![\"Richard](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Richard-Wright-Rick-Wright-Pink-Floyd-1967-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Alamy)<\/p>\n
Tue 19 August 2025 15:30, UK <\/p>\n
When it comes to subgenres of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll<\/a>, the discussions of who invented what are often rabbit holes too deep to ever get to the bottom of. <\/p>\n To some, Iggy Pop invented punk rock, to others The Beatles with \u2018Helter Skelter\u2019. To some, Black Sabbath are the pioneers of heavy metal, to others it was The Who or The Stones. When it comes to prog rock though, there really is only one option. While the genre has roots in psychedelia and British invasion bands discovering LSD, the idea that there was a prog band before Pink Floyd is ludicrous. <\/p>\n Literally every aspect of prog rock comes from Pink Floyd. The sense of scale and ambition? Check. The boundary-pushing experimentalism? Check. The spectacular lack of cool? Check, check and check. Above all, though, Floyd were consummate musicians. More so than most other bands of their scene, Pink Floyd, especially by the time they reached their 1970s peak with David Gilmour, were among the most capable, dextrous musicians of their era. Each able to push the boundaries with only their instrumental skill, even before they started having ideas like making entire albums based around samples of household objects. <\/p>\n Now, I won\u2019t lie to you and say that this was an entirely good thing. The line between a David Gilmour guitar solo making grown men cry and some toff in a cape wanking out a 25-minute keyboard that no one asked for is a fairly thin one. I do think this is a case of people learning the wrong lessons from Floyd rather than simple copying. Pink Floyd weren\u2019t a band known for shying away from extended solos, but there was always a reason for them<\/a>; they never seemed to be simple self-indulgence practices. <\/p>\n Perhaps a part of this came from the fact that when the band formed, not all of them were natural musicians. Fundamentally, the band weren\u2019t formed so that a bunch of frustrated instrumentalists could show off because one of their members straight up couldn\u2019t when the band started. That band member, according to keys wizard Richard Wright, speaking to Classic Rock Magazine, was arguably the most infamous member of the band for reasons good and bad. <\/p>\n Who did Richard Wright say \u201cwasn\u2019t a musician\u201d?<\/p>\n Roger Waters, it\u2019s fair to say, is an ideas man. To be fair to the lad, his qualifications for being an ideas man are pretty inarguable. They do include The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, so clearly he\u2019s doing something right. As far as his cred as a musician goes\u2026well, he\u2019s responsible for a few absolutely cracking riffs; the bassline to \u2018Money\u2019 speaks for itself. Although, he can\u2019t help but be overshadowed by his bandmates, and perhaps that was one of the reasons why he tried to go full dictator mode in the late 1970s. <\/p>\n In the interview, Wright talked about how Waters tried to use his high concepts to outright overshadow the musical contributions of himself, Gilmour and the rest of the band. Wright said, \u201cWhen it came to The Wall, it was no longer a band anyway. But I feel I formed this band for God\u2019s sake! And I helped Roger a hell of a lot because he wasn\u2019t a musician when we started. And so did Dave.\u201d Barely a decade on from that formation, as Wright put it, \u201cFrom Animals on, maybe even earlier, Roger felt he was the band\u201d. <\/p>\n Wright does have the self-awareness to suggest that he and Gilmour didn\u2019t have the truly all-encompassing work ethic and perfectionism that Waters possessed. However, his using that as an excuse to deprive Pink Floyd fans of the musical ability of David Gilmour and Richard Wright shows how far off the deep end Waters had gone. This was even before The Final Cut<\/a>, so we didn\u2019t even know how bad it would get. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Alamy) Tue 19 August 2025 15:30, UK When it comes to subgenres of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[44623,77,269,26420,40677,44624,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-358740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-david-gilmour","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-pink-floyd","12":"tag-richard-wright","13":"tag-roger-waters","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115059661779909666","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}