Piper]; Jugband Blues [Saucerful]; Remember a Day [Saucerful]; the Grand Vizier’s Party [Ummagumma]; Green is the Color [More]; Childhood’s End [OBC]; Free Four [OBC]; Obscured by Clouds [OBC]; Paintbox [Relics]; Summer '68 [AHM]; Happiest Days of our Lives [Wall]; Dogs of War [MLR].
Favorite very commonly cited great tracks not mentioned yet in this thread (unless I missed them): Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun [Saucerful]; Cirrus Minor [More]; One of These Days [Meddle]; Dogs [Animals]; Us & Them [DSOTM]; Breathe [DSOTM]; Hey You [Wall]
I love Pink Floyd.
Once during history class my firends and I (all Pink Floyd fans) had an entire conversation by using mostly Pink Floyd Song titles or lines from Floyd songs. Some of the poor fools in the class had never heard of Pink Floyd, and thought they were like The Backstreet Boys :eek:
Simply - because I was born in the seventies and became socially active in the nineties. The stuff you talk about just isn’t real for me.
To be honest, I never realised that was the point of the album. I shall listen to it again with a new perspective.
pan
I also discovered Pink Floyd almost 30 years ago, when mostly dopers (like me) used to listen to them. I have ALL of their albums.
However, few years ago, I tried to find a replacement or an extension of them. And, yes, I finally found it. Guess where? In Norway.
If you really like Pink Floyd, Try Oystein Sevang.
One of the best albums is LINK. Try tracks 1, 5 and 11.
How about you guys? Any tips on good replacements for Pink Floyd?
a REPLACEMENT for PINK FLOYD?
Surely you jest.
That said, a whole lotta people (Q Magazine, for instance) compared Radiohead’s OK Computer to Dark Side when it was first released; I can sorta see the similarity. A few others compared Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness to The Wall… which I have a bit of a hard time with, but whatever floats your boat.
I’m relatively new (6 years or so) to Pink Floyd (well, come on, I’m only 17) but I’ve got… uh… yeah, all their albums in one form or another, and I’ve seen Roger, though not the full band, live.
Oh, by the way, The Final Cut rocks my world. Just had to say it.
-Someone Else
Got to agree with many of you on Wish You Were Here as one of the best, if not the best, Pink Floyd albums and that the later albums are not exactly up to snuff by PF standards. As far as best songs are concerned, I’d go with Echoes, Shine on You Crazy Diamond, and Comfortably Numb. [speaking of which, slight hijack, I get chills whenever I listen to the guitar duel between Rick di Fonzo and Snowy White on Comfortably Numb on the Live in Berlin rendition of The Wall in 1990. Wow, these two guys were simply amazing!!]
I also fondly (if vaguely) remember Pink Floyd’s mini-concert in Pompeii. With the superb acoustics of the ancient amphitheater, it was said that you just HAD to be there:).
It’s HISTORY, **kabbes **dude. History! Would really like to know, though, if it makes more sense to you now.
And, BTW: thanks Dragon Phoenix. I’ve since found Relics as a CD in the local music store.
You mean there are people who don’t like Pink Floyd?
Pink Floyd could not make a bad record. All of their albums are good.