Pink Floyd
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

THE REVIEW

Albums like these are no longer made. I know I’ve stated a cliché, but to the youngsters who consider today’s throwaway bands as "great," I say...listen to Pink Floyd, listen to Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Genesis...a whole new world will open up to you!

"The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn," the first album by Pink Floyd, year 1967. Syd Barrett, Richard Wright, Roger Waters, Nick Mason...four names that sparked a legend. Pink Floyd is one of the most famous and influential bands in the music world. I never said Pink Floyd is the absolute best; one can't make such a statement from a purely objective point of view. However, when I listen to a Pink Floyd album...I take off! Especially when I listen to one of the early Floyd albums. Madness, experimentation, psychedelia, magic.

This first album is the result of a brilliant, insane, and undeniably disturbed mind. I'm obviously talking about Syd Barrett, the "mad diamond," the ghost of the rock world, an apparition the Floyd never entirely shook off. The songs written for this album are mostly his works, and they are tales, fables soaked in madness and acid, the very acid he consumed which "provided" him with incredible hallucinations. Expert critics still claim today that this record is not only a milestone in the world of rock and psychedelia but also an inexhaustible source of innovation for genres like indie rock, punk rock and noise rock.

All the tracks are mind-bending "trips," but clearly, something always stands out more than the others. In this case, the album's first track "Astronomy Domine" is an extraordinary piece, pure psychedelic rock, which will also become a classic in live performances, although, as you all perhaps know, live performances by the Floyd featured their tracks quite differently from the studio version. And live, "Astronomy Domine" is much longer, much more psychedelic, how I would have loved to see one of those live shows when they were still a "niche band" and didn’t play on mega stages surrounded by costly lasers! Legend has it that the band saw their leader Syd playing with oranges, saying he saw them as two planets...around him, not a hotel room...but the cosmos...talk about "being burnt out"!!! But damn what he came up with!!!! Another very important piece and certainly even crazier than "Astronomy Domine" is the (in the literal sense of the word) hallucinatory "Interstellar Overdrive," an instrumental piece nothing short of magnificent. Watching Barrett pass a lighter or a bulb over the strings of his guitar in a moment of whatever crazy delirium is an extraordinary experience in itself. Even live, "Interstellar Overdrive" was very different from the studio version, much longer, more mysterious, and if anything, excessively crazier. "Interstellar Overdrive"...to space...and never back! The other tracks are equally important and highly psychedelic (Flaming, Lucifer Sam, Matilda Mother, and so on...) and undoubtedly contribute to making this journey even more reckless and fantastic towards the impenetrable mysteries of its creator's mind!

The Floyd at the time were considered "dangerous," because if on the radio tracks like "Arnold Layne" or "See Emily Play" aired, then in the legendary club "UFO," the Floyd let loose and caused a frenzy with "Interstellar Overdrive"...and the acid going around there...in tons! In short, Floyds started with a bang, a masterpiece, an absolute milestone.

Now, many might say the usual phrase "a very fan-like review"...indeed I am a fan of the Floyd (but not only Floyd)...to be honest, I am more for classical music than rock. For me, music bears the name Bach, Beethoven, Mozart...so that you understand. However, it is undeniable when you listen to an album like this that you are facing something unique in its genre, today it has even more value than back then, because today you realize how crazy these artists were and how they experimented without any worry, they did not censor themselves, they poured everything into their art, and such albums emerged. Naturally, the Floyd were not the only ones...the Beatles, for instance...they also "traveled" greatly!

An extraordinary album and of extraordinary importance. An immortal masterpiece of rock history, a rock milestone to own and cherish jealously. The legend of Pink Floyd officially begins here!

VinnySparrow