The founding lead singer of Pink Floyd Syd Barrett has died
at his Cambridge home from diabetes. He was 60.
Despite only recording one album with Pink Floyd and a handful
of solo releases following his departure from the group, his
influence on pop music is generally acknowledged to enormous.
Barret had not released any new material since 1972 and since
his departure from public life led a quiet and reclusive existence
in Cambridge. Through time, he has become a celebrated but
tragic figure, reknowned as much for his reputation as one of
the first drug-casualties as for his music.
Pink Floyd release live DVD
Tue Jul 11 2006
Pink Floyd have released a live DVD featuring a legendary
performance of the group's entire album, The Dark Side of the Moon.
The original VHS was a best-seller of its time and captures the
group during a record-breaking 14-night residency at London's
Earls Court in 1994.
Drummer Nick Mason said: "There's a number of things about
(the DVD) but one of the points is that it's got the entirety of
Dark Side of the Moon played as a piece, which we haven't
done since the 70s."
The DVD, titled Pulse, also features rare backstage footage
of the band including David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright.
Mason added that he wouldn't change a thing about the project,
which suffered various setbacks as a result of painstakingly
restoring and re-editing footage.
He said: "I think you always look at these things and think,
'oh well, there's maybe a bit more to be added', but I think
considering it's now some years ago, I'm pretty pleased with it."
Floyd's 'Dark Side' Celebrates Chart Milestone
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Pink Floyd's Roger Waters |
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May 05, 2006, 3:45 PM ET
Bill Werde, N.Y.
On March 17, 1973, a band in musical transition named Pink Floyd hit the Top 200 chart with the release of its new album, "Dark Side of the Moon." It entered the chart at No. 95, the top debut that week. And then a funny thing happened: It never left. Or almost never, anyway.
More than 14 years later -- 736 weeks to be precise -- in July 1988, it finally fell off The Billboard 200. Add in a later run on that chart and another 759 weeks on the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart, and Pink Floyd, with this issue, reaches the staggering plane of 1,500 weeks on the charts.
It's difficult to contextualize just how singularly dominant a chart -- and cultural -- force the album has been. The runner-up for time served on The Billboard 200, Bob Marley and the Wailers' "Legend," is several years behind, and Floyd's lead in total chart weeks is greater Marley's by an almost 2-1 margin.
Label sources say "Dark Side" has sold roughly 40 million copies worldwide and still routinely moves 8,000-9,000 copies on a slow week. In fact, the album still often outpaces the low end of The Billboard 200, and every song on the more than 30-year-old record still gets radio play, with some among the most-played songs at classic rock stations monitored by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems.
"When the record was finished, I took a reel-to-reel copy home with me, and I remember playing it for my wife then, and her bursting into tears when it was finished," Pink Floyd principal Roger Waters tells Billboard. "And I thought, 'This has obviously struck a chord.' I was kinda pleased by that. I thought to myself, 'Wow, this is a pretty complete piece of work,' and I had every confidence that people would respond to it."
As previously reported, Waters plans to play the album in its entirety on his upcoming tour, an idea he says spawned from a request by Formula I.
"Somebody rather fancifully suggested Pink Floyd playing 'Dark Side of the Moon, and somebody else rather fancifully approached various people who said, 'Are you f***ing insane? It's not going to happen.' So they asked me ... The more I've worked on it, the more the idea has grown on me. I'm going downtown as we speak to work on visuals for 'Dark Side of the Moon' and the rest of the show. I've got a great band together, and I have every hope that we will do the work justice."
Additional reporting by Christa Titus and Ray Waddell.
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Pink Floyd's Gilmour turns 60 'On an Island'
By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY
Like George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Cher and a host of other famous folks born at the crack of the baby boom, David Gilmour turns 60 this year. And the singer/songwriter and erstwhile Pink Floyd guitarist has mixed feelings about reaching this milestone.
"I had a great party for my 50th birthday, and I'm having a nice little one this time," says Gilmour, who hit the big 6-0 Monday. "But it's sad how many people aren't going to be there, because they've died in the intervening years. There's been a lot of carnage around me, and I'm sort of looking at that list."
Gilmour admits he has grappled with his own "terrors, with that thing that one tends to be afraid of, dying. But that tends to have evaporated over the years, I think."
Thus the tone on Gilmour's new CD, On an Island, released Tuesday, is one of "contentment and resignation," he says. "It's tinged with little regrets and sadness and nostalgia, but there is a happiness at the core of it."
Part of Island was recorded, fittingly enough, on Gilmour's houseboat on the Thames River near London. "It's not really designed to go anywhere," he says of the floating studio, which also is rented by other artists. More work was done at the artist's home studio in Middlesex, "which is basically a room above a barn with modern digital equipment," and in London's Abbey Road studios, where The Beatles tinkered with less sophisticated gear some years ago.
Gilmour's first studio outing since Pink Floyd's The Division Bell in 1994 — and his "first proper solo album" since 1984's About Face— offers other nods to his '60s roots, including guest spots from David Crosby and Graham Nash. "I've known Graham since he was in The Hollies, and I went to one of (Crosby & Nash's) concerts in London. They were singing so beautifully that I went backstage to see them and tell them. Then I threw in a curveball, asking if they would sing on my record."
A more central collaborator on Island is Gilmour's wife, Polly Samson, who wrote lyrics to accompany her husband's melodies. The couple also worked together on Division Bell. "Sometimes, because she knows me so well, she writes something as if it's coming from me. It's what she thinks I would think."
Gilmour's relationship with his Pink Floyd bandmates hasn't always been quite so copacetic. His storied rivalry with fellow singer/songwriter and bassist Roger Waters remains part of rock 'n' roll legend more than two decades after Waters acrimoniously left the band. But the man whom Gilmour cheekily calls "my old nemesis" did join him, and the rest of the group, last July at Live 8, the megaconcert organized to promote debt relief and awareness of poverty in Africa.
"I had a fantastic time," Gilmour says. "We hadn't played as Pink Floyd in 10 years and hadn't played with Roger in 25. The main thing was obviously the cause, but I was also pleased to get some of that personal, trivial antipathy that's been part of our lives for so long and pack that away. For several days, Roger and I went out together. I'm very pleased that we're now at a point where we can talk."
Fans needn't hold their breath waiting for another reunion, though. This week, after blowing out the candles on his birthday cake, Gilmour is hitting the road with his current lineup of supporting musicians. They arrive in the USA for dates in April.
"I wish Roger absolutely well," Gilmour says. "But I can't imagine doing more than a one-off with him and the other guys at this point. It's been such a joyful experience working with the team I have now; nothing could make me happier than the situation I'm in. I'm extremely lucky."
