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 History : Pink Floyd History - 1970 to 1977 |
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In late 1969, Pink Floyd released a Double Album called Ummagumma. The
first disc consisted of live tracks from various live performances in 1969.
The second disc consisted of solo studio tracks by each member of the band.
In early 1970, Pink Floyd released their newest album Atom Heart Mother, with
an orchestra playing on the 23-minute-plus title track. The band toured extensively
with the orchestra supporting the album.
In early 1971, Pink Floyd's executive producer Joe Boyd, made a compilation album of
both released and unreleased material from Pink Floyd's past. It was called Relics.
While this was going on, Pink Floyd was in the middle of making their new album Meddle
with another 23-minute-plus song called Echoes.
In early 1972, Pink Floyd was asked again to do another soundtrack for a movie called
La Vallee or The Valley Obscured By Clouds, hence the name Obscured By Clouds came about.
After Obscured by Clouds was finshed, Pink Floyd took a plane to Rome, where they took a
bus to Pompeii, one of the 2 cities destroyed by Mount Vesuvius 2000 years ago. There
they filmed a private concert, playing some of their best material. The video was called
Live At Pompeii, which also included footage behind the making of the album of their new opus.
During the time that Floyd was making Obscured By Clouds, they had written a 45-minute
opus of songs that they played live. This opus was called Eclipse. It was mainly focused
on society and how it alienates, controls, and destroys daily life. The original name
for the opus was supposed to be Dark Side Of The Moon, but the British Blues band
Medicine Head released an album the previous year of the same name. So they let the
name go, until they heard that the Medicine Head album flopped on Billboard charts,
so they revamped the name Dark Side Of The Moon and also wrote an end song for the
opus which was called Eclipse. They turned their opus into an album in 1973, called
Dark Side Of The Moon. It is the second highest selling rock record in history,
compared to Michael Jackson's Thriller.
To follow up their success to Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd made Wish You Were Here.
The album was dedicated to original lyricist and guitar player Syd Barret. During late
recording of the album, Syd actually showed up to congratulate them on their success
with Dark Side Of The Moon, although at first they didn't recognize him because he had
gained alot of weight. During that tour they wrote yet another opus, but this one was
mostly instrumental. This opus turned out to be Shine On You Crazy Diamond. It was
split into 2 halves because it was too long to fit on one side of the record. During
this tour Pink Floyd performed Dark Side Of The Moon in it's entirety again.
After the success of Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd took off for a year and a half to
make a new album. This album was based on the aristocratic and communist lifestyles in
the world. Each type of person was loosely based on an animal. And this album became
Animals. Dogs were the creepy rulers of industry, Pigs were the communist tyrants,
Sheep were the common folk, always being brainlessly led by the Dogs and Pigs, and
Pigs On The Wing was a love song that Roger wrote to his new wife, Carolyn, the niece
of the Duke of York. For the tour the band recruited Dick Parry for saxophone and
Snowy White on rhythm guitar. On July 6th, 1977 in Montreal, Quebec, the last show
of the Animals tour, a fan was screaming relentlessy and climbing his way up towards
the stage. Roger spit on him to show disgustment. After the show, Roger felt bad
about this, and escaped back to his hotel room and started writing new music,
about how much he and the audience have come apart.
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