In 1966, the psychedelic rock group "Pink Floyd" was introduced to a large audience for the first time when they shared the bill with "The Soft Machine" at a launching party for the London underground newspaper, "International Times."
They had not yet made their first record. That would come in January, 1967 with "Arnold Layne," which made the British top 20 but wasn't heard much in North America. "Pink Floyd" would become one of the top rock bands in the world six years later with the release of the album "Dark Side of the Moon."
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That sound you hear is a cash register opening.
Coins piling up.
Sales being tallied. It's what opens the classic Pink Floyd song Money and it's what is sure to accompany the rush of passionate Floyd fans emptying their bank accounts to purchase the first round of remastered reissues of all of the iconic band's catalogue and various box sets.
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As their contemporaries issued and reissued and rereissued their older material - adding a song here, a bonus there in an attempt to make this one that much more definitive and that one obsolete - it's something the band has resisted for a great deal of time. Even their "greatest hits" album Echoes was less an opportunity to cash in on their most recognizable songs than it was about making a whole new artistic statement.
But now, the time has come, the dam has been opened and the flood of Floyd has begun.
Today, under the banner Why Pink Floyd. . .?, their longtime label EMI starts the roll out with the release of the remastered versions - CDs, LPs and digital - of their 14 studio albums, from the psych Syd Barrett-led early days of The Piper At the Gates of Dawn through their '70s heyday marked by milestone recordings such as The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall, and then to their somewhat less artistically successful post-Roger Waters era.
It's the perfect opportunity for fans new and old to pick and choose and avoid the duds - the soundtrack for the 1969 film and the aforementioned David Gilmour minus Waters albums for a start - while improving on the listening experience greatly. As mindblowing as they can be in their original form, remastered they are stunning, with everything polished up to maximum headphone capacity by longtime collaborator James Guthrie. It shows why, at their best, Pink Floyd were brilliant mental expressionists, painting sonic canvasses with traditional melody and aural exploration. For Floyd, improving the quality of the sound and form only makes its impact that much greater.
Of course, for those who want the complete historical document of the band and its career or those completists who want it all again but cleaned up, there's the Discovery box set, which collects all of those albums - the good and the not-so - in one complete set.
The sound is there as well, as are the minimum liner notes - lyrics, credits - in, for this purpose, gatefold CD cases. What makes it all the more enticing for fans, though, is the 60-page booklet that accompanies it, featuring those equally iconic images that have illustrated their career, as collected by Floyd friend and designer Storm Thorgerson.
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