Pink Floyd

United Kingdom, 1965–2014

London band formed in 1965, led first by Syd Barrett and then by Roger Waters and David Gilmour. The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and The Wall (1979) combine extended studio production with continuous thematic writing across a whole album.

MusicRoots documents 5 artists who influenced Pink Floyd and 14 artists Pink Floyd influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Pink Floyd?

• The Beatles — Piper at the Gates of Dawn was recorded in Abbey Road while the Beatles made Sgt. Pepper next door — the documented model of studio psychedelia.
• Bo Diddley — Syd Barrett's stated early repertoire was R&B — he named Bo Diddley his single biggest influence.
• The Byrds — The Byrds' 'Eight Miles High' was a pivotal influence on Barrett — its raga-tinged jangle a direct model for early Floyd's psychedelic explorations.
• The Rolling Stones — Pink Floyd began as an R&B covers band — playing Bo Diddley, the Rolling Stones and sundry R&B before Barrett's writing took over.
• Karlheinz Stockhausen — Rick Wright's 'Stockhausen-flavoured organ solos' drove Floyd's early feedback freak-outs — the electronic avant-garde behind their extended improvisations.

Which artists did Pink Floyd influence?

• Massive Attack — Massive Attack cite Pink Floyd among their influences — the spacious, atmospheric psychedelia feeds the cinematic drift of Blue Lines and Mezzanine.
• Thirty Seconds to Mars — Jared Leto has cited Pink Floyd as a major influence, and the band's atmospheric, concept-driven and spacious arena rock reflects Floyd's progressive scope.
• Kate Bush — The Wall taught Bush to treat studio sound as picture — she called it the album she wished she had written, and lifted its helicopter effect for 'Waking the Witch'.
• Jean-Michel Jarre — The proof that the experiment could be popular. Jarre set out to bridge pure electronic research and pop, and says he took the example from bands working intuitively in that space.
• Stone Sour — Pink Floyd's expansive, atmospheric album-craft shaped Stone Sour's later concept records — Taylor described the sound as Pink Floyd meeting Alice in Chains.
• The Orb — The Orb courted the comparison openly — Live 93's cover floats the Battersea pig of Animals; Paterson called them 'the Pink Floyd of the 90s' generation.
• Tangerine Dream — Froese's early Tangerine Dream grew from Piper-era psychedelia — a debt he acknowledged before the sequencers took over.
• Ash Ra Tempel — Göttsching has named Piper-era Floyd the model of Ash Ra Tempel's cosmic jams — the space rock the Berliners stretched to infinity.
• The Verve — Pink Floyd's atmospherics are the acknowledged backbone of A Storm in Heaven; McCabe had Floyd 'forced on' him young, and Floyd sat among the band's shared touchstones.
• Catherine Wheel — Dickinson has cited Pink Floyd's scale and drift — the arena spaciousness under 'Black Metallic'.
• The Moody Blues — Early Pink Floyd's psychedelia was part of the British scene the Moody Blues fused with orchestral arrangement.
• Air — Pink Floyd's spacey, analog-synth psychedelia is a clear influence on Air's atmospheric electronica.
• Poets of the Fall — Pink Floyd are a stated influence on Marko Saaresto and a clear touchstone for the band's cinematic, conceptual rock — their debut Signs of Life is named after a Pink Floyd instrumental and echoes The Wall's cyclical structure.
• Hawkwind — Pink Floyd's early psychedelic space explorations are a clear influence on Hawkwind — they even covered 'Cymbaline'.