There has been a lot of talk about building walls during the Presidential election. But here’s news we can all agree on, no matter what our political affiliation is. Pink Floyd‘s 1979 double album The Wall is returning to vinyl on August 26. (Pre-orders are available here.) And, not to be overlooked, the next wave of re-releases of the band’s classic rock catalog on vinyl continues with the announcement of the release of Atom Heart Mother, Meddle and Obscured By Clouds on September 26. Each record has been remastered from the original analogue master tapes. The Division Bell will also be back in stock on vinyl starting August 26.
Pink Floyd followed their 1960s albums with their fifth studio album, Atom Heart Mother, in 1970. Featuring the classic lineup of Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason, the LP went on to become the band’s first U.K. #1 record.
As the announcement notes, the group then followed it up with the experimental album Meddle which saw the band move its musical direction away from their original psychedelic sound, highlighted by the 23-minute track “Echoes” which occupied the entire B-side of the album.
Pink Floyd’s seventh album, Obscured By Clouds, was originally recorded as the soundtrack to a French film La Vallee but was released as a stand alone album in 1972.
Earlier this year we shared the news that the entire Pink Floyd catalog is being reintroduced in that format for the first time in over two decades. Beginning June 3 when Pink Floyd Records released the first four records – The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, A Saucerful of Secrets, the soundtrack from the film More and the 2-LP set Ummagumma – the label will continue to reproduce the vinyl catalog throughout the year with release dates being announced at regular intervals.
All of the British band’s releases are already available on CD, digital and most streaming platforms.
Related: Pink Floyd The Early Years CD box set coming in November
Special care has been taken to replicate the original packaging. The first set of releases are pressed on 180 gram vinyl for optimum sound quality.
Don’t miss a post! Sign up for Best Classic Bands‘ Newsletter; form is on every page.
Pink Floyd, featuring guitarist Syd Barrett, bassist Roger Waters, Rick Wright on keyboards and drummer Nick Mason, first broke onto the music scene in 1967, with a unique combination of psychedelic-progressive rock. The group added David Gilmour that same year and, despite Barrett’s departure in 1968, recorded some of the most innovative and ground breaking records of the time, culminating in 1973 with The Dark Side Of The Moon, one of the biggest selling albums of all-time, with an estimated 50 million copies sold. There followed numerous global #1 albums, including The Wall, Animals, Wish You Were Here, The Final Cut and 2014’s finale, The Endless River. It’s estimated that the band’s catalog has sold 250 million albums worldwide.
Remarkably, Pink Floyd has only charted five songs on the U.S. Hot 100. The Wall‘s “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” is the outlier; it became a huge worldwide #1 hit. (A follow-up, “Comfortably Numb,” never even charted.)
But Pink Floyd was never about singles.
