Syd might not have played much of a role in the classic recordings Pink Floyd produced in the Seventies, but everyone - not least the group themselves - long ago realized that all this might never have happened were it not for SydвЂ™s initial inspiration.ДЄt their best, during the golden years of Dark Side and Wish You Were Here, the band remembered their history while expanding their early avant-blues rock into the outer reaches of space. The fact highlights a remarkable feature of Pink FloydвЂ™s popularity: casual fans knew of the bandвЂ™s work from The Dark Side of the Moon onward more serious students of the group were familiar with the bandвЂ™s 1967 debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, made when Pink Floyd was led by its founder, Roger Keith вЂSydвЂ™ Barrett.вЂќДЄs Andy Mabbett writes in his book Pink Floyd: TheВ Music and the Mystery:Д«arrettвЂ™s withdrawal from music had long ago become a source of intrigue, one of the most mystifying sagas in rock, but his contribution to the group as their first singer, guitarist and songwriter was crucial to there ever being a Pink Floyd in the first place. Listeners who came to the band during their 1970s heyday, вЂњin the years between The Dark Side of the Moon and The Final Cut,вЂќ Bill Kopp writes, вЂњwere largely unaware of what the band had done before the periodвЂ¦. Both enormously popular and daringly experimental, itвЂ™s hard to place them comfortably in one camp or another.

The experience of their classic albums is paradoxically one of вЂњshared solitary contemplationвЂќ their live shows are an expansion of the home listening environment, where fans first received an вЂњeducation from cousins and older brothers of friends as to the seriousness (and stoner sacrament) of The Dark Side of the Moon,вЂќ as Martin Popoff writes in Pink Floyd: Album by Album. A stadium rock band renowned for massive laser light shows and a pioneering use of quadraphonic and holophonic sound, they are also best appreciated at home - alone or with a few true fans - on a pair of high fidelity stereo speakers or headphones, under the hazy purplish-greenish glow of a blacklight poster. Approached with little prior knowledge, Pink Floyd is an enigma.

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