I don’t what it is about Pink Floyd, since I was a child their music has dominated my repertoire like no other band. Atmospheric, experimental, deeply dark and disturbing, musically it isn’t difficult to see why I like them so much. Whilst I eventually discovered other bands, starting with the Led Zeppelins and Black Sabbaths and eventually moving onto far heavier music (I’ll ignore certain ‘gateway’ bands for now), it wasn’t until my tastes delved deeper down the paths of prog/experimental rock and metal, that I realized how much my tastes had come full circle.
Four years ago, I moved out and was discovering what it was like to live within the student environment. I had my own computer, my own internet connection, and besides re-discovering internet porn, it was actually my wider discovery of music that had me most interested. Browsing various black metal, doom metal and prog metal websites, the majority that had details of Pink Floyd initially dumbfounded me (although I now wonder why – perhaps I was drunk, as I was 99% of the time). The fact is though, their influence can be heard so widely across a plentiful array of genres, and particularly within metal.
So, here’s to one of the greatest bands of all time. Thank you. Without Pink Floyd, they’d certainly be no Opeth, no Neurosis, no Cult of Luna and no Between the Buried and Me. For now, why not join me in listening to one of the finest Floyd tunes, ‘Welcome to the Machine’, above.
