Pink Floyd- The Piper At The Gates of Dawn

The Piper At The Gates of Dawn (1967)- Pink Floyd #1
Rating: 12
Best Song: Interstellar Overdrive
Worst Song: Scarecrow

     ...And so begins the saga of my favorite band of all time: Pink Floyd. I used to be a Dark-Side through Wall fan, so most of Pink Floyd's albums were ones I didn't like. I loved the "Prog" sound of the most famous albums, so when I picked this up on my birthday 6 months ago, I hated it. I also love The Beatles, and yes, Sgt. Pepper was an album during the psychedelia period, but not many songs on it were really "Psychadelic." This one, however is psychadelic at it's max potential. However, it really grew on me.
     The lyrical content of this album is different from the rest of the discography because of one man: Syd Barrett. Syd was the lead of Pink Floyd from the time they formed in 1965, until the time when he went insane in 1968 and was replaced by the then session guitarist David Gilmour. He was kicked because of drug problems and mental issues.
     You can almost feel him falling apart in these songs. The lyrics are kiddish, but have a Barrett twist to them. The guitar playing is very good, but very loose. The standout songs are: "Astronomy Domine", known as one of the first space rock songs, "Interstellar Overdrive" one if the first prog instrumentals of all time, and "Bike", a demented almost nursery rhyme.
     Some of the songs however, like "The Gnome" and "Scarecrow", are not very good, and seem to be thrown together by Syd. Roger Waters, the future lead of Floyd wrote a song, "Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk". It's so dumb, but I kind of like it. Overall, it's one of the most solid debut albums I have heard. Sadly, Syd Barrett was kicked out right after this album, and only had one more song to contribute to Floyd, which appeared on the next album, which already showed a stylistic change...