I often think about stellar albums. The ones where they’re really isn’t a skip-able track. Off the top of my head, these come to mind: The Beach Boys Pet Sounds, Collective Soul Collective Soul (blue album), Bush 16 Stone, and Green Day Dookie. What are some of your perfect albums?
The Wall is the best Pink Floyd album in terms of amount of hours you can put into dissecting every single line of lyrics and using the themes to understand why people are being radicalized into right wing authoritarian movements even in 2023… It has deep narrative staying power about the cycles of trauma, abuse, self-hatred, grief, violence, losing yourself and then the power to decide for yourself to stop hurting people and try and find your own redemption, if you can… There’s almost nothing like it in existence! It also has what has been argued to be the best guitar solo of all time (in Comfortably Numb).
David is the most emotional guitar player of all time because he grew up listening to jazz saxophone and you can only play one note at a time on the sax - he took that philosophy to his guitar so instead of shredding he knows how to use musical phrasing to build up to just single notes that rip your heart out…
Animals is of course excellent but I find myself wanting to only listen to Sheep and Dogs more than anything else. It’s like a sandwich - best stuff in the middle.
Wish You Were Here is a more perfect album than Animals imo, and probably more accessible to new listeners. Welcome to the Machine is a bit intense but if people could handle the random sounds section of Dark Side of the Moon then I’m sure they can handle it 😂 Dark Side of the Moon is overrated to me tbh. Time is one of the best songs of all… Time… For sure though. Us and Them and Great Gig in the Sky are also amazing but the rest of the album is just me waiting to hear those songs tbh. The guitar solo from Time is also one of my most favourite guitar solos - David is just finding his signature sound on that album and Time is just the perfect encapsulation of Pink Floyd’s overall genre which is nostalgic grief/longing for times you can’t return to. Comfortably Numb is also very heavy on those themes but the raw emotion in that one is much stronger as it is about personal grief and loss and the anguish of finally accepting/succumbing/letting go of what you can’t get back. That solo is basically the musical representation of the 5 stages of grief… That’s my personal interpretation at least (have a listen and let me know what you think). Childhood’s End is a precursor song to that theme before they find their signature sound, and nearly the entire album of Wish You Were Here is about that same theme but from the perspective of an outsider. Later on in The Division Bell and Sorrow carry on that theme, even though the post-breakup stuff is less thematically coherent.
So far I’ve only listened to the Wall(like four to five times), Animals(about two) and DSOTM two. Thinking about it more I might prefer The Wall over Animals(I forgot about the Trial which has to be one of my favorite songs, ever xD). And yes, I agree the DSTOM is a bit overrated; Time, Us and Them, and Money are my favorites from there though.
The more times you listen you’ll end up developing your feelings more.
Apparently according to Spotify I was in the top 2% of Pink Floyd listeners in 2022? I only listened for 751 minutes though, which isn’t that much. Mostly listening to The Wall on repeat.
There is a movie that goes along with The Wall, of you didn’t know. I think that it kind of narrows the ability of people to interpret the songs in their own way but it’s still excellent. It’s part love action part animated. If you haven’t seen the hand drawn animation that goes along with Goodbye Blue Sky and The Trial, you should definitely check it out. It’s absolutely insane.
My fav part of The Trial animation is when the mom is introduced with her long “baaaabbbbbyyyyyy” and she is like a fighter jet bearing down, whose wings open up into vulva and from the core an umbilical cord shoots out to grab the rag doll Pink into her arms as she embraces her son… It’s just a moment but holy shit. It really adds to the scene. The ex wife is characterized as a praying mantis in two songs…
I saw The Wall Live in like 2011/2012 and it was an incredible show. The 40 foot puppets torturing Pink were awesome. The mom puppet appears in the song Mother and her eyes glow red, the words “big mother is watching you” splays across the wall set as her head swivels back and forth over the crowd…
I’m not sure if there is a Wall Live recording online but I’d really recommend watching the original movie and then watching a concert version. It’s probably the most insane set ever built for a musical show (they build up the wall over the course of the first half, the last brick is placed as the character bids the audience goodbye… We return from intermission and Pink is easily corrupted by the worms into a fascist when his mind is blocked off - then they literally explode the 40 foot wall set at the end… So awesome).
Listen to Wish You Were Here! It’s generally about the loss of their dear friend and band founder Syd Barrett, a musical visionary lost to the challenges of schizophrenia/the origins of the band. It’s very very good. Some of David’s best guitar is in the Shine On You Crazy Diamond songs.