Below are the five main members of Pink Floyd
From left to right are Nick Mason, Syd Barrett, David
Gilmour, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright
Below are the five main members of Pink Floyd
From left to right are Nick Mason, Syd Barrett, David
Gilmour, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright
Roger Waters - bassist and vocals
David Gilmour - guitar
Richard Wright - piano
Nick Mason - drums
Syd Barrett - guitar
A Brief Biography
In 1965, a band called Sigma 6 was formed when Syd Barrett, Bob Close, Rick Wright, Nick Mason, and Roger Waters joined the group that was soon to become possibly the greatest and most appreciated band of all time.
Soon after, Close left the band (missing the chance of a lifetime), earlier mambers had departed their own ways, and all that was left now was Syd Barret, Roger Waters, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason. The band went through periods of constant name changes including, The ScreamingAbdabs, T-Set, The Meggadeaths, and The Architectural Abdabs, until the name The Pink Floyd Sound came around after Syd was inspired by two jazz artists Pink Anderson, and Floyd Council.
Their first album "Piper at the gates of dawn" labeled the name "The Pink Floyd" and for their second album, "A saucerful of secrets" the word "the" was dropped.
Several singles had been released before the debut of their first album such as, Arnold Lane, and See Emily Play. Around this time was Syd's departure from the band. LSD was a legal drug at the time and because of Syd's heavy involvment with it he had trouble with dealing with the pressure of stardom. Dave Gilmour was then hired (Syd's old friend) to play rythm guitar. When Syd's condition became worse the rest of the band decided not to pick him up one night ending the time of Syd Barrett in Pink Floyd.
Pink Floyd, along with the arrival of Gilmour, then went on to release albums such as, More, Ummagumma, Atom heart Mother, Relics, Meddle, and Obscured by clouds. At this stage of time the band was having trouble trying to find a style and were still sounding like the band when Syd was present.
Their next album however sold over 25 million copies world wide and stayed in the billboard charts for 14 years. The Dark Side of the Moon proved to be one the greatest albums of all time. After the release of that album it was always going to be hard to match it with the next.
That is why the release of Wish You Were Here proved that Pink Floyd were a very unique band. This along with Dark Side of the Moon were probably the band's two best, The following album, Animals was known as the forgotten album and then The Wall was after that. After The Wall tour Waters was upset with Wright and wanted to fire him, and without the assistance of Wright, the band produced The Final Cut which was the point that Roger Waters left the band. In 1987, Gilmour and Mason rejoined under the name of Floyd and released A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
Wright later joined them for the world tour which was followed by the 1994 release of the album The Division Bell, and finally their last album Pulse.
A band just doesn't stick around and succeed for nearly30 years through sheer luck but through great artistic talent and a level of uniqeness which has well surpassed any band of the past, present, and most likely the future, and this shows the absolute superiority of Pink Floyd.