Bands That Suck Balls: PINK FLOYD

Today is Veterans Day, where we honor our country's service men and women. So feel free to do your duty as an American and put up your generic once-a-year Facebook status about supporting those who make sacrifices for our freedom, or praying for those serving overseas. Anyways, I wanted to do a Band That Sucks Balls this week that somehow tied into Veteran's day. Couldn't really put the two together though. After all if you are engaged in combat, you are most likely listening to totally Rad jams to get fired up for warfare. So I will just say that this next band is probably not on the Ipods of too many of our nation's soldiers. Unless they are currently tripping on acid to gain greater enjoyment out of their night vision goggles. This Weeks's Band That Sucks Balls: PINK FLOYD.

Look everybody will tell you they appreciate the genius of Pink Floyd. You probably went through a "Big Pink Floyd Phase" at some point in your life. Yeah this "phase" is known as Sophomore year of college when you ate mushrooms once a week. If you are past the age of say 22 you should no longer have an appreciation for Pink Floyd, because Pink Floyd totally sucks balls. Their music serves no purpose other than to serve as the soundtrack to your group tripping experience in a dark dorm room. If you're on psychadelic drugs you obviously aren't gonna wanna listen to say heavy metal or anything particularly rocking. After all you are mentally unstable and might react by taking off all your clothes and running across the quad screaming bloody murder. You also don't wanna listen to anything laid back with complex lyrics like say some Bob Dylan, because words don't actually make any sense to you in your current state. So you go with Pink Floyd as completely neutral background music that will not upset the balance of your night of mind expansion. I know all this of course from talking to people who actually liked doing drugs in college, unlike myself.

Have you ever listened to Pink Floyd in a completely sober mind state? Like say cruising around in your car on a Friday afternoon jamming out to the classic rock station? Their music is shit. I hate when I'm listening to a solid block of classic rock jams on the FM radio, and I hear that "CHA-CHING!" cash register noise. Goddamit, I was just in a solid groove after some Tom Petty and Skynyrd and then Pink Floyd's "Money" comes on. I hate that fucking song along with pretty much every Pink Floyd single that comes on the radio. Yeah the idea of rebelling against the establishment and protesting your educational experience is kinda cool. I don't need to randomly hear a bunch of creepy British kids singing a hook about it on repeat. "Wish You Were Here" is one of the weirdest sounding love songs ever written. Pretty much the only tolerable Pink Floyd single is "Comfortably Numb." This song however, is infinitely better when sang by Van Morrison rather than by the members of Pink Floyd, so they lose points for that.

Of course people will argue that Pink Floyd is not a band that should not be judged by their individual singles. "You gotta get like the whole album experience maaaaan." Yeah well I've listened to both Pink Floyd masterpieces "The Wall" and "Dark Side of the Moon" all the way through and they are both complete excrement. First of all there are very few rock albums that I am willing to listen to all the way through, and generally they all serve some sort of purpose that involves fun. You can leave the album on for an entire party, or a bbq, or a road trip, or a drunk drive home. If you are listening to a Pink Floyd album, you are only enjoying yourself if you are tripping in a dark room watching a light show. You can't throw on Dark Side of the Moon at a 4th of July BBQ and enjoy yourself. Pink Floyd's songs are all extended dark, gloomy jams that continuosly "build" without ever reaching much of a climax. Roger Waters whispers song lyrics in a creepy voice that sounds like the boogeyman lurking in your closet. Pink Floyd is basically the soundtrack to you looking up at the sky and realizing the apocalypse is coming as the dark clouds gather and lightning flashes. So just what you need to get the party hopping.

Anyways, Pink Floyd were one of the first bands to..I don't know..lock themselves in a studio with a year's supply of LSD and experiment with weird production effects. So they will always be considered "revolutionary" in some manner. After all, if you are the first band to do anything weird you are always looked at as an "innovator" even if your fresh, revolutionary sound is dog shit. Lets just admit however, that nobody is ever in the mood to randomly rock out to a Pink Floyd song. Nobody has the patience to sit and listen to an entire boring and gloomy Pink Floyd concept album. If you do actually "enjoy" Pink Floyd for extended periods of time, it's time for you to stop spending your Tuesday night dropping acid in your mom's basement while staring at a lava lamp and get a fucking job already.