Pink Floyd are famed for an all-encompassing, deeply potent sound that has long been attached to the prog genre. While I’d argue that Pink Floyd’s work is actually in a category of its own, bearing only a handful of stylistic similarities to definitive prog innovators like King Crimson and Yes, they remain one of the most singular and indeed prescient outfits of their era. Reflecting this nature, classics such as ‘Wish You Were Here’ and ‘Us and Them’ have resisted the weathering effects of time, intensifying with age.
Although there is much to celebrate across Floyd’s career, with their arc among the most astounding in the annals of music lore, it’s safe to say that the likes of Meddle, The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here would not have come to fruition if original frontman Syd Barrett didn’t lay such sturdy foundations for the group to build on after his departure.
While the ephemeral chapter with Barrett at the helm lasted for just over three years until he departed in March 1968 following his sad collapse in mental health, his fusion of Bo Diddley-esque grooves and psychedelic surrealism marked the London group out as a unique force at the forefront of the capital’s experimental rock boom of the 1960s. Furthermore, his musical voyages to the outer limits of space and the human psyche were groundbreaking, giving the band a launch pad from which to jump off after his exit.
Barrett’s is an interesting case. While pivotal members would leave other bands during this era and then be forgotten by their old colleagues, Barrett’s spirit continued to permeate Pink Floyd’s work musically and lyrically after he left, with the great pathos and regret of his decline being a major theme across The Dark Side of the Moon, and the central topic of Wish You Were Here, both of which are their two most essential albums.
Barrett’s significance to Pink Floyd is undisputable, and when his friend, poet and sometime Cream lyricist Pete Brown spoke to Prog in 2024, he reflected on why he was the group’s “cornerstone”. The wordsmith maintained that without his genius, the music world would have overlooked them.
After noting that Barrett’s background as a visual artist informed his inherent discomfort at the commercial side of the music, he explained how vital Barrett was to Pink Floyd’s career.
Brown said: “Had he gone on a different route, he could have ended up being John McLaughlin. He wrote some great songs that had a huge influence on all sorts of different people. It was his writing and performance that made Pink Floyd successful in the first place. If he hadn’t been the cornerstone of the band in those early days, people would never have looked at them.”
Editors’ Picks
- 1960s Music
- British Rock History
- Meddle
- Pete Brown
- Pink Floyd
- Progressive Rock
- psychedelic rock
- Syd Barrett
- The Dark Side of the Moon
- Wish You Were Here
