24 October 2024
“While it began life like a thrilling and improvised space craft, by the time of its most commercially successful work, PINK FLOYD was more like a corporation or a rebranded utility company. A highly-organized business with a streamlined visual message, not to mention a phenomenally high turnover.
As you’ll read in this new magazine, what this initially meant for the artistic aspirations
of the individual members told you a lot about the impulse to create. For David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason solo work clearly began as a release: a break from the responsibilities of the day job.
When Roger Waters (aged 81) quit the band in 1983, however, something changed
and solo music which had previously been a pleasing distraction assumed a far more competitive edge. For Waters, the ongoing existence of a Pink Floyd without him stung him into action: if you were in any doubt about his key contributions to the Pink Floyd albums then the many renderings of the material in his solo catalogue should put you straight.
The solo music that you’ll find covered in this new magazine is important on one
level as an inverse history of Pink Floyd. But there are other reckonings going on
within it. For Roger Waters it has become a political/personal platform.
For David Gilmour (78 now) meanwhile, it has been a place to articulate himself at
his own leisurely pace, and share his thoughts on the consolations of love and family.
Most recent Pink Floyd member’s solo LP. Luck And Strange by David Gilmour.
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Keyboardist Richard Wright (28 July 1943 – 15 September 2008) and drummer Nick Mason (80) do not have a large catalogue of work, and seem to have ultimately been rather hard done by the Pink Floyd experience.
The most important solo career here, though is the one which flowered most briefly:
that of Syd Barrett. The music on his two solo albums is abstract, playful, and sometimes barely there, testament to a personality and mental health which wasn’t built to thrive within the demands of the pop business.
Syd Barrett‘s debut LP The Madcap Laughs (1970).
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You can order a copy of this guide and let it be sent to your home. Info HERE.
