Critical Approaches to Popular Music: A Look Into The Floyd

Time really does fly

2008-11-27T10:37:00.001-08:00

So it's time to start writing my research paper. Here's a rough outline:

I. Historical Background of Pink Floyd

- See blogs: "This would be helpful, right?"

II. Define hippie/psychedelic rock and discuss how Pink Floyd embodies hippie values

- See blogs: "Progressive/Psychedelic Rock," "Superzap Them All With Love!"

III. Track Pink Floyd's shift from hippie/psychedelic rock group to progressive rock group

- See blogs: "Articles That May Be Helpful," "What's the difference?"

IV. Discuss in depth the progressive rock movement and how Pink Floyd fits the definition of a progressive rock group

- See blogs: "Prog Rock," "Prog Rock Revisited"

V. Introduce punk rock movement and its relationship to progressive rock movement

- State explicit distinctions

- See blogs: "Some Scholarly Articles," "Mark Andersen Talk"

VI. Show the connections between the punk rock movement and the progressive rock movement, using Pink Floyd and DSOTM as an example

- See blogs: "Breathe, breathe in the air," "Some DSOTM Facts & NME Review," "Money, it's a hit!," "Is it really all dark?," "Us & Them," "Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day," "More Dark Side Reviews"

For right now though, I'm gonna go eat some turkey!

Questions

2008-11-27T09:43:00.000-08:00

Interview:

http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/pinkfloyd/articles/story/5937470/dark_side_at_30_roger_waters

I stumbled across this written Rolling Stone interview with Roger Waters that addressed the spoken parts on DSOTM. I thought this was worth exploring, since a lot of songs I've posted here on my blog have spoken parts. In the interview, Waters says, "I wrote questions down on a set of cards, and they were in sequence. Whoever was in the building came and did it. They would read the top card and answer it -- with no one else in the room -- and then take that card off, and do the second one. So, for instance, when it said "When was the last time you were violent?" the next one said, "Were you in the right?" It provided essential color for the record. The questions that provided us with the best material were the ones about violence." I agree that the voices on the album add texture and depth to the album (Just think “Great Gig,” “Money,” “Us And Them”). I think the layering of the voices also serves to pull people together. It reminds us that humanity is not perfect, and all people share similar experiences. It’s sort of along the same lines as what Waters was saying in that 2007 interview: “It’s ok to have bad feelings about things and to experience pain, and this and that, and that we don’t have to live in an anodyne world where nothing hurts.”

gobble, gobble

2008-11-27T09:11:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ever heard the rumor that The Dark Side of the Moon is perfectly synced with The Wizard of Oz? Supposedly, if you start the Pink Floyd album immediately after the MGM lion roars for a third time, several coincidental themes begin to emerge when watching the movie and listening to the album at the same time. Although Pink Floyd has denied purposefully syncing the album to the film, one cannot deny the many parallels between the two. For example, Dorothy is balancing on the fence just as "Balanced on the biggest wave" plays in the track "Breathe." The ominous introduction of "Time" plays when the witch enters the scene on her bike. Moreover, consider the uncanny similarities between the scene with the house in the sky and "The Great Gig in the Sky," which plays in the background (See above clip). What's more is that "Money" starts just as Dorothy enters Oz, and the movie switches to color. I'm not sure if I'll mention this in my final paper, but I have to admit that pairing the film with the album really helps to emphasize the themes of The Dark Side.

2007 Interview with Roger Waters

2008-11-26T19:43:00.000-08:00

I think this short interview with Roger Waters offers a bit of insight into the success and meaning behind The Dark Side of the Moon. It's amazing that it's been over 30 years since the release of the album, and people are still talking about it. Roger Waters comments on the timelessness of the album in the interview: "I think The Dark Side is a very interesting piece of work because successive generations seem to attach to it with equal enthusiasm." So how exactly has The Dark Side of the Moon lasted the test of time? Why is it so appealing to such wide audiences? Roger Waters says, "In terms of its politics and philosophy, it kind of gives people, when they're young, permission to think for themselves, in a way." This is a theme evident in several tracks on the album, from "Breathe" to "Time," illustrating the progressive values of individuality and autonomy. Waters's message is similar to the punk Do-It-Yourself ethic. At the same time, however, the punk movement seems to value the group over the individual. This idea is also seen on DSOTM with tracks like "Us And Them," which encourage people to come together by pointing out our collective failure to connect with one another. Roger Waters once said in a different interview that "Us And Them" is about "the political idea of humanism."*

*"A variety of ethical theory and practice that emphasizes reason, scientific inquiry, and human fulfillment in the natural world and often rejects the importance of belief in God."

More Dark Side Reviews

2008-11-26T16:17:00.000-08:00

In the 1973 Rolling Stone review of DSOTM, Loyd Grossman says that the album has to do with the "fleetingness and depravity of human life, hardly the commonplace subject matter of rock." Grossman notes that "Time," "Money" and "Us And Them" offer the best glimpse into the album's overall meaning. Grossman also mentions the different techniques used on the album, including "synthesizers, sound effects and spoken voice tapes. The sound is lush and multi-layered while remaining clear and well structured." Rolling Stone praises Dark Side as a "fine album with a textural and conceptual richness that not only invites but demands involvement."

According to a 1973 review in the Montreal Gazette, Pink Floyd "does not concern itself with snappy intros and cutoffs or quick changes in tempo. Its music just drifts and drifts then drifts some more." Reading these different reviews, it has become quite clear that Pink Floyd is in fact a progressive rock group. Their tracks are more like compositions, strikingly different from punk rock songs that are short and simple. Pink Floyd qualifies as a progressive rock band if we consider their use of instruments like the saxophone, electronic keyboards, synthesizers and various electronic effects. Another progressive characteristic is Pink Floyd's literary lyrics that have to do with introspection and social issues. We can also consider Pink Floyd progressive because the group orchestrated such elaborate light shows and stage effects that often made the band members seem secondary in performance. Quite the opposite, the punk movement was all about stripping everything away and bringing the artist down to the level of the audience.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

2008-11-26T13:21:00.000-08:00

Time - Pink Floyd

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.

You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking

Racing around to come up behind you again.

The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.

Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

The time is gone, the song is over,

Thought I'd something more to say.

So, this is the fourth track off of The Dark Side of the Moon. The song is the second longest on the album after "Us And Them." The clocks in the beginning were all recorded separately in a watchmaker's shop and were fused together to form the opening to the song, full of ticking and chiming. The song clearly comments on the passing of time. The first verse suggests that we're all wasting our time waiting for someone else to point us in the right direction. According to Vincent Amendolare, the second verse comments on the "futility of trying to outrun time." According to Roger Waters, "This idea in Time is a similar exhortation to Breathe. To be here now, this is it. Make the most of it." Therefore, although the song may sound depressing and negative, it is clear that Waters is implying that we must make the most of our lives.

Mark Andersen Talk

2008-11-26T13:20:00.001-08:00

Here are some notes I took during Mark Andersen's talk at the Fall for the Book event:

Stresses "the now," as opposed to history or past
Washington DC punk underground is most influential
Dance of Days doesn't tell the whole "punk story," wanted to capture the essence, truth, credibility
Punk and politics, the world ("life is political")
Art and politics cannot be separated
DC as punk mecca, as opposed to DC as a town that "imports culture"
Punk rock cannot be understood without understanding 1960s counterculture (hippie)
Idealistic, "would-be revolutionary," dull, boring rock Straight-edge, drugs = liberation? remnants of 60s counterculture (Hendrix, Joplin, The Doors)
Emergence of "hardcore" punk, punk rock new wave counterculture became like hippie culture, punk was "lost," "straight jacket"
Punk is something ongoing, values, spirit, "living it out"

What's the difference?

2008-11-26T12:51:00.001-08:00

Here's a snippet of my artist statement for the midterm project:

As I embarked on my research, however, I realized that Pink Floyd wasn’t always considered a psychedelic rock group. I came across several sources that seemed at odds with one another in terms of the musical genre that defined Pink Floyd. Some described the band as a psychedelic rock band, some used the term “space rock,” probably referring to their fanciful sound and science fiction-related lyrics, while others described Pink Floyd as a “progressive rock” group. All these terms seemed to be used interchangeably. At that point, I was confronted with a series of questions: Is Pink Floyd a “psychedelic rock” or “progressive rock” group? When and how did Pink Floyd evolve from a psychedelic band into a progressive rock band? I thought these questions were worth exploring, and so I modified my project and decided to create an album timeline in addition to a brief history of Pink Floyd, in hopes of tracking the musical evolution of the group and thus defining the group’s musical genre. I chose five Pink Floyd albums: (1) Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), (2) A Saucerful of Secrets (1969), (3) The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), (4) Wish You Were Here (1975) and (5) The Wall (1979). I figured that I should pick albums that fall across a wide range if I was ever going to see how or if the music evolved over time. Therefore, I made it a point to pick earlier albums like Piper and Saucerful, in addition to later albums like Dark Side and The Wall. I leave one slide for each album, with the exception of The Dark Side of The Moon (which I will focus on in my final), outline which members contributed to the album and include a few key points about the album’s overall sound.
In the end, I concluded that Pink Floyd did not belong to any one musical genre. Although critics have marked Pink Floyd’s shift from a psychedelic rock group to a prog rock group with the release of A Saucerful of Secrets, it is important to note that the group never really shed their psychedelic roots, but fine-tuned them instead. After all, psychedelic rock is typically characterized by electronic guitars, keyboard, studio effects like panning, exotic instrumentation, instrumental solos and whimsical lyrics, characteristics that are all seen in both earlier Pink Floyd albums like Piper at The Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets, and later albums such as The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. Although they are two separate terms, “progressive rock” has a lot in common with “psychedelic rock,” each characterized by experimentation with electronic keyboards, synthesizers, and electronic effects, ambient soundscapes and whimsical lyrics. The major difference is that progressive rock lacks a steady rhythm and melody. This would explain why Saucerful was considered a shift towards progressive rock, because it is “looser of harmony,” as stated by Toby Manning, author of The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd. Moreover, progressive rock is typically characterized by elaborate lyrics that make some sort of social commentary or lyrics that reflect personal struggle. These types of lyrics were seen in earlier Pink Floyd albums, but they were really showcased in later albums like The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall.
Even so, The Dark Side of the Moon was still considered a psychedelic album. According to Ian MacDonald, The Dark Side of the Moon represented a “committed psychedelic band.” Nevertheless, the direct, straightforward lyrics of Dark Side helped the group shed their “space rock” label and signaled a shift towards progressive rock. Therefore, the music was not a mirror reflection of the tumultuous history of Pink Floyd, and although the music changed slightly with the departure of Syd Barrett, there are psychedelic aspects of the music that have maintained throughout most of their albums. The slight changes can be attributed to the newer technologies that emerged with time, such as new electronic instrumentation, synthesizers and electronic effects. Consider one of the later albums, The Wall, which experiments with “orgies of orchestration, bipping, parping, electronics, and whole layered, wedding cakes of backing vocals” (Manning 171). Moreover, The Wall exhibits a variety of sound effects, much like Dark Side, such as “helicopters, aeroplanes, Waters’ deranged Scottish screaming, babies crying, groupies gushing, and that constantly squawking television” (171). Rolling Stone writer Loyd Grossman has his own definition:
Four musicians with a command of electronic instruments who wield an arsenal of sound effects with authority and finesse. While Pink Floyd's albums were hardly hot tickets in the shops, they began to attract an enormous following through their US tours. They have more recently developed a musical style capable of sustaining their dazzling and potentially overwhelming sonic wizardry.
If I had to define Pink Floyd, I would take Grossman’s route and say that the members of Pink Floyd were sound wizards who mixed bold electronic instruments and intense sound effects with meaningful lyrics.

Prog Rock Revisited

2008-11-26T09:28:00.000-08:00

Website:

http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive-rock.asp

I think this website will be particularly useful for defining the progressive rock genre. The website calls progressive rock "an ambitious, eclectic, and often grandiose style of rock music which arose in the late 1960s principally in England." Progressive rock was a European movement which drew its influences from classical music and jazz. This jazz influence is certainly noticeable on DSOTM. The website admits that "progressive rock is difficult to define in a single, conclusive way." At the same time, however, the site attempts to outline some key characteristics of the genre, including long compositions ("Echoes"), lyrics that convey themes such as "science fiction, fantasy, religion, history, war, love, madness," concept albums (Dark Side & The Wall), electronic instrumentation, and the linking of music and visual art. If we consider these characteristics, it is safe to say that Pink Floyd is a progressive rock group.

Superzap Them All With Love!

2008-11-26T08:41:00.000-08:00

I came across a 1967 TIME magazine article titled "The Hippies," and I thought it'd be a good source to use for my final paper, in which I'm going to first track the evolution of Pink Floyd from a psychedelic/hippie rock group to a progressive rock group, establish how the punk rock movement sprung up in opposition the progressive rock genre, and then show the implicit, hidden connections between punk rock and progressive rock. The article states, "the hippies have emerged on the U.S. scene in about 18 months as a wholly new subculture, a bizarre permutation of the middle-class American ethos from which it evolved. Hippies preach altruism and mysticism, honesty, joy and nonviolence" (1). I thought I'd look up "mysticism," and I found that it's defined as, "A belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible by subjective experience." The TIME article talks about the hippie movement in relation to hallucinogenic drugs and notes, "With those drugs has come the psychedelic philosophy, an impassioned belief in the self-revealing, mind-expanding powers of potent weeds and seeds and chemical compounds known to man since prehistory but wholly alien to the rationale of Western society" (1). The article notes that through these drugs, hippies achieve a sense of liberation in opposition to the values of contemporary Western society.

Later, the article revisits the relationship between the hippie movement and the middle class. It turns out that the hippie movement was in opposition to what is referred to as the middle class straight jacket: "The middleclass ego, to the hippie, is the jacket that makes society straight, and must be destroyed before freedom can be achieved" (4). The article offers up these "hippie guidelines: Do your own thing, wherever you have to do it and whenever you want. Drop out. Leave society as you have known it. Leave it utterly. Blow the mind of every straight person you can reach. Turn them on, if not to drugs, then to beauty, love, honesty, fun" (4-5). The article also touches on the "key ethical element" of the hippie movement: Love. This was my favorite snippet from the article (hence my blog title): "The key ethical element in the hippie movement is love—indiscriminate and all-embracing, fluid and changeable, directed at friend and foe alike. SUPERZAP THEM ALL WITH LOVE! proclaims a sign in Los Angeles' Sans Souci Temple, a hippie commune" (5).

The article goes on to discuss "hippie art," which I touched on in some of my earlier blog posts. Hippie art is described as "improvised music and irrational posters, its spontaneous light shows and ditto-machine 'automatic' writing, its quippy axioms and somnambulant dances, relies more on inspiration than discipline" (6). What is somnambulant, you might ask? It means "walking, or tending to walk while asleep." It's basically referring to those fluid hippie dance moves.

You can find the TIME article here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899555-10,00.html.

This would be helpful, right?

2008-11-26T08:08:00.000-08:00

Here's some basic historical information about Pink Floyd. Named after bluesmen Pink Andersen and Floyd Council, Pink Floyd is a British rock group known for its psychedelic or space rock music during the 1960s era, and later for their progressive rock music. The group formed in London in 1965 and was initially made up of four members: (1) Robert “Syd” Barrett, lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter, (2) George Roger Waters, bassist and vocalist, (3) Richard William Wright, keyboardist and (4) Nicholas Berkeley Mason, percussionist. In 1968, David Jon Gilmour joined as the fifth member of the group. Later that year, Barrett left and Gilmour took over as the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter.

Pink Floyd played a big part in the British psychedelic scene and hippie counterculture. The hippies constituted the largest countercultural group in the United States in the 1960s and fought for racial equality, sexual liberation, relaxation of bans on recreational drugs, and an end to the Vietnam War.

Pink Floyd represented the middle class and their middle-class background was central to their music. According to Toby Manning, author of A Rough Guide to Pink Floyd, “Pink Floyd’s middle classness informs their music through the genteel glide that typifies their trademark sound and their glacial delivery, both of which are coolly, infinitely removed from the dirt-and-rattle, Sturm-und-Drang end of rock’n’roll" (5).

Pink Floyd's Visual Revolution

2008-11-25T14:45:00.000-08:00

After thinking about light shows, I started to think about visual culture and began searching for images that had to do with Pink Floyd, particularly album artwork and posters. I found that images circa the early years of Pink Floyd were strikingly different than later images. The earlier images are more "psychedelic" looking. When I think "psychedelic," I think intricate patterns and vibrant colors. Here are a few examples of images that definitely make use of these psychedelic visual components:

"Pink Floyd in Concert," 1966

"Pink Floyd at the Whisky A-Go-Go," 1967

Compare these images to later photographic images that appear more simple, evocative and sophisticated:

I can't help but think that this visual change is perhaps reflective of the changing Pink Floyd sound. Earlier Pink Floyd songs like "See Emily Play," "Bike" and "Astronomy Domine" really do sound more psychedelic. As the group transitioned into progressive rock, however, the tone shifted a bit. Tracks from The Dark Side and The Wall commented on the social and political worlds of that time, which was different from earlier songs that celebrated the Summer of Love spirit. Does that mean that Pink Floyd totally shed their psychedelic roots? I'll delve more into this question in a later blog entry.

Lights & Lasers

2008-11-25T12:57:00.000-08:00

Thus far, the sources I've come across have all mentioned Pink Floyd's elaborate light shows. I'm not sure if I'll mention the light shows in my final paper, but I do think that it'd be interesting to look at this aspect of Pink Floyd under the critical approach of mediation. Just like a music video full of visual images, light shows act as a barrier between artist and audience. In the early stages, intricate psychedelic patterns were displayed behind Pink Floyd as they played. During the 80s, however, Pink Floyd began using sophisticated lighting techniques, such as isotope-splitting copper vapor lasers. I know, it sounds pretty high tech. Here are some questions to think about: How do these light shows capture the essence of Pink Floyd? Do these light shows take away from the music? Here are some videos that were posted to YouTube that might help you grasp just how lavish these light shows really are:

Us & Them

2008-11-25T11:45:00.000-08:00

Us & Them - Pink Floyd

Us, and them
And after all we're only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do.
Forward he cried from the rear and the front rank died.
And the general sat and the lines on the map moved from side to side.
Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who.
Up and down.
But in the end it's only round and round.
Haven't you heard it's a battle of words
The poster bearer cried.
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There's room for you inside.

"I mean, they're not gunna kill ya, so if you give 'em a quick short, sharp, shock, they won't do it again. Dig it? I mean he get off lightly, 'cos I would've given him a thrashing - I only hit him once! It was only a difference of opinion, but really...I mean good manners don't cost nothing do they, eh?"

Down and out
It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about.
With, without.
And who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about?
Out of the way, it's a busy day
I've got things on my mind.
For the want of the price of tea and a slice
The old man died.

This is the longest song on DSOTM. The saxophone solos (one in the beginning and one towards the end of the song) give the track a mellow, bluesy feel, underlining the jazz influence. On his website, "Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon," Vincent Amendolare offers up an interesting interpretation of the Pink Floyd song. He notes what Roger Waters once said about it: "Rick wrote the chord sequence for this and I used it as a vehicle. I can't remember when I wrote the top line and the lyric, but it was certainly during the making of 'Dark Side Of The Moon' because it seems that the whole idea, the political idea of humanism and whether it could or should have any effect on any of us, that's what the record is about really - conflict, our failure to connect with one another.” According to Amendolare, "Us and Them" comments on the human tendency to "partition" themselves from those who they are not familiar with. According to Waters, "the first verse [and chorus] is about going to war, how in the front line we don't get much chance to communicate with one another, because someone else has decided that we shouldn't.”

Prog Rock

2008-11-23T07:09:00.001-08:00

As you can probably tell, I'm not having much trouble finding academic articles about the punk rock movement. However, I can't seem to find any articles about the rise of progressive rock. I think perhaps the term is so loose, people are having a difficult time pinning it down. We'll see what happens. Until then, the search continues...

So, I found this website created by Northern Illinois University that attempts to outline the history of progressive rock:

http://www3.niu.edu/newsplace/nnprogressive.html.

The article marks the start of the progressive rock movement with the release of The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. From 1969 to 1973, progressive rock thrived with bands like Genesis, Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP) and Pink Floyd. Around 1974, the movement began its decline, as the genres of pub rock and punk rock were on the rise. Here's some other stuff I pulled from the article:

"Prog Rock specialized in complex, melodic sequences. Most Punk Rock groups, on the other hand only knew four chords, and the overall emphasis of the song was on rhythm."
"The Punks also made their displeasure with the progressive movement, which they regarded as old and self indulgent, widely known,. The single most famous example of the 'punk additude' on Progressive was done by Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols who regularly wore a T-Shirt on stage saying 'I Hate Pink Floyd.' The message began to resonate."
"But there is no new blood to carry the values of the movement. While some modern bands embark on progressive-like ventures (Dream Theater, Smashing Pumpkins and Spiritualized) there is no out and out new progressive band in the national music map."

So, according to the website, the progressive movement has clearly ended. However, I'm arguing that the values of the movement still live on through the music of Pink Floyd.

Is it really all dark?

2008-11-21T10:03:00.000-08:00

Eclipse - Pink Floyd

All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All that you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All that you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

"There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact it's all dark."

Although it seems as though this record ends on a depressing note, Waters once commented on the song's meaning: "What you experience is what it is. The rather depressing ending, 'And everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon,' is the idea that we all have the potential to be in harmony with whatever it is, to lead happy, meaningful and right lives." This goes back to what he says at the end of the above video: "But that's not to say that the potential for the sun to shine doesn't exist, you know, walk down the path towards the light, rather than walk into the darkness." So I was reading some fan comments on the song, and I was brought back to O'Connor's description of the punk movement as a collective "scene." Here's an interesting interpretation:

I think Ashley from Moncton, Canada has a good idea there, but that doesn't creep me out, it's that sorta feeling I live for. My humble opinion: The 'Sun' is the collective unconscious of humanity, the way we're all connected. Though we're all different, we're all one. The 'Moon' is your conscious self, in this reality we've come so acustomed to living in. Everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon. To me this means that everything (Waters lists a few of the more common things) is in harmony, and it's that 'everything is one' feeling you always hear about for people on acid, but the moon, your consciousness, blinds you from this realization, until you die, (which is when the 'dam' should burst, rather than too soon like it did for Syd, shown in Brain Damage stanza three) I think lunatics are people who can see past the 'moon' and at the sun. And down to the last line: There is no dark side of the moon really, as a matter of fact it's all dark. This is true. The only thing that makes it look light is the sun. Well this is a simple thing. There isn't a specific side of the moon that is dark, because it's rotating and the light is constantly shifting across the face of the moon. If it weren't for the sun making it light, it'd all be dark (duh). But, we never see a certain side of the moon, it just so happens to rotate at the speed it revolves around earth, so the far side of the moon would be concidered the dark side. So in retrospect: Everything is in tune in the collective unconsciousness, but your individual consciousness dulls (or at the very most, blinds) you to the onesness of the universe...

- Patrick, Buffalo, NY

Source: "Eclipse" song facts. http://www.songfacts.com/

I find myself nodding in agreement with Patrick. At the same time, however, I wonder if the song's message goes against the progressive rock movement, which stresses the individual.

Money, it's a hit!

2008-11-20T22:52:00.000-08:00

Money - Pink Floyd

Money, get away
Get a good job with good pay and youre okay
Money, its a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think Ill buy me a football team

Money, get back
Im all right jack keep your hands off of my stack
Money, its a hit
Dont give me that do goody good bullshit
Im in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a lear jet

Money, its a crime
Share it fairly but dont take a slice of my pie
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a raise its no surprise that theyre
Giving none away

Huhuh! I was in the right!
Yes, absolutely in the right!
I certainly was in the right!
You was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a
Bruising!
Yeah!
Why does anyone do anything?
I dont know, I was really drunk at the time!
I was just telling him, he couldnt get into number 2. He was asking
Why he wasnt coming up on freely, after I was yelling and
Screaming and telling him why he wasnt coming up on freely
It came as a heavy blow, but we sorted the matter out

Waters once said in an interview that "Money" was developed after he thought, "Let's make a record about the pressures that impinge upon young people in pop groups, one of which is money." I love Waters's bass work on this track. He commented that "it's quite magical in that you don't really notice it." The bass is like the backbone of the record. The song is also known for all of its larger-than-life sound effects, including the cash registers and the coins clanking. You can also hear the jazz/blues influence, especially when the sax kicks in. Gilmour takes on a sarcastic tone when he says, "Money, it's a hit," making me think that this is perhaps a critique on money and the corrupt music industry. It's ironic, however, because the song was so successful, being the only one off DSOTM to hit the Top 20 on the U.S. charts.

Here are some of the rhetorical tropes at work:
amara irrisio (sarcasm)
anaphora – repetition of “money,” “in the right”
antithesis – “Money, it’s a hit” vs. “Money, it’s a crime” or “the root of evil”

Some Scholarly Articles

2008-11-20T12:37:00.000-08:00

Albiez, Sean. "Know History!: John Lydon, Cultural Capital and the Prog/Punk Dialectic."

So glad I found this particular article. It probes the relationship between punk rock and progressive rock. It explicitly states the differences between the two genres, but suggests that the two are alike too. According to Albiez, "Progressive rock is a slippery term that attempts to contain a diverse range of music promoting experimentation, individualism, an art aesthetic, and paradoxically, golden age romanticism and futurist hyper-modernism" (359). Albiez also says that the conflict between punk and prog had a lot to do with class. While punks represented the working class, progressive artists represented the middle class. The article makes several references to Pink Floyd and even touches on my argument a little bit: "Van Der Graaf Generator’s Peter Hammill embraced punk due to the similarity of its anti-establishment ethos to that of the late-60s counter-culture..." (359). A very promising source!

O'Connor, Alan. "Local Scenes and Dangerous Crossroads: Punk and Theories of Cultural Hybridity."

This article traces the different punk scenes from Washington D.C., Austin, Toronto and Mexico City. I think it is interesting and important to note that the article is "part of a larger project of multi-site ethnography of youth subculture and resistance to globalisation." Essentially, O'Connor argues that punk "scene" translates into the "active creation of infrastructure to support punk bands and other forms of creative activity. This means finding places to play, building a supportive audience, developing strategies for living cheaply, shared punk houses, and such like" (226). O'Connor's description suggests that the punk movement revolves around a group of people and stresses collective, collaborative effort. Very different from the progressive rock movement, which stressed the individual. Although the article offers a good look into the different punk scenes, especially the scene in D.C., O'Connor openly states that "this article is not about the first generation of punk bands in England and the United States" (226). Nonetheless, I can still pull some stuff from the article, perhaps read it side by side with Andersen's Dance of Days, which O'Connor uses as a source.

Some DSOTM Facts & NME Review

2008-11-19T17:22:00.000-08:00

Here's the line-up:

David Gilmour - Vocals, guitar

Roger Waters - Bass guitar, vocals, tape effects

Nick Mason - Percussion, tape effects

Richard Wright - Keyboard, vocals

•One of Pink Floyd’s most successful albums, selling 35 million copies worldwide
•Marked the first time Roger Waters wrote all of the lyrics
•At this time, the group was trying to shed their “space rock” image

•“Part of [the success] might lie in the Floyd's tantalising blend of hippy intangibility with direct statement (e.g., "Money, so they say/Is the root of all evil today" and "I've got things on my mind/For want of the price of tea and a slice/ The old man died"). The notion of a committed psychedelic band is attractive; it doesn't need to interrupt the dream - it can become part of it.”
•“It's to do with the time/space dislocations of being a modern rock-star as a metaphor for the dislocation of meaning in modern society. It's to do with social insanity and our blitzed-out generation being so impotently laid-back and scared of believing in itself (and not some imported beamer from Bengal) that it can't get it together to change things.”
-- Ian MacDonald. “Bleak Side of the World.” New Musical Express, 1972.

Breathe, breathe in the air

2008-11-18T18:44:00.000-08:00

Breathe - Pink Floyd

Breathe, breathe in the air
Don't be afraid to care
Leave but don't leave me
Look around and choose your own ground

Long you live and high you fly
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be

Run, rabbit run
Dig that hole, forget the sun,
And when at last the work is done
Don't sit down it's time to dig another one
For long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave

This is one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs. It's the first song off of DSOTM, and it's supposedly a parent speaking to his child. The song implies that we shouldn't listen to what others tell us, that we should follow our own paths. You can definitely see some of the DIY mentality in here. Take, for instance, the line "Look around and choose your own ground." Not an incredibly long song at all. The lyrics are pretty direct and straightforward.

Here's what Waters said about the song:

"This is one of the pieces that developed out of the writing sessions at Broadhurst Gardens. The rundown in the chorus sounds very Rick-like and I wrote the lyrics and the top line. It's so simple, only two chords. The lyrics, starting with 'Breathe, breathe in the air, Don't be afraid to care' are an exhortation directed mainly at myself, but also at anybody else who cares to listen. It's about trying to be true to one's path."

Source: http://www.rogerwaters.org/21/Mojo2.html

Eureka!

2008-11-18T12:53:00.000-08:00

Over the past few weeks, I've been trying to structure some sort of argument around all of the information I've collected about Pink Floyd. So after much thought, I've decided that I'm going to focus my final paper on The Dark Side of the Moon, and I've finally come up with a central claim: Although the punk movement was in direct opposition to the hippie counterculture, both hippies and punks used music to comment on various social and political issues and to express anti-Establishment & DIY sentiments. This is evident in Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, especially in songs like "Breathe," "Money," "Us and Them," and "Eclipse." So, I know I have to acknowledge that Pink Floyd has been called a progressive rock group, and the punk movement is against everything progressive. The punks once saw prog rock groups as pretentious, self indulgent, mainstream, commercial, and they just wanted to strip it back down to raw rock'n'roll. While progressive bands cranked out long, winding compositions, punk rock bands preferred songs that were short and simple. My main argument is that although the music may have been different, DSOTM illustrates that progressive rock groups communicated ideas similar to the DIY punk rock ethic. For my purposes, I'll be using the critical approaches of worlding and rhetoric. Wish me luck!

Articles Ctd.

2008-11-13T12:15:00.001-08:00

More articles that might be good models for my own paper on The Floyd:

Hornby, excerpts from Song Book

I really enjoyed the excerpt from Nick Hornby's Song Book. I can see the point he's making about pairing songs with memories. According to Hornby, if you really love a song, you can apply it to every moment of your life. If you attach a certain memory to a song, however, you're really just in love with the memory and not the music. I can see the logic in this argument, but I don't think I agree completely. There are plenty of songs that I associate with different periods of my life. Does that mean I don't truly "love" these songs? Not exactly. I love the songs - I played them over and over during a specific time in my life and now when I play these songs, they remind me of my past experiences. These memories add more meaning to the song for me. I love them even more for that. I appreciate these songs for being able to communicate to me, for being able to move me emotionally.

Klosterman, excerpts from Fargo City Rock

As for Klosterman, I was intrigued by his discussion of "heavy" metal v. "hard" metal. According to Klosterman, "The only drugs that go with 'hard' metal are bottles of booze (and cocaine, if you can afford it...)" (19). On the other hand, marijuana goes well with "heavy" metal. I'm not sure how Klosterman came to this distinction, but it does say something about the fan cultures surrounding metal. There seems to be a lot of connections between drug culture and music culture. I'm interested in exploring this relationship in my own research about Pink Floyd. How did Pink Floyd affect the drug/hippy scene and vice versa?

Negus, “Geographies” in Popular Music Theory

In his chapter, Negus discusses imperialism and the movement of music by drawing on the theories of Lenin and Boyd-Barrett. Negus notes that Lenin's theory sees imperialism as a process, "a competitive struggle between the major capitalist nations and their companies which as a consequence will result in specific imperialist patterns of domination" (167). Negus argues that through this process of imperialism, people in one country become dependent on the "products and services" from another country. Negus then goes on to discuss media imperialism and references Boyd Barrett's four "modes of media imperialism": (1) The shape of the communication vehicle, (2) a set of industrial relationships, (3) a body of values and (4) media content. On page 172, Negus questions how different media products communicate values. He asks, "In what ways do Madonna, Michael Jackson or Bruce Springsteen embody or communicate 'American' values?"

The questions Negus brings up mirror some of the questions that have emerged in my own research. As a group, how did Pink Floyd embody the psychedelic scene during the 1960s? What were their values and how did they express those values through their music? In the second half of the chapter, Negus discusses the relationship between music and place. He questions how people associate a place with a particular musical sound (Woodstock, for example). In exploring this relationship, Negus suggests looking at three things: (1) How the "material circumstances," such as communication networks, allow a particular place to produce specific musical sounds, (2) How instruments, rhythms and voices are symbolic of the identity of a place, and (3) How the music is used to construct a sense of "'spatial rivalry'" (189). This all seems to go back to the idea of worlding, the idea that music is constructed through our social/cultural/political worlds.

Websites to Check Out

2008-11-07T07:12:00.000-08:00

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PFArchives/

Useful for documenting the history of Pink Floyd. "Fanzines" link might be an interesting place to look for fan culture. Also provides a long list of Pink Floyd websites.

www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/
For exploring messages, significance of lyrics and different rhetorical tropes.

www.rollingstone.com/artists/pinkfloyd

Provides a biography of Pink Floyd, Rolling Stone articles about Pink Floyd. album reviews, photos, etc.

Articles That May Be Helpful

2008-11-06T23:58:00.000-08:00

Here are some articles we’ve read in class that I thought may be helpful. The blurbs come from my postings to the class blog: http://engl334.motime.com/

Walser, “Popular Music Analysis” from Analyzing Popular Music

I felt that the reading on form was a bit too technical for me, but it was interesting to see the different ways to pick apart a rock song. I followed Walser's "Popular Music Analysis" much better, so I'd like to talk more in-depth about the article here in my blog post. I think Walser's main argument was that in studying or analyzing popular music, it is important to understand not only why a particular genre of music appeals to its fans, but also how that genre of music allows us to understand a deeper truth behind our culture, behind "social relations, identities, structures and forces" (22). A good example of this can be found in Walser's discussion about Kenny G. Why is it that Kenny G is despised so much? Walser offers up an interesting suggestion: "...he is easily positioned as another in the long string of white musicians who have grown rich by taking advantage of the fact that in a racist society, audiences often reward those who can deliver black music without the black people in it" (36). What Walser is saying is that Kenny G's music reveals something about musical culture. Kenny G prompts us to question the issue of race in music. It's similar to the ongoing debate about "white rappers" versus "black rappers," which forces us to think about authority and who has the right to be a part of a particular music scene.

I really enjoyed Walser's conclusion towards the end of the reading: "Our commitment should be not to a certain set of methods, but rather to investigating music as something people do, something that they are enabled to do by the set of conventions and possibilities we call culture" (38). I think Walser argues for his anthropological approach towards popular music studies very well. He is successful in illustrating just how music and culture are so closely intertwined. Walser shows how popular music can have an effect on culture and vice versa. I am leaning strongly towards this approach in my own research on psychedelia. I think Walser put it just right: It's all about the people. I want to find out how the people affected the music of the 1960s and how the music in turn affected the people.

John Covach, “Pangs of History in late 1970s New-wave Rock” from Analyzing Popular Music

This article was an interesting read for me, because it makes a lot of references to the genre of music I'll be studying this semester -- psychedelic rock of the 1960s. Covach compares the genre of psychedelic rock to new-wave rock. He says, "Many of the stylistic features of new wave can be seen as the opposites of what may be found in the music of popular British bands such as Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin..." (175). Covach describes new wave as a rejection of hippie music, but reminds us that new wave hasn't shed characteristics of hippie rock completely. He then talks about "music worlding," which is similar to the idea of intertextuality -- the idea that all texts are intertwined. So, "music worlding" then is the idea that we listen to songs and unconsciously relate those songs to other songs, to our personal lives, to our social and cultural standings. For Covach, "new wave refuses to return to the past while simultaneously evoking and even celebrating rock's pre-hippie past" (195). Very ironic. The article made me think about the evolution of music, how new genres emerge from older ones and how music genres are continually morphing, even today.

Anyway, the music worlding approach Covach uses in his article is an interesting one that might be worth using in my research. I'm interested to see how the music of Pink Floyd affected the period of the 1960s, and I think looking at songs that have heavy Pink Floyd influences could be an interesting route to take.

List of Possible Resources

2008-09-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

So... I've been browsing Amazon.com for a few print books that I could use for my research on psychedelic rock, and I think these might prove to be helpful to me:

Tomorrow Never Knows: Rock and Psychedelics in the 1960s by Nicholas Knowles Bromell (How psychedelic rock affected the 1960s period)
Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock by Jim DeRogatis (How psychedelic rock progressed and evolved. Has it ended?)
Comfortably Numb by Mark Blake (Follows the journey of Pink Floyd from the "psychedelic nights" of the 1960s to the '80s and '90s)
Pink Floyd and Philosophy by George A. Reisch (Discusses specific themes and issues the group explored through music, and shows how the group's history affects our culture today)

Although I'm still in the process of finding academic articles, I think these books are a great start. I'll definitely be listening to some Pink Floyd albums to see if there are any common threads that are worth exploring. In addition, I will be making use of the group's official website: http://www.pinkfloyd.co.uk/. I'll also use MySpace to listen to Pink Floyd songs from different albums in order to get an idea about how the group evolved musically. Hopefully my research will shed some new light on both Pink Floyd and the genre of psychedelic rock in general.

Progressive/Psychedelic Rock

2008-09-05T08:58:00.000-07:00

Over the fall semester, I plan to study progressive rock, also known as prog rock. The genre of progressive rock is also commonly linked to the term “psychedelic,” which can be applied to a wide variety of musical genres. Yes -- There is such a thing as psychedelic folk, psychedelic pop and even psychedelic trance. I think the genre of psychedelic rock would be a particularly rich topic to study, because the concept of psychedelic music can carry several different meanings and shed light on many different cultural issues. For instance, psychedelic rock is often associated with psychedelic, mind-altering drugs such as acid or LSD. There's no surprise that the rise of psychedelic rock had a lot to do with the developing drug scene and the new wave of consciousness that swept over the nation during the 1960s. In addition, psychedelic rock is characterized by strong, loaded lyrical content that is often philosophical. Personally speaking, the light, dreamlike sound is what really drew me to psychedelic music. An example of this dreamlike sound can be heard on Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. (Great album, btw.) In short, I would really like to follow the progression of psychedelic rock and discuss the numerous ways in which it affected the period of the mid ‘60s. I'll probably be focusing my research on Pink Floyd.