Can we first define what is the Pink Floyd sound - its caracteristics respect to the harmony, melody, instruments - and then continue the thread? I can imagine what every response means, where do you find a peace of Pink Floyd in the named bands, but then it results Pink Floyd influenced the whole modern music until today, which is undoubted but this way the thread becomes a little bit confusing.
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Other bands that sound like Pink Floyd?
- Thread starter Stewie26
- Start date
I think if you want to create something with Pink Floyd influence maybe you should listen to everything that they did individually and as Pink Floyd for about a week then go in and see what comes out. Listen to what each instrument is doing and feel what each instrument is doing. You need a guitarist as melodic as David Gilmore to start with. He has written no songs that any guitarist could not copy speed wise, but you need to be able to write as melodic as him. You need vintage keys too because that is where a lot of the feel came from was them playing with all the knobs and making different sounds out of what they had. You need to get into their minds, they probably did a lot of acid back then too. Just saying, if you want the influence you need to become them.
My band does... but I don't have anything you can listen to...
I would say that Tame Impala is Floydish of the Echo's era.
I would say that Tame Impala is Floydish of the Echo's era.
One that you might like is ELO(Electric Light Orchestra) Go listen to Twilight by them.
I get the Tool reference for the use of textures and non-traditional song formats. I get Queensryche at least for the song Silent Lucidity which felt like a tribute to Roger Waters. I don't get Thin Lizzy. Loved em back in the day and Phil is a great example of how you can front a band playing bass but Pentatonic riff-rock is not Pink Floydish.
For bands coming out of that English space/psychedelic mold around the same time as PF I would add Hawkwind.
For bands coming out of that English space/psychedelic mold around the same time as PF I would add Hawkwind.
Spiritualized - 'Ladies and Gentleman we are floating in space' is a great album and always puts me in mind of 60s+70s Floyd.
I don't think you can define the 'Pink Floyd sound' in any sort of satisfactory way. They were a complex group that covered a lot of ground over a career that's not done yet, apparently. People hear music differently, and associate different things with different weights based on their own personal experience with a band. For some it's the ringing solos of Gilmour, for others it's the personal feeling of Waters, or the psychedelic qualities, or the experimentation with song structure, or a dreamlike feel, the list goes on...
The reality is that influence is a nebulous thing, and all of the bands listed can easily be argued to have been shaped in one way or another by Floyd. You may feel that the differences are too stark, but the OP asked for influence, not copying. Floyd is a tough band to copy satisfactorily, as they were masters of minimalism (Gilmour, Mason), soundscapes (Wright) and emotional tension (Waters).
And not all bands could be listed here. Nobody is putting Slayer or Danko Jones or Maroon 5 forward. Just bands that consciously work outside traditional song formats and experiment a little. Or ones that go for a more ethereal feel, though I think those bands share less with Floyd, myself, but that's, like, only my opinion, man.
My vote has already been listed, but Ancestors is a rare band that has been heavily influenced but doesn't sound like a tribute act. They use way more distortion than Floyd ever did, but they capture that same sense of ebb and flow, tension and release that made Floyd so powerful. To me, anyway...
I second this. That was my first thought. The sound, the style, the album-as-a-cohesive-unit idea, the long songs flowing songs, the lyrics as story-telling...a lot of similarities there. (Plenty of differences as well...)
Off the top of my head, Nursery Cryme and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway are good places to start.
I'd add Foxtrot and even though it's Post-Peter Gabriel, a Trick of the Tail...
Maybe you already did, but I don't have any other advice than : listen to more Floyd 
There are tons of bootlegs, and they did change their songs for live performance.
If you get the chance, chek out the Echoes from the past live (1975). Probably can be found on youtube.
That one was before Animals though they play some early version with different arrangements.
I really like this version of Any color you like, even though I can't listen anymore to the studio version.
Plus that's almost a Best of Pink Floyd live (IME) : Animals, Wish You Were Here (I really love the transition Shine On 1-5 / Have a Cigar / Shine On part 6-9), all of Dark Side of the Moon, and Echoes as an encore drool
As for their solo stuff, Only Wright's Broken China came close to PF's feeling IME.
Cheers,
Adrien
There are tons of bootlegs, and they did change their songs for live performance.
If you get the chance, chek out the Echoes from the past live (1975). Probably can be found on youtube.
That one was before Animals though they play some early version with different arrangements.
I really like this version of Any color you like, even though I can't listen anymore to the studio version.
Plus that's almost a Best of Pink Floyd live (IME) : Animals, Wish You Were Here (I really love the transition Shine On 1-5 / Have a Cigar / Shine On part 6-9), all of Dark Side of the Moon, and Echoes as an encore drool
As for their solo stuff, Only Wright's Broken China came close to PF's feeling IME.
Cheers,
Adrien
my favorite "modern" band in this genre - Porcupine Tree. Pity they seem to be done.
