The Story
Pink Floyd formed in London in 1965 around Syd Barrett's playful, English psychedelia, with Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright; David Gilmour joined at the end of 1967. Within months Barrett — the band's first songwriter and singer — left as his mental health deteriorated, and the remaining four spent years finding a new shape in long-form, texture-first music.
They found it completely with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973): a single continuous meditation on time, money, and madness that stayed on the American charts for most of two decades. Wish You Were Here (1975) mourned Barrett in absentia; Animals (1977) snarled; and The Wall (1979) built Roger Waters' alienation into a double album, a film, and one of rock's most staged spectacles.
The classic lineup frayed — Wright left in 1981, Waters in 1985 — but Gilmour and Mason carried the name through A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell, and all four reunited for one final performance at Live 8 in 2005. Barrett died in 2006; Wright in 2008.
The Endless River (2014), assembled from Division Bell-era sessions as a farewell to Wright, closed the book. What remains open is the catalog: records designed to be heard whole, in the dark, from the first heartbeat to the last.
