I feel I’m lucky, I bought A Collection of Great Dance Songs when I was 13 in 1984 as it was the cheapest way to get hold of Another Brick in The Wall Part 2. While I do like The Wall, I think if I’d heard it first instead I don’t think I’d have got to that other place that Floyd music takes you to (demonstrated best by Sheep on that compilation). I was also lucky in knowing some moderately hippie kids at school who had copies of Piper at the Gates of Dawn and AHM. I bought an LP of Meddle and loved it. There’s a jangly bit of Dave Gilmour guitar on the first side of AHM, and the bit where the tension releases towards the end of Echoes, which are probably my best short moments in all recorded music.
Piper At The Gates of Dawn was the first album I became obsessed with and listened to obsessively (as opposed to compilations like the Beatles’ 20 Greatest Hits). It is absolutely unbelievable that at that time it had only been out for seventeen years. Four years before I was born might as well have been the Edwardian era.
I voted for Animals, but feel terrible that I so dissed Meddle and Wish You Were Here.
David Gilmour’s mastery in Dogs was the deciding factor.
<me literally listening to “Dogs” from Animals as I come across your post>
I mean, not that big a coincidence since the thread let me back to the album, but
IMHO, it’s DSotM but “The Final Cut”, even though it’s mostly a Waters solo effort, is highly underrated.
I made my choice mainly because of sentimentality, so consequently I had a 4-way tie for first place.
My oldest brother played Dark Side of the Moon at home, and I fell in love with it. It’s practically the only bond I had with him. Plus, there’s that thing about syncing it up with the Wizard of Oz.
The Wall came out my senior year, so I kind of associate it with growing up. Plus, I learned new shit when it came out, and actually figured out what the English schoolchildren were saying when it sounded like WE DAWNT NEED NAW AD JEW KAI SHUN… everybody else I knew was singing “exclamation,” the idiots.
The first time I saw Pink Floyd live was for their Momentary Lapse of Reason tour, so that album means a lot to me.
But I went with Wish You Were Here, because when I first heard it, I thought I had gone to another dimension. That was back in my first year of college, and I felt like I had finally achieved independence.
I saw what you did there.
I voted for Whish You Were Here thinking what you wrote. That and David Bowie and The Dead Kennendys and the Sex Pistols and Lou Reed and Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple (and, and, and…) show that I was a teenager in the 70s, I reckon. Could have been worse.
It’s like being asked to pick which of your children you like best. Only difference is, I actually enjoy listening to Pink Floyd.
Agreed on being burnt out on it at this point, I have to be in a particular mood to really want to sit down and listen anymore, and I don’t really like it as background music, but from the objective subjective standpoint, the album that has given me the most enjoyment, Dark Side wins out, mostly because of Great Gig in the Sky.
In the thread about Amazon’s adaptation of Tolkien’s stories, I mentioned that I only give 5 stars to something that gives me an orgasm. Great Gig gets 5 stars. One of these Days gets 5 stars, too. I could list off at least a dozen other of their songs that are that level, and they are largely scattered across their albums.
While we’re gushing about Floyd (which one’s Pink?) I’ll throw in that they were great live.
The 1972 live at Pompeii set was exactly what the Beatles wanted to do and should have done in the Get Back documentary. Except that Floyd’s music, all of it from before DSotM, was far better suited to the purpose.
Technically, though, they were playing to cameras and did more than one take, so live but not really. So my favorite is their appearance at Knebworth in 1990. I remember watching it on MTV back in the day. A storm was moving in and they played like a band of superheroes holding it back from the crowd through sheer will and force of sound. Watch about 30 minutes in for the effects.
On both this and the Yes poll I almost voted for something I didn’t think anyone else would, simply because I think those albums are better than their reputation and among the tops, but in the end I went with my actual favorite, and in both cases it’s the plurality pick, which isn’t much of a surprise.
I was also right that no one else had voted for Obscured by Clouds or Magnification.
I voted for Dark Side of the Moon, but what I dropped on the stereo when I got home from work was A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
Go figure.
Yeah, I’m heading home here in a bit, and I’m debating what I’m going to fire up when I get there.
I have never watched this, but I’m rectifying that at this very moment.
Clearly, great minds think alike…
Oh, that’s well worth a watch! Have fun!
Here’s David Gilmour and Richard Wright’s final performance of Echoes, which gives the Pompeii version a run for its money…
This is what happens when I’m lazy and don’t read threads.
It wasn’t a knock; I thought it was cool we both said the same thing about The Final Cut, almost word for word.
It was just a self-knock. The similarities were pretty striking.
I just … can’t.
For me, the Floyd was a bit like being Jay Leno and having perpetual access to one of the greatest car and motorcycle collections in the world. He has everything that’s on wheels. For Leno, it almost has to be more about what kind of mood he is in, where he wants to go, and what feeling(s) he wants to have along the way.
Floyd – like my beloved Grateful Dead – always had the right album and/or the right song for how I was feeling and what I was doing.
It’s too much of a Rorschach Test for me to give a solid ranked choice.
In the later years, I probably listened to The Final Cut more than any of the other albums when they were relatively new to the market (ie, in the first year or three after release). There was something about the through story line and the ‘sonics’ on that album that really called to me.
They didn’t put out anything that I didn’t at least like … a whole lot.