Les Mis is The Wall?
What I listened to:
Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Saucerful of Secrets
The Dark Side of the Moon
The Wall
Wish You Were Here
Queen had “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Taylor Swift has “All Too Well [10-minute Version] [Taylor’s Version] [From the Vault]”
Wagner had Tristan und Isolde.
Pink Floyd’s is The Wall, and The Wall is Les Mis?
Caveat: usually I do some sort of historical dive into an artist but I did none of those things with Pink Floyd and I can’t even name a single band member. I also didn’t pay too much attention to lyrics either so if anyone or any part of Pink Floyd is canceled by today’s societal standards, I humbly ask that you refrain from sentencing me by proxy.
I can remember the first time I heard about Pink Floyd and it was when I was eating at Firehouse Subs with my dad. There was a mural on the wall with this rainbow triangle album cover thing, and I asked my dad about it. He told me it was a Pink Floyd reference, the album was Dark Side of the Moon, and he thought he remembered liking a song on there about money. I was maybe 16 when this happened, and that was the entire conversation.
I found The Dark Side of the Moon on a streaming service, listened to it all the way through maybe once, and then pretended to like that album just for this boy I had a crush on. I’ll save my tales of unrequited love for another day, but that’s everything I knew about Pink Floyd then. Flash forward a decade later, I’m in my 27th year listening to Pink Floyd for real this time.
Stream of conscious aside #1
Can we laugh for a second about how I went into this project of exhausting the RS100 list, thinking I would time-cap my experience with artists by two weeks? HA. I’ve spent the last couple of months dragging through Pink Floyd.
I spent too much time here, and also with Black Sabbath before it, because I’m downtrodden that two artists in a row haven’t been life changing. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was a great discovery towards the end of my Sabbath journey, but I haven’t a single track in my rotation, and I fear Pink Floyd will share the same fate (with the exception of Astronomy Domine, but I’ll get there).
The Dark Side of the Moon
I started off my Pink Floyd journey by listening to The Dark Side of the Moon all the way through again– second ever time in my life. A recent happy memory, I shared this experience with Keith (who’s a big fan of theirs) as we were cooking one of our last meals at our first Philly apartment, fondly known as the Mouse House. :’)
I listened to this all the way through, liked the song about money, but did not pretend to be obsessed with the album for the man I love. (And that’s on maturity!)
Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Then I decided to go back to the beginning and listen to the first album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn. “Astronomy Domine” slapped so hard that I kept starting it over to listen to it from the top, before even finishing it. This made me hopeful, but the rest of the album didn’t capture me. In fact, after I was done with Piper at the Gates of Dawn, I thought it sounded like it was trying to be the Beatles’s Magical Mystery Tour. Which, hey, they were released in the same year, so considering the portion of my life spent living under a rock, I’m proud of my brain for making this connection towards a timeline of sound.
The Bops:
The Flop:
Saucerful of Secrets
The next one in the chronology is Saucerful of Secrets and it also started off with a banger. “Let There Be More Light” Apple Music describes this album as “full-on space-rock assault” which made me embody this emoji 🥴 because after listening to this album several times I still can’t tell you what space rock is.
There’s a line in this song about “Lucy in the Sky” which also made me think of the Beatles. And it was about this time that I was half tempted to do some cursory research on Pink Floyd to see if there was a connection to the Beatles. Alas, I did not, so it will remain a magical mystery to me unless I wake up and have the desire to change that.
The Bop:
The Flop:
“Corporal Cregg” reminded me of Ozzy’s voice which I had just left behind. Too soon.
The Wall
Queen had “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Taylor Swift has “All Too Well [10-minute Version] [Taylor’s Version] [From the Vault]”, Wagner had Tristan und Isolde. Pink Floyd’s is The Wall, and The Wall is Les Mis?
Returning to my original (albeit clickbait-y) premise, the whole thing is theatrical af. Tell me the end of Waiting for the Worms isn’t “The Confrontation” from Les Miserables. Tell me “The Trial” doesn’t have “Master of the House” vibes. I triple dog dare you.
The Bops:
The Flop:
Broadway purists, don’t come for me. I’m going with the commercialized version for a reason here.
The Dark Side of the Moon (again)
Everything you love about Pink Floyd is here on The Dark Side of the Moon. The Wall is better, for sure, but if you only have about an hour for the cause and you want to introduce someone to pink floyd in a summary, you give them this.
“On the Run” gets you closer to defining whatever the heck space rock is. “Great Gig in the Sky” is poignant and sad and introspective, saying a lot without saying much. “Money” is the hit song that’s singable in the shower and makes you hate capitalism, and it’s a track that could go on a playlist with the Allman Brothers Band alongside “Whipping Post” or “Black Hearted Woman”. And the whole thing has some soundscapes that carry the vibe through as a concept album.
Wish You Were Here
Okay so it turns out I did know a Pink Floyd song super well before coming across Pink Floyd, I just didn’t know I was listening to a cover of them by the Milk Carton Kids. I don’t have much to say about this one, other than the title track is good, and so is the cover which hit my ears first.
Overall Takeaways
Pink Floyd nails two things:
Conceptual albums
Music as an aural journey
I talk about music with one of my co-workers a lot, and he’s a huge Pink Floyd fan. We got into a great discussion about how best to enjoy this music and we both agreed it’s not on a birthday party playlist or in the background at a restaurant. The act of listening to a Pink Floyd album front to back is the main activity either by yourself or shared with someone else.
2 realizations I had through this journey
I like songs that I can sing
I am more connected to music that fits the vibes of the activities in my life
Sample criteria
Something I can sing scream in the shower
Something crappy and upbeat that will get me through a workout
Stuff I could perform one day (probably just for Keith, or maybe for thousands, you don’t know!)
TLDR
All of that to say, Pink Floyd was better than the Sabbs, but maybe not going to be in heavy rotation, and that’s okay.
