Just a few days apart, Pink Floyd's 1967 debut album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, and here we are turning 56.
This album dominated entirely by the mind of Syd Barrett, which has virtually his songwriting signature on almost every track, was produced by Norman Smith, engineered by Peter Bown, and was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in the period from March to May. in 1967, at the same time that The Beatles were also recording their famous Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
The album's title comes from the novel The Wind In The Willows by British writer Kenneth Grahame and has that strange and enveloping mix of rock, pop, psychedelia and folk that captivated at the time for its avant-garde.
The cover photo is taken by photographer Vic Singh who used an effect in which the repeated images of the band members intersect as if you were looking at them from a kaleidoscope, while on the back cover there is a drawing painted by Syd Barrett, of which His facet as a painter is known.
At the time of its release, a mono version and another stereo version were published, while in the United Kingdom the record company was Emi-Columbia Records, in the United States its publication was a few months later, on October 21 by Tower Records, suffering a variation the order of songs and Astronomy Domine, Flaming and Bike were not included, but See Emily Play was.
The reception of the album in the United Kingdom by both critics and the public was quite enthusiastic, since despite the fact that Pink Floyd is not a commercial group, it achieved a sixth position in the lists, while in the United States it barely reached number 131.
Over the years different editions and remasterings have emerged, such as the 40th anniversary edition in 2007, with a DeLuxe edition, with 3 CDs that include the mono version, the stereo version plus the first singles, and a 2-CD edition.
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