re: The best hire ever?

Springsteen hiring Clarence Clemons for his band before the Born to Run album.

Gram Parsons hiring Emmylou Harris as a backup singer.

David Bowie hiring Stevie Ray Vaughan for the Let's Dance album.

I'm not positive David Gilmour is even the best hire Pink Floyd ever made. My first thought on best Pink Floyd hire was Alan Parsons to engineer Dark Side of the Moon.

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I'm not positive David Gilmour is even the best hire Pink Floyd ever made. My first thought on best Pink Floyd hire was Alan Parsons to engineer Dark Side of the Moon.

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.... and Roger Waters never had any problem plugging in any-number of guitarist for David Gilmnour. It's just too easy to do what he does. Not to say that some of the best music is the simplest to play.

Everyone’s leaving out the GOAT. Brian May and Roger Taylor hiring a young kid named Farrokh Bulsara to be the lead singer of a group called Smile

Not an individual, but Ozzy’s string of guitarists have been legendary. Rhoads, Jake E. Lee, Zakk, Gus G....his consistency has been amazing. And it’s not like playing for Ozzy gives them recognition based on his reputation alone - they’ve all established themselves as guitar gods.

The Moody Blues had one big hit with Denny Laine before he left. They then hired Justin Hayward and John Lodge and started their run of decades of hits.

Laine went on to partner with Paul McCartney for their Wings success, but I don't think that Laine would've been the driving force for The Moody Blues as Hayward and Lodge turned out to be.

Eagles adding Joe Walsh.

Big Brother & the Holding company bringing in Janis Joplin.

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That Fleetwood Mac was everything but rock and roll.

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It was pop rock, but it was perfect, pure pop rock.

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Eagles adding Joe Walsh. 

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That was what immediately came to my mind. Added so much to their sound.

Love me some Joe Walsh. The Clown Prince of Rock !

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That was a great thing but Gilmour is Pink Floyd is a lot of peoples eyes. Roger never did anything on his own after he left that was not related to Floyd while Gilmour had great success as a individual and still made some great music with the remaining members. IE. Division Bell, etc

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I'm much more #TeamDavid than #TeamRoger in this debate, but I don't think this is 100% fair. Roger was responsible for the vast majority of the lyrical content of the massive Floyd success era. And, he was also responsible for about half (or better) of the proper songwriting. Plus, your post implies that Rick Wright was not the heart and soul of the post-Syd Pink Floyd.

But, Roger did have The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking and Radio K.A.O.S in his immediate post-PF career.

And let's face it - The Final Cut is a Waters' solo project repackaged as a Pink Floyd album for contractual and commercial reasons. The Wall was almost 100% Roger's vision, with only the last great collaboration between the two (Comfortably Numb) to really make that not more in line with The Final Cut (Young Lust, Run Like Hell with Gilmour and The Trial with Ezrin the only other songs not written solely by Roger on the The Wall).

So, however much I liked the post-Roger Pink Floyd and Gilmour and Wright's work with and without him, Roger Waters deserves the lion's share of credit for the vision and success of Pink Floyd, particularly after the Barrett-dominated first album.

While Fleetwood Mac was an established, major label act prior to Buckingham Nicks, they became monsters on the charts after that merger.

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Sure to draw ire.... but Ringo >> Gilmour .. if we're ranking by revenue

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yeah, but can anyone honestly argue Ringo was the reason for all that revenue?

i mean the Gilmour sound defined Floyd for a long time and for a lot of people.

Ringo doesn’t even crack the top 4 for the Beatles (George Martin gets more love than Ringo does).