Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains

by Victoria Broackes (Contributor), Aubrey "Po" Powell (Foreword), Mark Blake (Contributor)

Pink Their Mortal Remains celebrates 50 years of one of the greatest bands of all time. Lavishly illustrated throughout with material from the band’s archive, including never-before-seen photographs, ephemera, and more, this book examines what makes Pink Floyd unique, from the mythology underpinning their output to their musicianship, epic staging, and performance impact. With a photographic section devoted to the band’s 15 albums, the book explores the lasting Pink Floyd phenomenon. Five essays address what has made Pink Floyd unique, and contextualize their continued 1. “Lift Off”: Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd and the London underground Joe Boyd examines the character and musical legacy of Syd Barrett, as the mythologized founder of Pink Floyd and icon of late 1960s British counterculture, drawing on the author’s personal acquaintance with Syd Barrett. 2. “ What Have We Done to England?” Pink Floyd and the lure of the pastoral Rob Young places Pink Floyd in a wider visual tradition, exploring their “British” appeal. 3. A Long Term Prospect Jon Savage on how Pink Floyd negotiated a transition from single releases to concept albums between 1967 and 1970. 4. “Painters, pipers, prisoners”: the musical legacy of Pink Floyd Howard Goodall explains how Pink Floyd escaped the musical constraints of the three-minute single and exploited the potential of longer-form pieces in the mid-1970s, developing their signature sound and style in Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here and continuing to hone this over subsequent albums.
5. Great Gigs in the Pink Floyd on stage Victoria Broackes and Anna Landreth-Strong chart the band’s live acts, from the psychedelic light shows in 60s London to huge stadium concerts, with particular reference to their successful collaboration with architect and set designer Mark Fisher (1947–2013). Their Mortal The Studio A chronological, album-by-album history of the band, each album is introduced by Mark Blake and accompanied by insights from Aubrey “Po” Powell.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Design, Art, Biography

304 pages, Hardcover

First published July 11, 2017

Reviews

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit repetitive, but damn it I love this band. Can't wait to see the exhibit in September.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the companion to the incredible museum exhibit of the same name (that I was lucky enough to see in Rome), I assumed this would just be a catalog of all the pieces in the collection. First of all, despite being a pretty, big coffee table-type book, it's not that at all; there's no attempt at completion. However the accompanying essays are really insightful, and even as an uber-fan I learned things I never knew. Both the geeky gear talk and the many big photographs are wonderful. Deep personal stories from the early days and elaborate explorations of the accompanying artwork, both for albums and concert experiences, work together to paint a beautiful picture of an impressive band, that might just be more than the sum of its many parts.

Obviously, this book only gets 5 star if you're a super-duper Floyd fan. But if you are, man.....

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely beautiful coffee table book. There are plenty of the requisite photos and handwritten notes for a fan to geek out over, and the written content is separated in article form with many different writers contributing. Best of all the cover is a big ol' magic motion sticker in which the iconic prism from DSOTM explodes into pieces as you walk past the coffee table.

[Helen White · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book, well designed and put together with fantastic photography. Text and content wise it's not really a chronological history of the band more of an impression with a lot of focus on the early years. For me the most interesting section was the history of each album - how they were developed and how the band broke up along the way. Interesting if you're a fan of Pink Floyd.

[Carole Tyrrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the catalogue that accompanied the recent hugely successful exhibition on the Pink Floyd at London’s V & A. It featured an exhaustive selection of mementoes and memories from what I’ve always though of as a quintessentially English band.
The Summer of Love in 1967 which is now 50 years ago was when the Floyd took off and became the house band at London’s legendary UFO Club. Its frontman and songwriter, Syd Barrett, began the English version of psychedelia rooted in childhood books and references especially to Alice in Wonderland. Poor doomed Syd became a casualty of the times and the Floyd took another path and began to explore other themes. They metamorphosed from modish young hipsters in the latest Carnaby Street fashions into anonymous band members as they began to develop the themes and ideas that would led to their masterpiece Dark Side of the Moon.

The Floyd have gone in and out of fashion. When I first saw them live in 1974 they were incredibly fashionable until Punk came along and Johnny Rotten famously, or infamously, depending on your point of view defiantly wore a t-shirt embellished with I Hate…over a picture of the band members. I saw them on their final tour in 1994 and they were still exploring the elegiac passing of time and the loss of their friend Syd. He has always cast along shadow over them and inspired one of their best loved songs Shine on you Crazy Diamond. In the exhibition fellow band member Roget Waters credited Syd for getting the band off the ground and not just a group of architecture students playing blues covers before giving up and looking for proper jobs.

The catalogue is divided into 4 parts. It begins with a foreword by Aubrey Powell who with Storm Thorgerson formed Hipgnosis who designed most of the Floyd’s iconic album covers – no mean feat in pre-Photoshop days, followed by 5 essays discussing the beginnings of Floyd, their very Englishness, on eon their musical legacy and experimentation and then the third section discusses the albums. The final section is an obituary to Storm.

The 1967 London Underground scene seems incredible now; the risk taking, the rapid changes in society with young people in charge. A fellow exhibition visitor commented to his friend ‘You can’t imagine young people doing that these days. They’re more concerned with mortgages and pensions.’

It’s a good catalogue and I enjoyed reading Joe Boyd’s reminiscences of that bygone time of exploration and originality. It also echoed my own thoughts about the Floyd and their influence. One of Roget Waters classic lines from Dark Side of the Moon was ‘Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way’ in the song Time and how it gets away from you. Now the Floyd are no more and both Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour pursue their own solo projects. I have to admit that I have to be in a certain frame of mind, a certain melancholic mood to listen to the Floyd. It’s not background music I do want to listen to it fully and appreciate it. I’m sad that they are no longer a functioning group with the passing of keyboardist Richard Wright and this exhibition was welcome reminder of them and a tribute as well.

However it felt strange to see some of my souvenirs of them such as programmes on display and on sale in the shop as heritage items. I’m glad I kept them.

[Gary Fowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pink Floyd are one of those bands that I pretty much have to dedicate a whole bookshelf to. Which is all well and good but as with any other subject that you read multiple books about the text within can become a bit repetitive, Syd, drugs, trying to find a musical path, breakthrough, dealing with fame, The Wall, Water's Ego, the split, post split and the brief reformation.
So with all that in mind I thought this was a really well laid out and and well written (only a couple of mistakes, Jon Savage crediting Pow R. Toc H. to Water's for instance). In general though, even if you know that story inside out and back to front you will still enjoy this. Especially nice as a reminder of what you struggled to see at the V&A exhibition.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pink Floyd are life as we know it. The first 5 chapters (about half of the book) is divided into different segments about the band. From Syd Barrett to the roots of Cambridge and it’s lyrical references to stage direction. The remaining is an album by album review, though not very long it is provided with info that most Floyd fans would know. Lastly, a nice ode to Storm Thorgeson is presented on the final pages. It’s a bit repetitive some of the info in here but the chunk of it is quite detailed. The photographs and album designs are also a brilliant addition. For any Floyd dweller this is must have.

[M SReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptionally interesting and fascinating written and visual history of one of the most revered and fascinating bands of the last 50 years. Packed with photos, quotes from band members and features loads of rare and previously unseen stuff. A must for Floyd fans and fans of music and popular culture.

[Ola · Rating 5 out of 5]

The V&A exhibition catalogs are the best. This one reads like a bio of PF as good as any other I've seen. I particularly enjoyed Howard Goodall's essay on "The musical Legacy of Pink Floyd". Of course, the images as wonderful, and the print quality is superb. The exhibition was wonderful as well !

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classy - as you'd expect.

[Marco Lalama · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best content or graphic design.

[Prestanombres Takovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro es una guía visual de la exposición de Pink Floyd que ha estado de gira por diferentes países; contiene fotografías, documentos, afiches, boletos de conciertos, bocetos e ideas de producción de sus conciertos, información detallada y más acerca de la banda. Contiene misma cantidad de información escrita y gráfica, no hay una que predomine.

[Stephan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Das Buch zu der Ausstellung „Their Mortal Remains“. Einfach spitze!
Und wer das Original-Equipment aus den 60ziger & 70ziger Jahren von David Gilmour in einem Buchband sehen will, der wird mit diesem Buch völlig zufrieden sein. Mein Highlight: Das Binson Echorec!!! Es kann nur ein Tape Delay geben...

[Lynne Head · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous 'coffee table' book. Tells the story of Pink Floyd from the early days of Syd Barrett in the words of people who worked with PF. An illustrated book for collectors of PF stuff.