Think Psychedelic rock and one of the first few bands that comes to mind is Pink Floyd. Perhaps there are people around the world who have never even heard the band or about them, but it is near impossible that they have never even come across the iconic cover of their 1973 eight studio album, The Dark Side of the Moon, released almost half a century ago.
Depicting a beam of white light refracted through a prism into a spectrum of brightly coloured light, this sleeve was designed by Storm Thorgerson, the prolific English graphic designer and music video director, of the English Art group Hipgnosis. Neither the designer nor the bad members bothered to assign a meaning to this iconography, leaving its import open to the fans’ imagination and beginning a mysterious iconography cult of sorts for Pink Floyd.
Iconic Album sleeve
In fact even today Floyd fans over the world may not particularly recognize the band members but show them this iconic cover and right on cue they would exclaim – “Pink Floyd!”. Appearing on countless Pink Floyd merchandise T-shirts and posters worldwide, this cover is perhaps the world’s most well-known album sleeves of all time. Not only did The Dark Side of the Moon acquire cult status as the greatest albums ever made, its iconic album cover art has since been visually synonymous with Pink Floyd - the band itself.
The artistic intrigue of Pink Floyd
This is also why all are crazy for Pink Floyd Merchandise. Over the years, the bands members adopted this artwork style as their signature move and usually preferred not to appear on the covers in order to let the creative images do the talking. The Piper at the Gates of dawn and Ummagumma are rare such covers featuring the band’s members. Even their merchandise featuring the band members is a rare find, but the Pink Floyd T Shirt Purple Swirl Band Logo retro vintage Men’s Black is a great pick if you want Pink Floyd merchandise featuring the band members.
As a result these albums became a sort of mystery, offering a musical intrigue and inviting the fans to delve into the lyrics and the music allowing them to ascribe their own meaning to the artwork as well.
The desire to solve the philosophical puzzles of the band led fans to wait as much to explore and interact with the artwork as with the music of the band exploring serious themes like death, madness, freedom and life. Soon the band began to issue Pink Floyd Merchandise like this Pink Floyd T Shirt Dark Side Of The Moon band Logo Men’s Black tee.
Pink Floyd’s merchandise is iconic
While the progressive/psychedelic rock genre has seen many important bands come and go, few have managed to stay at the top like Pink Floyd. Of course it was founded by Waters but it was fuelled to initial success by the creative energy of someone no less than an artistic genius, Syd Barrett who named the band – Pink Floyd, after two of his favourite musicians. To live up to that benchmark was no easy task after Barrett became increasingly troubled by his own demons of mental illness and drug use.
The band even went through a low phase at the point where Roger Waters left, surrounded as he was by members each of whom were deeply troubled by their personal crises. The Division Bell album was perhaps the lowest phase of the band’s offerings. Surprisingly though the cover of the album inspired by the Easter Island monolithic heads was again a narrative in its own as seen on the Pink Floyd The Division Bell Metal Heads 76mm x 76mm Fridge Magnet.
Pink Floyd Albums covers featured a narrative
Gilmour once accepted it wasn’t the best of their work and even went on to say that the cover depicting two faces opposing each other was reflective of the divide that had occurred in the band between Waters and the other members and that the suggested hint of a third face comprising the two profiles was indicative of a new phase of the band’s artistic and musical journey.
Another album whose content is described in various degrees of disappointment is the 1987 album A Momentary Lapse of Reason. However the Hipgnosis cover featuring hospital beds in an empty field – suggestion of the issues of mental illness is a great talking point.
Pink Floyd Fans – were also fans of the cover art
Pink Floyd fans have always eagerly received their album art even when the quality of the musical artistry had taken a nosedive. They were rather forgiving when it came to The Wall’s cover art which was – well, just a wall.
However the cover art of The Final Cut was the most unimaginative of all – a juxtaposition of printed panels on a black background. No wonder then that it has never been seen on any official Pink Floyd merchandise so far.
The band went through some of the best and the worst times. While their early years until Meddle they went through a slow rise and a process of self-discovery.
A miraculous period of Artistic brilliance
With The Dark Side of the Moon to The Wall to the album Animals they went through a miraculous period of artistic brilliance. This is the time when the band became exponentially greater than the sum of its parts which is really what established their position as the one of the best and the greatest psychedelic rock bands ever.
The beginning of the end
The unimpressive album art of The Final Cut marked their slow painful descent from that pedestal with Waters resorting to much dramatic complaining on the songs and eventually he left the band.
The music and the fans were left wanting owing to irreconcilable differences of the band with each other and many clashes of their artistic egos.
Not even brilliant album artwork could have saved the band by this point.
However, it is still an iconic band and the fans are still calling them great thanks to their streak of brilliance before the descent into mediocrity.
Once a Fan – Always a fan
Pink Floyd official merchandise is still a rage owing to that brief but unmitigated brilliance of many of their studio albums. Even though the band has never been consistent even over the span of the same album, the streaks of genius that marked their work was lapped up hungrily as was their official Pink Floyd merchandise.
You may adore them or you may abhor them – either way, you cannot ever simply ignore their sheer collective genius and the zenith that Pink Floyd reached with both their art and its acceptance.
Check out their merchandise at Paradiso Clothing and find just the right pieces to match your sentiments for the greatest of greats – Pink Floyd.