One thing about pink floyd that annoys me...

[BrandonBass]

im not a fan of pink floyd, but theres afew songs like 'time' and 'wish you were here' but they manage to screw them up for me.

Why? because the intros to these songs are freakin long...

take 'time' for example...i love the lyrics and guitar solos etc, but i have to wait like an eternity before the 'tick, tick tock ' ends and the song starts. i mean, its cool if its the first time you've heard it, it kinda sets the atmosphere....but it gets really annoying when u put it on reply....spoiled the song for me

same with wish you were here and money, i can do without the intro...really. am i the only one who feels this way?

[Bassjunior]

Probably. Pink Floyd was and never has/will be a radio friendly band. And don't bring up Money, that was a fluke. The intros are designed with the whole in mind, much as those songs are best appreciated within the context of the whole album side, not by themselves.

I'm not saying you can't listen to them individualy, but those songs were not meant to stand alone, they are an integral part of Dark Side Of The Moon. The same goes for Wish You Were Here: it's a concept, not a single.

[tplyons]

Back in the old days before CD's and jumping track to track, people used to listen to an ALBUM end to end. And artists wrote conceptual albums, not a few singles with a bunch of filler

Ah, the good ol' days. Haven't had an album release like that forever.

[The BurgerMeister]

Originally Posted by tplyons

Back in the old days before CD's and jumping track to track, people used to listen to an ALBUM end to end. And artists wrote conceptual albums, not a few singles with a bunch of filler

Ah, the good ol' days. Haven't had an album release like that forever.

wait.... how old are you?

nevertheless, it's true! though there are still bands that do it these days... it's just not so much the "popular" way.

[peteroberts]

what I didn't like about Floyd was the lack of tempo changes...everything is kind of on the slow side. Even truer with David Gilmour's new solo record 'On An Island'.

I don't mind the long intros by the way...builds tension. It obviously worked on you.

[tplyons]

Originally Posted by jetpackbassist

wait.... how old are you?

Bah, you caught me, I'm 19. I just pretend I'm a cranky 45 year old man.

NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!

[jkritchey]

My old room mate was a drummer. He always said he was amazed at how Floyd's drummer could hold the slow tempo. He said it was harder to stay that slow than any speed metal drumming he (the room mate) ever did.

[morf]

Pink Floyd is all about listening to the whole album, and please, in the right order. I like bands like that.

[billjr]

Hey, there's nothing wrong with being 45. I will be next year.

I think a lot of the problem with the long intros has to do with our current society. Everyone is in a hurry, and no one wants to take the time to "smell the roses." We are in an era of instant gratification, and people just don't have patience like they used to.

Everyone thought the fax machine was going to help make work easier, but all it has done is make everyone expect things right now. Heaven forbid if you tell someone you'll drop something in the mail. People are even in too big of a hurry to email things, so they have instant messaging. Just look at how crappy people's spelling and grammar are because they are in too big of a hurry to even write correctly. My daughter's friends get in the car, and they can't listen to a single song without changing the track or channel within 60 seconds. I can't remember a time when they have listened to an entire song, except when I made them. Now don't think that I am immune to this. I find myself often doing the same things, but I also often sit back, relax, and let things take their time.

Pink Floyd's music is about more than a quick radio hit. It's about exploring a music idea fully, and that takes the proper amount of time. If you listen to songs like "Shine on..." you'll hear that it's not even just the music, but even the silence that is used to build drama, anticipation, etc. If you listen to a symphony you get a far lessor experience if you listen to just one movement.

I remember sitting in my bean bag chair and listening to entire albums, especially concept and live albums. One of my favorites was Alan Parson's "I Robot." Each song just seemed to flow into the next, and there really wasn't a good stopping point until the end of the album.

So put that CD in, relax, kick back, close your eyes, and let the musical "experience" take you away from all of your worries. It can really be a great break from the normal, hectic pace of life.

[tZer]

Originally Posted by BrandonBass

same with wish you were here and money, i can do without the intro...really. am i the only one who feels this way?

Nope... Pink Floyd does a masterful job of creating soundscapes that are as integral to the song as the verses, choruses and guitar solos. They create and set the scene, audio-wise, beautifully and in a very unique fashion. These intros and extended excursions into synth loops and sonic manipulations are key aspects of what make Pink Floyd a brilliant band. Removing them to "get to the point" quicker would be really, really bad.

To me, it is a crying shame that music has to be distilled down to only the hooks in order for it to be "consumable" - and those hooks better happen within the first 10 seconds or today's "discriminating listener" (ugh) will bail on it in search of the next bit of ear candy.

Sad... so sad...

[PaulMacCnj]

If you're looking for more of the concept album way of writing songs, be sure to check out Roger Water's "Amused to Death", which was released in 1992. No, this is not for people who don't like long intros and lots of airy-ness. This is completely a "submerse yourself into an audio/musical journey" type CD.

Paul Mac

[ryco]

Originally Posted by BrandonBass

the intros to these songs are freakin long...

I agree. Perhaps if the intros were a little more interesting. I'm all for building up into a song, but do something! Having said that, that's just the nature of PF - long drawn out dreamy soundscapes.

My bitch with PF is the sound effects took over. Instead of being intertwined as a part of the songs music, the sound effects became effects for effects sake. IMO from my ears standpoint.

I've been a fan since Ummagumma. Stopped at "Wish You Were Here".

[baba]

What's the rush? Let it flow and take a bath in it.

[baba]

While I'm at it, I have to give props to Gilmours new album. It's like opiates in the sun. As always, truly mood altering.

[MakiSupaStar]

As tZer, Mr. Bill, and everyone else said, Floyd created albums that were meant to tell a story and to create landscapes. You have to take the time listen to them in their entirety. Unfortunately, with the creation of MTV with is fast paced style of content consumption, and then later, the iPod and iTunes, people are being trained to consume things at a much faster and frenzied pace. So 10-15 minute songs don't fit well into the ipod (especially if it's on shuffle) mindset. It's a shame, because there's a byproduct of this - ADD and ADHD and it's having a detrimental effect on our society. And like many argue, I tend to think that this is misdiagnosed too often, and that these kids aren't ADD and ADHD, but rather they are products of a society that had 200 channels of TV to click through (not watching one show but three), instant access to any type of information, video, music, (not to mention people with cellphones, texting, and IM). SO it's not surprise that kids of today can't understand bands like Pink Floyd that can't be conveniently chopped into hooks and chorus's. These kids can barely sit still long enough to read, let alone listen to a story of an insane rock n' roll genius haunted by the loss of his father in World War II. Because I would argue that Pink Floyd is not really just a song, or even an album, but you could almost say that their albums "Dark Side of the Moon", "Animals" (which is based on the George Orwell story Animal Farm kiddies. Give it a read. It'll scare the hell out of you how close it rings todays socio-political world...), "Wish You Were Here", and "The Wall" are all loosely part of the same story. However, for every twitching kid squirming in my classroom (I teach 7th and 8th grade) there are a few that get it. Those few will carry the torch and those few will continue the tradition of Floyd and form the next Pink Floyd, or Grateful Dead, or Phish, or I would even argue the next Mars Volta. Ah, what do I know, I'm just a dumb teacher writing a thesis on this stuff.

[baba]

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

As tZer, Mr. Bill, and everyone else said, Floyd created albums that were meant to tell a story and to create landscapes. You have to take the time listen to them in their entirety. Unfortunately, with the creation of MTV with is fast paced style of content consumption, and then later, the iPod and iTunes, people are being trained to consume things at a much faster and frenzied pace. So 10-15 minute songs don't fit well into the ipod (especially if it's on shuffle) mindset. It's a shame, because there's a byproduct of this - ADD and ADHD and it's having a detrimental effect on our society. And like many argue, I tend to think that this is misdiagnosed too often, and that these kids aren't ADD and ADHD, but rather they are products of a society that had 200 channels of TV to click through (not watching one show but three), instant access to any type of information, video, music, (not to mention people with cellphones, texting, and IM). SO it's not surprise that kids of today can't understand bands like Pink Floyd that can't be conveniently chopped into hooks and chorus's. These kids can barely sit still long enough to read, let alone listen to a story of an insane rock n' roll genius haunted by the loss of his father in World War II. Because I would argue that Pink Floyd is not really just a song, or even an album, but you could almost say that their albums "Dark Side of the Moon", "Animals" (which is based on the George Orwell story Animal Farm kiddies. Give it a read. It'll scare the hell out of you how close it rings todays socio-political world...), "Wish You Were Here", and "The Wall" are all loosely part of the same story. However, for every twitching kid squirming in my classroom (I teach 7th and 8th grade) there are a few that get it. Those few will carry the torch and those few will continue the tradition of Floyd and form the next Pink Floyd, or Grateful Dead, or Phish, or I would even argue the next Mars Volta. Ah, what do I know, I'm just a dumb teacher writing a thesis on this stuff.

Great post. I'm really bummed about the projected demise of full concept albums due to the mp3 revolution.

[MakiSupaStar]

Originally Posted by baba

Great post. I'm really bummed about the projected demise of full concept albums due to the mp3 revolution.

Thanks. Yeah, there's a side of me that's bummed (the one that wrote the last post) and then there's a side of me that is calling myself an old fart at 36, and saying that I need to roll with it, embrace it, and figure out how to manipulate like Pink Floyd did . I mean, just because I criticize it, doesn't mean that I don't have 60G of music, and that there aren't aspects of the MP3 revolution that I DO like (especially in the taping circles (phish, dead, moe, string cheese incident, et al.), but I just feel that we're also priveledged because we got to witness the transition. We can appreciate Pink Floyd (which I feel fortunate to say I've seen ). Kids that only know the MP3 generation have to be driven to seek it out, and unfortunately, they are in the situation where they have to sort through content and quickly determine what is important and what is not (think of Google, or Wikipedia), so to actively seek something like Floyd out, goes against the engine and mechanism that is now in place. It's like swimming up a waterfall. AND to seek something out that is not easily and quickly assessed, also goes against the that knee-jerk "sorting skill" that they need to survive in today's society. I think this thread shocked me. A part of me couldn't beleive a kid was actually BAGGING ON FLOYD. The sacrilege. The horror. The horror.

[baba]

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

Thanks. Yeah, there's a side of me that's bummed (the one that wrote the last post) and then there's a side of me that is calling myself an old fart at 36, and saying that I need to roll with it, embrace it, and figure out how to manipulate like Pink Floyd did . I mean, just because I criticize it, doesn't mean that I don't have 60G of music, and that there aren't aspects of the MP3 revolution that I DO like (especially in the taping circles (phish, dead, moe, string cheese incident, et al.), but I just feel that we're also priveledged because we got to witness the transition. We can appreciate Pink Floyd (which I feel fortunate to say I've seen ). Kids that only know the MP3 generation have to be driven to seek it out, and unfortunately, they are in the situation where they have to sort through content and quickly determine what is important and what is not (think of Google, or Wikipedia), so to actively seek something like Floyd out, goes against the engine and mechanism that is now in place. It's like swimming up a waterfall. AND to seek something out that is not easily and quickly assessed, also goes against the that knee-jerk "sorting skill" that they need to survive in today's society. I think this thread shocked me. A part of me couldn't beleive a kid was actually BAGGING ON FLOYD. The sacrilege. The horror. The horror.

Well, I'm also 36 and was a rabid taper back in the day, so we are definitely riding the same wavelength.

[MakiSupaStar]

Originally Posted by baba

Well, I'm also 36 and was a rabid taper back in the day, so we are definitely riding the same wavelength.

Ah sweet. I can drink my coffee relieved that some else gets it.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by tplyons

Back in the old days before CD's and jumping track to track, people used to listen to an ALBUM end to end. And artists wrote conceptual albums, not a few singles with a bunch of filler

Ah, the good ol' days. Haven't had an album release like that forever.

You mean before the audience became kids with attention defecit syndrome!!