Throughout the 1970s, Pink Floyd could have been responsible for shaping the landscape of rock and roll a few times over. While they may have started at the height of psychedelia, their music began to take on a different character once Roger Waters took the reins, steering the group through the most inventive progressive rock albums of their time, like Dark Side of the Moon and Animals. Although Nick Mason was proud to work on the band’s cultural touchstones, he knew that one band before them changed the music industry on its head.
When talking about how these records are made, nothing becomes a classic album overnight. While some bands might hit it out of the park on their first release and continue evolving throughout their career, artists like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd would spend years before having their major blockbuster albums, spending time in the studio honing their craft until they find something that sounds right.
In Floyd’s case, it would come down to studio reinvention when they started working on pieces like ‘Echoes’. Throughout the recording of the song, the band would be laying the groundwork for the various avant-garde elements of their sound, which they would later combine into rock perfection on their next run of albums.
While Floyd may have turned the studio into an instrument, The Beatles had already been doing wild genre experiments years before. After making their second film, the Fab Four camped out in the studio to create musical magic, spending time inventing new approaches to the medium on albums like Rubber Soul and Revolver.
Once they left the touring life for good, the band would turn the studio into their new home, pioneering what music could do with Sgt Pepper. Outside of Paul McCartney’s lavish concept, every song served as a new sonic venture for the group, culminating in the massive blend of avant-garde and pop sophistication on ‘A Day in the Life’.
As the band were putting the finishing touches on songs like ‘Lovely Rita’ and ‘Getting Better’, a young Pink Floyd was already making their first steps into rock and roll history, recording the beginning of their debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. While Mason would count himself fortunate enough to see the Fab Four work, he was shellshocked once he heard the album.
Compared to his own prog epics, Mason thought Sgt Pepper drastically altered the entertainment business, telling BBC Radio 2, “Sgt. Pepper’s was the album that absolutely changed the face of the record industry. Up until then, it was all about singles. Sgt. Pepper’s was the first album that actually outsold singles, and that enabled bands like us to have more studio time and more freedom to do what we wanted”.
Pink Floyd would ultimately utilise the approach to the album throughout the rest of their career, with Dark Side of the Moon having to be listened to from beginning to end to truly get the best experience possible. The Beatles may not have been considered the progenitors of progressive rock in their time, but their willingness to push the boundaries of what their genre could do led to countless prog bands copying their formula.
The album Nick Mason said "changed the record industry"
