Pink Floyd The Early Years

This exhaustive document of Pink Floyd’s sonic explorations contains some tantalising glimpses of the different paths they could have taken – as well as 15 versions of Careful With That Axe, Eugene…

The Later Years 1987-2019 is an explicit sequel to The Early Years 1965-1972, the 2016 box set that rounded up nearly all the loose ends and detours from the first era of Pink Floyd, the fearless period when they were figuring out what the band could do. The Later Years covers a different time, when their most pressing challenge was demonstrating that they could thrive artistically and commercially without the presence of Roger Waters, the bassist/songwriter who charted Floyd's direction between 1973's Dark Side of the Moon and 1983's The Final Cut…

A companion compilation to the sprawling 2019 box set The Later Years 1987-2019, this 80-minute collection distills that luxury item into something handy and affordable. In the winnowing process, it's revealed that the box indeed consists primarily of live material: all but five of the 12 tracks are live recordings, most taken from either the remixed version of the 1988 live double-LP Delicate Sound of Thunder or the full-length Live at Knebworth, which was recorded in 1990. Two cuts from the rejiggered A Momentary Lapse of Reason – which was revised to sound more like a classic Floyd album, à la The Division Bell – are here, along with an early rendition of "High Hopes" and the unheard instrumental "Marooned Jam," which also dates from 1994. None of this newer material is earthshaking, but it fits well next to the live versions of classic Floyd songs and, in turn, helps make a case for the merits of the Waters-less Floyd, even if it doesn't necessarily act as an enticing endorsement for the lavish accompanying box.

The Later Years 1987-2019 is an explicit sequel to The Early Years 1965-1972, the 2016 box set that rounded up nearly all the loose ends and detours from the first era of Pink Floyd, the fearless period when they were figuring out what the band could do. The Later Years covers a different time, when their most pressing challenge was demonstrating that they could thrive artistically and commercially without the presence of Roger Waters, the bassist/songwriter who charted Floyd's direction between 1973's Dark Side of the Moon and 1983's The Final Cut. In the parlance of these deluxe box sets, that decade amounts to "The Middle Years," a period far more prolific than 1987-2019, when the group released just two studio albums along with two live albums and a posthumous project that didn't arrive until 2014, by which time the group had largely been inactive for 20 years…

Pink Floyd-the band was one of the most famous in history. 12 track highlights from the box set. Includes 3 new mixes from 'A Momentary Lapse of Reason', 3 new mixes from 'Delicate Sound of Thunder', 3 tracks from Knebworth 1990, 2 unreleased studio recordings from 'The Division Bell' and a 1994 tour rehearsal track.