Saturday, July 6, 2019

Welcome to the machine: Embarrassed by myself



You can't admit to liking Pink Floyd when you go through the obligatory obnoxious punk phase on your musical journey - they're the enemy and must be destroyed - and I deny the love for their music for years and years afterwards. The Division Bell helps, and sounds like corporate unreality.

It takes me a long time to get over myself and be comfortable with the idea that you can like the Television Personalities and Pink Floyd just as much as each other. There are no rules here, other than those that you impose on yourself, and there is no contradiction in loving both punk and prog rock.

And it's worked out, in a way, because now the albums are still surprising and fresh, while intimately familiar. And it's given me a greater appreciation for cover versions of Floyd classics, whether it's the Flaming Lips doing all of Dark Side of the Moon, or The Mummers finding new depths of despair in Nobody Home.

I'll never like Pink Floyd as much as I did when I was 15, but I won't ever deny them again either.

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