IG2EUS: Pink Floyd

The Irreverent Guide to Everything Under the Sun has this to say on the subject of Pink Floyd:

Pink Floyd were an English rock band, best known for composing the title track to the famous musical, The Phantom of the Opera, and the sountrack to the famous motion picture, The Wizard of Oz.

The band was fromed in 1966-ish by a displaced and delusional Time Lord named Syd Barrett. Preoccupied with the "drugs" part of "sex, drugs and rock & roll," he soon left the band to pursue this venture full-time. Before he left, they recorded one album Sgt. Piper at the Gates of the Lonely Hearts Club (1967). Following his departure, the band wrote several clueless albums, including A Saucer Full of Secretions (1968), which covered sex; Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh (1969) and The One With a Cow on the Cover (1970), which covered drugs; and Metal (1971), which covered rock and roll. Metal contained a cover of the Doctor Who theme and ended with a song called "Echoes" which took up five of the album's six sides. The band were asked if they would consider letting Stanely Kubrick use the song in his film 2001: Are We There Yet? for a considerable amount of money, but declined in favor of letting Andrew Lloyd Webber have it for free to use in a musical about a man in a mask who haunts a theater.

Tempted by the offer of scoring a movie, the band settled down in 1972-3 to record the soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz. This was possible because Syd Barrett, being a Time Lord, had access to a time machine. Once the soundtrack was finished, they wrote their next album, Wish You Were Here (1975), about him.

Now totally out of ideas, they began writing concept albums such as A Day at the Zoo, I Never Got Over My Father's Death, and Margaret Thatcher is Evil. By this point, the band was in the totalitarian grip of its lead singer, lead bassist, lead writer, manager, and only roadie, Roger Waters. He left the band after this because he couldn't stand working with people who had no ideas, and went on to have a solo career where he surrounded himself with peopel who had no ideas.

The rest of the band, which consisted of drummer Nick Mason, keyboardist Rick Wright, and guitar god David Gilmour, soldiered on for two more albums before finally calling it a day in 1994.

There has yet to be a Rock Band or Guitar Hero game about this band, probably because all of the songs are in the same tempo: slow. As far as lyrical themes go, the band has covered everything ranging from drug-induced depression and isolation to loss-induced depression and isolation to feud-induced depression and isolation.

They are one of the five biggest selling bands of all time. The soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz is one of only a handful of albums to outsell Led Zeppelin IV.