Pink Floyd is simply one of those bands that just can’t be ignored when talking about the history of rock music or music in general. Most of us know and recognize that special sound and those timeless songs when we hear them – they are simply a part of pop culture nowadays, which wasn’t always the case. For the total “Pink Floyd-ambience” play your favorite song while reading today’s article.

A Short Band History

It all started in London, in 1965, with Syd Barrett, Bob Klose, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, Richard Wright as the first lineup. Their start was of course very chaotic. Before starting playing under the Pink Floyd banner some of them were members of the Sigma 6 also known as the Meggadeaths, the Abdabs, the Screaming Abdabs, Leonard's Lodgers, and the Spectrum Five, before settling on the Tea Set.

In 1965, Syd came up with the name Pink Floyd derived from the names of two blues musicians Pinkney "Pink" Anderson and Floyd Council. Needless to say, Syd had their records in his personal collection.

The first album, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” was released in 1967 and the last one, (so far), “The Endless River” was released in 2014. On that occurrence, David Gilmour and Nick Mason as the only members of Pink Floyd argued that this was the definitive end of Pink Floyd, as they believed the next attempt would mean reaching for second-rate material. In over 50 turbulent years of course there were some disagreements, changes in lineups, and visits to the court – like all true rock bands do. Still, after all, their music is here to stay, and that’s the most important thing.

Pink Floyd Music in Numbers

Pink Floyd is one of the bands with the most albums sold ever in history. Some estimates go up to around 200 million licensed copies sold so far. All of their 15 albums are sold in at least around 2 million copies and that number goes up to tens of millions.

Their best-selling album is “The Dark Side of the Moon” from 1973 with around 45 million copies sold and it’s followed by “The Wall” from 1979 with around 32 million copies. And numbers are constantly increasing with no intention to stop anytime soon. And just imagine how many unlicensed copies are made worldwide.

I’ll also use this section to remind you of some of the most popular songs ever created by this group of geniuses:

• “Wish You Were Here” (on the album “Wish You Were Here”, 1975)
• “Run Like Hell” (on the album “The Wall”, 1979)
• “Comfortably Numb” (on the album “The Wall”, 1979)
• “Time” (on the album “The Dark Side of the Moon”, 1973)
• “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” (on the album “Wish You Were Here”, 1975)
• “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” (on the album “The Wall”, 1979)
• “Interstellar Overdrive” (on the album “Piper at the Gates of Dawn”, 1967)
• “One of These Days” (on the album “Meddle”, 1971)
• “Brain Damage” (on the album “The Dark Side of the Moon”, 1973)
• “Have a Cigar” (on the album “Wish You Were Here”, 1975).

A Few Less Known Facts

#1 The band had “The” in the name, until 1968. After that, they are removed the “The” and until today they are known as Pink Floyd.

#2 The cow on the album cover “Atom Heart Mother” (1970) actually has a name. She’s called Lulubelle III.

#3 Stanley Kubrick asked them to use the title track from the album the ‘Atom Heart Mother’ as the soundtrack for his “A Clockwork Orange” (1971). They refused it. He asked a few more times later and they refused him again. I guess they regretted that later.

#4 The object on the cover of the “The Dark Side of the Moon” (1973) album has a name and that is not a triangle. It’s called the triangular prism and it’s a geometrical object, not a geometric shape. When the white light passes through the prism it’s separated into its component colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.

#5 The right guy on the cover of the “Wish You Were Here” seems to be on fire. The reason for that is that he actually was on fire for the shooting purposes.

#6 Мелодия from the USSR (CCCP) released their album “Delicate Sound Of Thunder” in 1988. But what is even more interesting is the fact that the crew of the Soviet spaceship Soyuz TM-7 (Alexander Volkov, Sergei Krikalyov, Jean-Loup Chrétien) took the album to space and played it there. That album became the first rock album ever played in the space.

#7 Douglas Adams (yup the one that wrote the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”) performed with Pink Floyd. And not only that. He’s the one who’s responsible for the name of the album “The Division Bell”.

#8 Guess who was the guest on the album “Endless River” (2014)? The one and only, Stephen Hawking! “His” song is called “Talkin’ Hawkin’”.

Stamps

Royal Mail issued a few interesting “music-related” stamp series in the last few years. We have already mentioned the 2017 stamp tribute to David Bowie. A year before that or to be precise, on the 7^th of July 2016, Royal Mail puts into circulation 10 stamps related to Pink Floyd.

They used the same pattern, they’ll later use on Bowie-stamps. 6 stamps used album covers as the motif while the remaining 4 commemorate their 4 tours.

3 out of 6 album covers, stamps have the 1^ST denomination and the remaining 3 have the ^c denomination. Let’s take a look at them.

Album covers
1^st row– The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), Atom Heart Mother (1970), The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)

2^nd row– Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), The Endless River (2014)

Tour stamps were issued in a sheet and they commemorate 4 tours with the first being UFO Tour from 1967 and the last (on this sheet) is The Division Bell Tour from 1994. They also come in two different denominations, with 2 of them having the 1^ST denomination and the remaining 2 having the 1^ST denomination.

Tours commemorative sheet

1^st row– UFO Club (1966), The Dark Side of the Moon Tour (1973)

2^nd row– The Wall Tour (1981), The Division Bell Tour (1994)

Now tell us, what was the song you played along with this article?