As you put your earphones on and surrender to the music, you feel like you’ve been taken to another dimension, far away from Earth. In your mirror new and strange figures appear. They’re geometric, impossible prisms, dancing to the music before turning into amber butterflies, crickets, or spiders that crawl out of the looking glass.
Is it because of the acid you took yesterday? No, it’s the song and its hypnotizing notes. You’ve been spellbound by “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast.” You know that’s the magic of Pink Floyd’s music.
During their active years, Syd Barret, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, David Gilmour, and Richard Wright created true musical masterpieces. Albums like The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977) and The Wall (1979) immortalized the band and influenced future generations of artists.
Pink Floyd has made history not only because of its musical quality —a whirlwind of psychedelic sounds that merge with progressive and epic songs—, but also due to the appealing visual elements of its albums. The artwork stands out by itself, but it mostly works as a completing element to the music. As if they were telling a story, the covers reveal the content of each album through images and symbols.
The design group Hipgnosis and graphic designer Storm Thorgerson are mainly responsible for the visual impact of the band. Since they were the ones behind the designs of most of Pink Floyd’s album covers, they captured the dreamy and psychedelic atmosphere of their music in fascinating designs that combined seamlessly with the very essence of the band.
On an interview for the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, Thorgerson stated: “Our designs are like an echo of what musicians create. Our work is aimed at the sense of sight, while theirs is aimed at the sense of hearing, but, anyway, we both reach out towards imagination.”
Dazzling visions from LSD, infinite mirror reflections, a parade of lights, an inflatable pig floating above a factory, nightmarish creatures, a man rowing on a boat over the clouds. These visual concepts, together with the band’s vibrant sound, clever lyrics, and perpetual madness, have inspired thousands of people to engrave them on their skin. Perhaps you would like to join them with a psychedelic tattoo inspired by the magic of one of the greatest rock bands of all time.
When “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” is over, you come back from your trip from outer space. You land on earth again. You look at the moon, shining through the window, a bright pale dot far away in the night sky. Absent-minded, you wonder if there are any colors or fantastic figures on the dark side of the moon…
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Translated by Andrea Valle
