re: So popular opinion is that Dark Side of the Moon is the best PF Album...

DSotM is the most cohesive and easiest to listen to. I get the hype for it and truly believe it is one of the greatest albums of all time. I think The Wall is a bit overrated.

Dark Side of the Moon
Wish You Were Here
Meddle
Animals
The Wall

Would be my ranking

Gilmour said in an interview that in his opinion, Wish You Were Here was the one where everything fit together the best.

WYWH

Animals is my personal fave, probably because it's the album that introduced me to Pink Floyd. Way back in the day, my friend's older brother used to play it non-stop on his portable 8-track player when we played street hockey, lol...DSOTM and WYWY actually caught me off guard the first few times I'd finally heard them, because they were much "softer" sounding than Animals to me. Of course, those albums are immortal to me now.

Animals
Wish You Were Here
Dark Side Of The Moon
Meddle
The Wall

It's very interesting to note that the band as a whole generally do not have warm fuzz feeling toward the music on most of the albums Animals through the Final Cut. Likely because of the personal turmoil the band was going through prevented them from connecting emotionally with the music, while obviously at the same time you can see how those strained relationships drew out another dimension to their music and IMO some of their best efforts.

I think I remember reading somewhere where Gilmore said Pink Floyd essentially died after DSOTM because they were so unprepared for how much of a commercial success it would become that all of there later efforts were consumed by trying to equal or surpass that benchmark. They didn't feel free to make "Their" music anymore.

Strange how the bands perspective and the fans perspective differ. I know it's something Pink Floyd always struggled with balancing. I wonder if that is common or just unique to this band and possibly a few others.

Funny how tastes change over the years. For a long time, I didn't really care for Shine On. No idea why. I loved the rest of the album, especially the title track but that song just didn't do it for me. Then one day I was driving to work and that song was playing. During the second solo before the lyrics start a couple of notes hit me just the right way. Bam! Suddenly I was in love with that song. Now it's by far my favorite track (which it should be as it's half the album).

quote:

---

I like all of the other david Gilmour albums too through the wall).

---

Animals is basically all Waters, not Gilmour.

quote:

---

Animals is basically all Waters, not Gilmour.

---

This is true, except for Dogs. Originally they had worked out 2 pieces that were going to be on WYWH - "Raving and Drooling" and "You've got to be crazy" - as that album's concept of absence emerged, those songs were shelved until Animals. They reappear as Sheep and Dogs on Animals. Dogs was the lone collaboration song on Animals, and that only between Waters and Gilmour.

Recall that Wright was fired during the recording of The Wall (having keyboardist by committee, Waters, Gilmour, Michael Kamen, Bob Ezrin and Fred Mandel filling out those parts). Then, Waters hired him back as a side man for the tour. If The Wall sounds like the most soulless PF album to some folks, in many ways it is the relative absence of Wright on keys, IMHO.

The last "real" collaborations of the "old" Floyd were Comfortably Numb, Run Like Hell and Young Lust from The Wall. The balance of that album and The Final Cut (which I enjoy greatly for what it is) is all Waters.

I'd probably rank the PF albums I listen to with any frequency as...

1. Meddle
2. WYWH
3. DSOTM
4. Animals
5. The Wall

I like Atom Heart Mother, but it's not one I listen to very often and probably wouldn't miss it if I never listened to it again. Division Bell has a couple of decent songs on it, but overall pretty weak. I also listen to Pulse somewhat frequently, but didn't include. I don't listen to the others hardly at all.