Album of the Day

This week in 1967, Pink Floyd released their debut, THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN. Cut at Abbey Road while The Beatles were recording SGT. PEPPER (and employing the Fabs' engineer Norman Smith as producer), the album stands as one of the cornerstones of British psychedelia. The collection is unique in the Floyd catalog for the dominating presence of lead guitarist/vocalist Syd Barrett, who wrote or cowrote all but one of the album's 11 songs. Though Barrett's copious consumption of LSD would soon lead to his departure from the band, here it fosters a hallucinatory listening experience, aided by the use of echo and other studio effects. Split between shorter pop-psych pieces (“Bike,” “Lucifer Sam”) and extended improvisations (such as concert staples “Astronomy Domine” and “Interstellar Overdrive”), THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN hailed the dawning of a new age and the arrival of one of rock's greatest groups.