Is Pink Floyd a Space Rock band?
by John Valenzuela
Pink Floyd? Space Rock? Depends on just what kind of "space" we're talking about. Would I call them an "Outer Space Rock Band"? No, I don't think so. (An "Inner Space Band"? Definitely.)
I generally break Pink Floyd's career into four parts: Barrett, pre-Dark Side, the "Golden Era" (The Dark Side of the Moon through The Wall), and post-Waters (I still consider The Final Cut as Waters' first solo album). Each of those eras have a song or two with outer space lyrical references, but to call them a "Space Rock" band based on these few lyrics, limits the scope of their magnificent body of work. Leave the term "Space Rock" to bands like Hawkwind who heartily embrace the moniker.
"Not really (interested in science fiction), except 'Journey Into Space' and 'Quatermass,' which was when I was about fifteen, so that could be where it came from." --Syd Barrett (Barrett audio interview, ca. 1970)
During the Barrett era, I would say that Pink Floyd was a storytelling band, much in the way that early Genesis was. Each song has a character, a narrative, some type of story being conveyed. True, songs like "Astronomy Domine" speak of outer space travel, but really this is just one of the many stories told, and that one just happens to take place in the stratosphere. I mean, would you call "Scarecrow" or "Bike" outer space songs? No. I would say that they could relate to inner space. Each one is like a psychological examination of a specific character, and the particular story that accompanies that character. When Syd wrote "Astronomy Domine", I suspect that he was merely telling another story from his broad canon of fairy tales, except that with that one the locale was the distant reaches of our galaxy.
"The space thing was a joke. None of those pieces were about outer space. They were about inner space. That1s all it's ever been about, human beings and their insides, whether it was Syd's writing or mine. They were both about the same thing." --Roger Waters (Rolling Stone, 19 November 1987)
The "pre-Dark Side" era is still my favorite Floyd era. They were young, they were aggressive, they functioned in a true band capacity where everyone contributed, and while I maintain that they weren't an outer space band, their exploration of the human mind--inner space if you will--continued to evolve. Starting with their second album, Pink Floyd was turning inward rather than outward. "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" is a purely metaphorical journey into the soul. And I've always considered the title song, "A Saucerful Of Secrets," to mean literally a saucer--the kind you'd set a teacup in--full of secrets, not a flying saucer. And as "Saucerful" has no lyrics, the meaning of the song is clearly left up to interpretation.
If Pink Floyd ever felt that they were being type-cast as a space rock band, then I think the turning point for them would have been "Echoes." Many of you Floyd fans know that the original lyrics had outer space references but were changed early on. Perhaps this was an effort to separate the Pink Floyd name from the label of 'space rock'. Personally, I'm glad they changed the lyrics as I find the original ones a bit contrived.
"I think that 'Dark Side' has proved that the Floyd aren't interstellar rock music and that they haven't been for years..." --Nick Mason (Ciao 2001, 25 May 1975)
The "golden age" of Floyd -- The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall -- is a decade-long study of the human psyche. The phrase "Dark Side Of The Moon," while at first glance may appear to suggest outer space, is easily identified as a metaphor for the dark side of human nature, evidenced throughout the album's lyrics. Wish You Were Here, partially about Syd, is also about Pink Floyd's state of mind at the time. Again, a looking inward rather than looking to the stars. Animals? Class structure in society, and once again, a study of the human condition, not of the heavens. The Wall, I'm pretty certain, is self explanatory. And The Final Cut, an extension of The Wall, just further examines the inner space of The Wall's central character, Pink. Great albums, great tours, but definitely not what I would call space rock.
"We don't deliberately try and make everything come out like that. It just works out that things happen that way. We all read science fiction and groove to 2001; it's all very good. But some of our things happen completely accidentally." --David Gilmour (Disc & Music Echo, 22 November 1969)
The post-Waters period has taken a dramatic shift in lyrical style for obvious reasons, but still the lyrics in both Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell deal primarily with human interaction and self-examination, both of which I would say falls under the "inner space" umbrella. Again space, but inner space, not outer space.
Of course, Pink Floyd's music--all periods--has been described as "spacey". But to call them a "space rock" band does Floyd an injustice, because there's so much more to the story than that.
John Valenzuela is a staff writer for Spare Bricks.
Soyuz Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star?
by Mark Brown
Is Pink Floyd a space-rock band? Sure, that's one of the things they are. It's not controversial to me, and not demeaning. The Floyds' interest in gee-whiz technology such as the Azimuth Coordinator, in space science fiction, in flying, even in rock 'n' roll music itself, is a natural part of growing up in the twentieth century.
| Andy Jackson's CD |
| Andy Jackson's CD is called Obvious, and his web site is www.tuberecords.com. Go there now, because it may already be too late to snag a copy. Write to him, tell him Mark Brown sent you, and try to sweet-talk him into extending his exclusive mail-order offer. |
After they'd done such music as "Astronomy Domine", "A Saucerful Of Secrets", "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun", and "Point Me At The Sky", they were a natural choice to do the music for a BBC TV documentary "So What If It's Just Green Cheese?", broadcast on the day men first walked on the moon. When the band later shied away from the "space-rock" label they had earned through such efforts, it was only that they didn't want to be limited by anyone putting them into a rigid category.
By the late '80s, that wasn't a problem. They embraced the notion with confidence and good humor by taking up the slogan "Pink Floyd: still first in space." Gilmour and Mason attended the launch of the three-man joint French and Soviet Soyuz TM-7 mission to the Mir space station in late November 1988. It was a few days after the release of Delicate Sound of Thunder, and the new cassette was being brought up to augment the musical library of Mir. They were a favorite of the French cosmonaut, and perhaps he had seen them perform at Versailles that summer?
Incidentally, Pink Floyd's recording engineer Andy Jackson released a CD called Obvious (see sidebar for details) featuring the song "Laika", named after the first earthling--a dog--launched into orbit aboard Sputnik 2 in 1957, and featuring art and sounds inspired by that voyage. Like Pink Floyd, it's more than just space-rock, but Floyd fans and space-rock fans will enjoy it.
Mark Brown is a special contributor to Spare Bricks
Another (Ku)brick in the HAL, part 2001
by Rick Karhu
I recently had the pleasure of re-reading Arthur C. Clarke's classic 2001 A Space Odyssey which is something I promised that I would do in the year 2001. Little did I realize back in high school, after having completed my first reading of the book, how difficult it would be for me to find time for such a thing now. Like most teenagers, I had no concept of time management in high school and, unlike the Arthur C. Clarke, I had no capacity to foresee what the future held.
However, I kept my promise and, fifteen years into the future, I re-read the book. I'm glad I did it. I would highly recommend it to everyone, even those who don't usually care much for science fiction. It's not likely to pop up on Oprah's reading list any time soon, but the book is a fascinating and masterfully constructed trip into the future--a future that we have reached numerically even if some of our technological advances have fallen short. Clarke and his story collaborator, Stanley Kubrick, had some fairly grandiose visions; it's understandably difficult to keep pace with dreams of that magnitude.
Despite that, some of the predictions in the book are stunning. While mankind hasn't yet established a foothold on the surface of the Moon or set off in manned voyages to other planets, there are other smaller details about the book that are fascinating in its prescience. The most remarkable was an otherwise prosaic moment aboard the book's ill-fated space ship, Discovery. Clarke describes the book's hero, David Bowman, as using a hand-held computer (about the size of a laptop from the description) to connect to the Earth's communications network and browse any of the world's newspapers.
Imagine doing that!
It's a remarkable prediction (even if the computer's interface is described in pre-'point-and-click' terms) that is a small victory for its author. It's especially impressive when one considers that the Internet, and in fact computer networking itself, was in its infancy at the time of the book's writing. In fact, when the book was published, computers had not yet been successfully networked (as we understand that term today).
2001 is a book (and film) in a class of its own. Calling it just another sci-fi book does not do it justice.
Not unlike calling Pink Floyd just another space rock band.
True to form, Pink Floyd has managed to be the pinnacle of space rock bands while simultaneously transcending that limited genre and showing us all something bigger and greater. Like 2001 A Space Odyssey, they are the very epitome of a genre that they are far too good to be restricted by.
Pink Floyd's career is littered with experiments and musical explorations that are remarkable in their prescience.
To my ears, Syd Barrett's guitar pop, with its lyrical undercurrents of instability and confusion and its energetic yet slightly quirky guitar work, was a forerunner to the style that emerged in the '90s. (Despite the tiresome way that style is always tied in to the punk rock scene of the '70s, much of what came out of the '90s sounds like Barrett could have penned it.)
"Atom Heart Mother" was the first attempt at synthesizing a new sound from merging a rock band and a symphony. Other bands had used orchestral backings before Pink Floyd, but none really took it to its logical extreme by trying to create an actual symphonic piece like "Atom Heart Mother" with distinct movements and recurring themes where the rock musicians were an integral part of the piece, not necessarily the central focus. In recent years, we have seen numerous bands attempt similar on record and live, most notably and recently, Metallica (aided by Michael Kamen, whose beautiful scores have graced the works of Pink Floyd.)
During the recording of The Dark Side of the Moon, Roger Waters and David Gilmour's tinkerings with the VC3 gave birth to one distinct piece of music ("On The Run") as well as an entire genre of techno music that is only now emerging as a serious form.
The list goes on. The concept album. Sound effects integrated into the music. Theatrical stage productions. Extended works. Rock album as film and vice-versa. (The band was even anti-arena rock long before that became a bandwagon.) While Pink Floyd were not always first to attempt these things, they were certainly responsible for popularizing many of these concepts by showing how they could be done in a serious and meaningful way without being boring or cheesy (consider the latter before writing to me about Tommy, okay?) Each of their forays into these areas shows a remarkable ability to see the future of rock music.
In a way, Pink Floyd has acted like the monolith seen early in 2001. They emerged into the primitive landscape of rock music and lead the way for its evolution from a curious musical experiment to a surviving art form. No, they didn't do it by themselves. It would be foolhardy to credit Pink Floyd as having saved rock-and-roll, but they did play a significant part in expanding the boundaries. (I'll even tempt the wrath of some readers by suggesting that they did so in more ways than the Beatles.)
In a sense, it's somewhat demeaning to call them a space rock band. They are not just a space rock band. To me, they have been and will always be, the ultimate space rock band, simultaneously embodying the paragon of that style while transcending it almost entirely.
Rick Karhu is a staff writer for Spare Bricks.