Hey You

Go jump in a lake. But if you thought the title of this piece was a Pink Floyd reference, then you can fuck right off. Oh, it’s serious folks. Unless of course your only knowledge of the aforementioned song is from Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale. In that case, you get a pardon. Cherish it.

Because I’m sick of hearing about Pink Floyd. I’m sick of seeing the cover to Dark Side of the fucking Moon on every third average-male-high-school-student’s black t-shirt. I’m sick of the ongoing tendency towards Floyd-worship being a rite of passage for establishment rockcrit types worldwide so they can proceed to wring their hands and wait with bated breath for another Waters-Gilmour collaboration every six months or so. Meanwhile, something worthwhile that doesn’t reek of mothballs and moldy Birkenstocks gets overlooked. So just give it up.

It’s not that Pink Floyd are horrible. Not at all. In fact, I actually enjoy most of Meddle and, while not entirely relevant to the discussion, a lot of Syd Barrett’s post-Floyd material is at least charming.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Pink Floyd, they’re merely irrelevant circa: the here and now, long since reduced to a mere logo for intellectually neutered middle-class conformity — the Budweiser of erstwhile proggy art-student music. Packaged and sold.

So weep for poor crazy old Syd Barrett, kids, and don’t do acid.