At some point in anyone’s top list one MUST come to grips with Pink Floyd. Let’s start off by saying that I have all of their album and was in love with their music from the first time my ears were touched by them, but for the purpose of this list I have to chose the TOP 100 albums to listen back to front, that have lasted through the years but most importantly an album that one could listen in back to back days or even back to back! and here is the problem.
I am aware that this is going to be a controversial choice, but maybe before I unveil my choice, I will tell you why I did not chose the other ones:
- The Piper at the Gates of Dawn – Sheer genius, but impossible to listen back to back or for that matter front to back without at least one pause.
- A saucerful of Secrets – Stunning but again I challenge those who say that they have listened to it in one full session without pause or for that matter back to back without skipping a track.
- Ummagumma – Genius, sheer genius but way too long and here too one HAS to pause, rewind, think, or take a break.
- Atom Heart Mother – My favorite Side A, but there is the problem. Side A simply overwhelms Side B. Besides that, Father’s Shout is a composition in itself, and you can literally get to the end of it and maybe track 2 and you are done with it, completely satisfied with no need to go any further in the album.
- Meddle – Another fantastic album, one that most critics laude and choose, but here again we are dealing with a very complex record, one that I challenge those who say that they have listened to it back to back in its entirety. Meddle is to be sipped, not gulped, and one must do it with pauses in between.
- The Dark Side of The Moon – THE masterpiece in recording art BUT….. Time, Money and Us and Them simply steal the show and most of us would skip to them, start the album with Time, skip to Money and so on. Three songs that overwhelm the other ones and prevent me from enjoying it in its entirety.
- Wish you were here – Cute, some catchy tunes, but in my mind not at par wit past or future works.
- The Wall – An opera which again has some MAJOR hits that will force most to go to them instead of a full listening.
- The rest past 1979 cannot be put in the same category as their previous albums here mentioned, so I will not bother explaining why they do not belong on my list.
This of course leaves out Animals.
When it first came out my older brother bought it and I hated it. As a matter of fact I hated it so much that I had to figure out why… and so it went, I played it again, stuck on it, why a pig grunting? Why sheeps? What does it mean, why that hypnotic little organ, and the more I fought it, the more I realized that I was listening to it from beginning to end. Through the years, I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have played it in my car during a trip, always front to back, never a skip, never a fast forward, a trip that has to be traveled in its entirety, always.
To this day, I struggle to tell you why this is quite possibly be in my top 5 albums I have played over and over, there are no catchy tunes, nothing that truly stands out, but it sooths me, it makes my mind go places that it usually does not go, and has NEVER betrayed me, meaning never once I did not like it, or it disappointed me and as I matured and aged, it remained.