Pink Floyd – Meddle (1971)

September 26, 2020

My mother is a big Pink Floyd fan. Naturally, once I got my first “car” when I was 20 (a pre-Defender-era Land Rover 90, of all vehicles!) I “borrowed” a bunch of their cassettes, and this beaten copy of Meddle was one of the ones that got the most plays.

I’m no expert in the world of the Floyd, but the early 70s were of course the main portion of their astronomical rise to fame. Wether that had anything to directly do with Meddle I don’t know, but even today, after replacing a faulty drive belt on an old Sony Walkman, am I blown away by the sound on this record.

Yesterday my son was born so maybe I’m feeling a bit emotional, but playing Meddle today took me back not only to 2010, where I drove no doubt reckless over and under things in my first car, but to the early 2000s when I listened to Pink Floyd and tried to understand why my mother liked them so much. This is such a beautiful record.

People talk about how mid-90s Swans records scarily predate the post rock genre, or at least, help seed it. The track “Echoes” here, which takes up a whole side of the cassette…. well…. surely that is the seed? lol