Pink Floyd/Awesome Music

Pink Floyd. There's a very good reason they're one of the most successful acts ever.

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• "The Trial" anyone?
  • Warning, that link leads to one of the weirdest and scariest music videos ever. Still a fantastic end track.
• "Echoes". With 2001: A Space Odyssey. You CANNOT get more awesome than that.
  • "Echoes" is the greatest song written. The reprise and the release, the band jam with the two guitar solos in a row, the whale song. Just unbelievable.
• "Time". Just... "Time".
  • "Careful with That Axe, Eugene", "Julia Dream", the live side of Ummagumma and the Atom Heart Mother Suite also deserve a mention.
• "Comfortably Numb" is a huge fan favorite, for a reason.
  • Especially the live version from Pulse. The guitar solo almost hurts, and the light show isn't exactly a detractor.
• Sitting down and listening to a Pink Floyd album from start to finish almost always counts as Awesome Music. "Wish You Were Here", "Dark Side of the Moon" and "Meddle" are particularly well put together. The Wall is awesome in its own way too, as is Animals. Some may find The Final Cut fits into this category.
• Quite a few tracks off The Division Bell. "High Hopes" is mesmerisingly beautiful, and "Poles Apart" and "Coming Back to Life" are awesome too. There's so much emotion in some of these songs that it hurts, and this album should never be overlooked.

"High Hopes" is damn near perfect.

• For fans of Floyd's early period, there's The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. 42 minutes of prime space rock/psychedelia, including "Astronomy Domine", "Lucifer Sam", "Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk", "Interstellar Overdrive" and "Bike". Not to mention the singles, "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play", that were spawned during this period.
• The initial appearance of the four-note guitar motif in "Shine on You Crazy Diamond".
  • All of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", more like. Especially when it goes "SHIiINE ON YOU CRAAAAAZY DIiIiAmond"
• The section of "Learning to Fly" from "Above to the planet on a wing and a prayer..." to the song's end.
• "One of These Days", anyone? The bass line is simple yet haunting, and the slide guitar jam in the second half is icing on the cake. This is the reason why Meddle is a great album.
• "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)" will always kick major ass. ALWAYS.
  • At exactly the 2:49 mark is one the most amazing note bends in musical history. Just that 5 seconds there is one the finest moments in music.
• "Hey You".
• "Waiting for the Worms". The epic anthem for pure Neo-Nazi evil.
• In the same vein, "Run like Hell" is equally kickass.
• "The Great Gig in the Sky" has so far gone without recognition. Allow me to rectify this terrible mistake.
  • The former, set to a simulation of an asteroid impact.
• Obscured By Clouds, the title track. Recorded in 1972. Prototype electronica.
• A Momentary Lapse of Reason gets a lot of flak - most of which is completely unjustified, as the album is brilliant. Highlights include the aforementioned "Learning to Fly", "Yet Another Movie" + "Round and Around", "Terminal Frost" and "Sorrow".
• If you had to narrow it down to one album, it'd be Dark Side of the Moon, their most critically acclaimed and commercially successful work. It was on the Billboard Top 200 for fifteen years and would have re-entered the chart again had Billboard not changed the rules to prevent that (instead, it remains a mainstay of their "Catalog" chart). When they changed their rules in 2009 to allow catalog albums and re-entries into the Billboard Top 200, Dark Side of the Moon re-entered the chart a few weeks later and has popped in here and there ever since.