Punk Vs. Pink Floyd

Herencia de una relación muy lejana de la cual ya recuerdo muy poco, conservo muchos lazos con Pink Floyd, particularmente con Animals, que también es el primer disco que compré en mi vida y con el cual pasé demasiadas tardes aislándome de la adolescencia.

En los últimos días ese lazo se ha establecido nuevamente con Inside Out. A Personal History of Pink Floyd, libro de Nick Mason en el que no he descubierto tanto la música del grupo, pero si la múltiples anécdotas que rodean cada producción, la evolución visual del grupo en vivo (con el paso por el famoso concierto The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, la pirotecnia no controlada y explosiones de equipo), las crónicas de Algie (el cerdo de Animals que debería tener su propio libro) y sus múltiples intercambios de música para películas experimentales por imágenes únicas para sus conciertos.

Posiblemente muchos de esos detalles valdría la pena comentarlos en otra ocasión, pero éste texto es sobre la conocida relación de odio entre el punk y Pink Floyd, gracias a los largos pasajes de virtuosismo que motivaron el DIY corto, agresivo y directo.

Siempre había leído sobre ese momento desde la perspectiva de Johnny Rotten y toda la horda punk, sin embargo en el libro Mason se toma un momento para hablar de su postura en 1977, cuando el punk dijo que odiaba a Pink Floyd por la indulgencia de lanzar un álbum concepto de sólo seis canciones (una de ellas de 17 minutos), liberar un cerdo gigantesco en el aire tan sólo para crear una portada y realizar una de las giras de promoción más caras que se hayan realizado en esa época.

"Some critics felt that the music on Animals was harder and tougher than anything else we had done. There were various reasons why that might have been so. There was certainly a workman-like mood in the studio. We had never encouraged a stream of visitors to our previous recording sessions, but at Britannia Row the lack of space meant there was really only room for the crew in the cockpit.

Any harder edge may also have been a subconscious reaction to the accusations of ‘dinosaur rock’ that were being thrown at bands like Led Zeppelin, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and ourselves. We were all aware of the arrival of punk – even anyone who didn’t listen to the music could not have failed to notice the Sex Pistols’ explosion into the media spotlight. Just in case we had missed this, locked in our Britannia Row bunker, Johnny Rotten kindly sported a particularly fetching ‘I hate Pink Floyd’ T-shirt.

Punk was perhaps also a reaction to the decision by record companies to concentrate on what they thought of as guaranteed earners rather than taking risks with new acts – whereas in the 1960s they would have signed up anything with long hair, even a sheepdog. Nearly thirty years later the same is true once again. If a record company pays a huge amount of money for an established act, it is odds on that they will recoup the investment; they could spend the same amount on a dozen new bands and lose the whole lot.

Financially it is perfectly understandable, but it does not foster fresh talent. One of the messages of punk was that it was possible to make records for thirty quid and some change. Although we could sympathise with the sentiments, we were, however, on the wrong side of the divide, as far as the punk generation were concerned. ‘Of course, you don’t want the world populated only with dinosaurs,’ I said at the time, ‘but it’s a terribly good thing to keep some of them alive.’

Britannia Row made an unlikely Winter Palace, but the punk movement was the moment when we found ourselves on the wrong end of a cultural revolution, just as we had been very much on the right end of it during the underground days of 1966 and 1967. The ten-year cycle had turned, and will doubtless turn on. The cool blissed-out hippies of yesteryear are now harassed and stressed-out parents who mutter about the banality of Pop Idol and the incomprehensible lyrics on Top Of The Pops. They have, inevitably, found themselves turning into their parents – although now they, at least, are excruciatingly aware of the irony…"