In his exhaustively researched Reinventing Pink Floyd, author Bill Kopp gives us the history (song by song) of Pink Floyd from their early days when they were fronted by Syd Barrett through their ground-breaking The Dark Side Of The Moon album. For those of us who are not stone-cold Floyd fans, Syd Barrett looms large in the lore of rock and roll of the late 60s and early 70s. As much for his role as Pink Floyd’s songwriter, singer, and guitarist as for his infamous bout with madness and subsequent reclusiveness after being literally being left behind as the rest of the band went on their way.
The cult of Barrett continues to this day, as Kopp makes clear, with a division between those who feel Pink Floyd was better during their enigmatic leader’s reign and those who feel the band was better after he was gone. What there is no arguing about, no matter where your opinion falls, is that Pink Floyd certainly became a different band after Barrett left, and that is what is most explored in Reinventing Pink Floyd.
The impact of Pink Floyd’s 1973 opus The Dark Side Of The Moon on popular music, as well as how it rocked the band into superstardom, has never been in debate. There were, however, plenty of years before that landmark album for this most English of groups, and Kopp touches on all the music the band made during that period, with and without Syd Barrett, in detail.
He talks about recording sessions at Abbey Road studios and other spots throughout London, about concerts and BBC radio appearances the band made, and about their work on albums and soundtracks they released before their 1973 masterpiece. We are treated to recollections from Floyd members as well as other musicians who happened to be around at the time about what went down.
Most interesting are the eye, and most importantly, the eyewitness accounts, via interviews and bootleg tapes of live performances. This band was one that worked out lots of material on stage, taking songs and full pieces on the road to test them out. To read about what the band did and did not do with The Dark Side Of The Moon before recording it really gives one an insight on how Pink Floyd worked.
Surely, many books have mined this story before, and many writers and critics have attempted to break down the elements that make The Dark Side Of The Moon such a monster. Bill Kopp adds his expertise and entertaining touch to it all in Reinventing Pink Floyd.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
