Rediscovering Floyd

Of the many things I remember about the spring of '88- dating my first psycho, graduating high school, losing my virginity on the floor of a fucking bath tub with the shower water raining on us- one that sticks out that was seemingly cool at the time was the introduction of Classic Rock 99.5 in the Birmingham market. I remember thinking how cool it was to be able to hear Zeppelin, The Who, The Doors, etc. on the radio instead of Top 40 crap. What I didn't realize, however, was that they'd stick to the same core playlist for 20 fucking years! They literally have a list of about 1000 songs by the same 200 artists that they play over and over, something akin to Chinese water torture. Why didn't I just change the station, you might ask? Well, the other options were simply worse, and this was before CD's and mp3's. Because of this, I got sick of several of these artists before I had a chance to really delve into their material.

One of these such artists was Pink Floyd. Being forced to listen to Money, Comfortably Numb, Another Brick In The Wall Part 2 and Wish You Were Here several million times would do it to anyone. Despite my friends Andrew and David totally immersing themselves into this band, I just thought they were weird (Them: "Oh come on man, 'Bike' is genius! 'The Final Cut' is brilliant!" Me: Zzzzzzzzzz). Since then and expecially lately, however, I've started to listen again with a little more intensity. And while I still can't grasp Animals or The Final Cut or the Syd Barrett era, I think most of their stuff is breathtaking, especially The Dark Side Of The Moon. The songs and the sound make for a perfect marriage of futuristic yet artistic clutter and organic beauty. It really is one of the greatest albums of all time. I also think Wish You Were Here and The Wall are inspired as well in their songwriting and storytelling. Why am I writing all of this? I dunno. Slow Day I guess. Peace out.