Biography of Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd was one of the most successful rock groups of all time, having sold 210 million albums all over the world. It influenced many other progressive rock bands with its psychedelic rock music and Pink Floyd is still popular today.

Pink Floyd started in 1965 in England as a band named the Tea Set (previously called the Meggadeaths, Sigma 6, The Abdabs, and the Screaming Abdabs) including members Rado Klose (guitar), Roger Waters (bass), Richard Wright (keyboard and wind instruments), and Nick Mason (drums). The band had a lead vocalist named Chris Dennis, but only for a short time. Soon a man named Syd Barrett joined the band. The Tea Set soon found that there was a band by the same name, so Barrett changed the name of the band to The Pink Floyd Sound, and soon the rest of the name was dropped and they became known as Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd became quite popular in the underground movement in London and played in many major clubs. Klose left the band after one recording, but this still left everyone else, which proved to be fine. Pink Floyd formed Blackhill Enterprises which was an agreement between them and their managers and released two singles: “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play”. The latter made number 6 on the UK singles chart in 1967and Pink Floyd made their first appearance on T.V. on the show Top of the Pops.

In 1967, the band released their first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which was very popular in the UK, reaching number 6 there. However, Americans did

not receive the album as well, and it was 131^st. At this time, they toured with Jimi Hendrix which helped to make the band more popular.

Soon, Barrett started taking significant amounts of psychedelic drugs, and this started his decline. The band had to hire David Gilmour in 1968 to play and sing for Barrett, as the singer and guitarist was becoming very unpredictable. It was planned to keep Barrett on as a lead songwriter, but the band was forced to kick him out in April of 1968.

What follows was a period of experimentation for the band. After Barrett left, the band began to try out different sounds and styles. They released albums A Saucerful of Secrets, Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, Obscured By Clouds, and Wish You Were Here The first three albums did fairly well in the UK, but it wasn’t until Meddle that the U.S. started to show interest, reaching top 70. Obscured by Clouds reached top 40 in the U.S. and Dark Side of the Moon reached an all-time high of number 1 on the U.S. charts.

Pink Floyd continued to release many albums including In the Flesh and rock opera The Wall and many more. All of the albums were fairly popular in both the UK and the United States. After the album The Final Cut, the band members broke up and did solo work for a while. Finally in 1986, Wilson and Gilmour started to write a new Pink Floyd album and released A Momentary Lapse in Reason in 1987. The Division Bell was released in 1994 and hit number 1 in both the United States and the UK.

Pink Floyd was one of the most popular bands of their era, and is still very popular today. They are a very fascinating group.