Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd was at the front lines of the psychedelic revolution in 1960s England, and in the '70s they evolved into one of biggest rock bands of all time. Floyd bassist Roger Waters, keyboardist Richard Wright, and drummer Nick Mason first played together in 1963 in London in a band called Sigma 6 that went through numerous name changes. By 1964 when guitarist Syd Barrett came aboard it was called the Tea Set. Late in 1965 this foursome renamed itself Pink Floyd. Having to fill up three-set gigs led them to incorporating long jams into their sound, and with visionary acid tripper Barrett in the lead they developed a pioneering psychedelic sound by 1966, establishing themselves as originators of the style at places like the now-legendary, literally underground hotspot The UFO Club. Their first single, 1967's "Arnold Layne," and its follow-up, "See Emily Play," introduced a brilliantly eccentric collision of pop hooks and psychedelic adventurousness and found a place in the British charts. Released in the Summer of Love, Floyd's debut LP, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, is a rock milestone that created a psych-pop and space-rock template people would follow for generations to come. But whacked-out genius Barrett began to self-destruct pretty quickly, with a cocktail of acid damage and mental illness increasingly impairing his ability to function. By 1968's A Saucerful of Secrets new guitarist David Gilmour had largely taken over from Syd, with the latter contributing only one song and playing on three. He'd already left the band by the time the LP was released. Like every LP the band would ever release, Saucerful reached the U.K. Top 10. By the early '70s, records like Atom Heart Mother and Meddle found Floyd getting proggier and spacier, but on their arguable peak, 1973's conceptual Dark Side of the Moon, they returned to a song-based approach, generating rock radio mainstays like "Money" and "Us and Them." The record made Floyd superstars, becoming one of the biggest-selling albums ever made and forevermore being considered one of rock's finest achievements. By the time of 1977's Animals and 1979's The Wall, Waters had largely taken over as main songwriter and singer. Though this resulted in blockbuster sales for The Wall, it fractured the group, to the point that 1983's The Final Cut was more like a Waters solo album with the other members guesting-Richard Wright, who had been fired following the recording of The Wall, didn't even participate. After the inevitable schism and resultant legal wrangles, Gilmour, Mason, and Wright reconvened for 1987's A Momentary Lapse of Reason, followed in '94 by The Division Bell. They reunited with Waters in 2005 for a one-off performance at the Live 8 benefit concert. Wright died in 2008, and in tribute Mason and Gilmour assembled 2014's all-instrumental The Endless River, constructed around outtakes of earlier sessions with Wright.