Music and the soul of information

Richard Wright of Pink Floyd died today of cancer. This is not truly an information concern, I suppose, but it is hard for me to forget the power to transform my existence as a teenager that came from listening to this band’s music. I remember playing Wish You Were Here (an LP of course) on my crappy one-speaker broken ‘stereophone’ and being unable to stop myself playing it again and again, night after night, quoting the lyrics in school, discussing with the few (very few!) fanatics I could find in my school who had a copy and who had seen those pictures on the sleeve. Floyd become known for the lyrics and songs of Waters with the guitar of Gilmour, and both were crucial, but Wright gave the band that floaty, ethereal quality that set them apart from other bands. I have taken Floyd’s music with me everywhere I have since moved to, and Shine on You Crazy Diamond is playing on my far better stereo now as I type this. I don’t care for rock stars or the BS that passes for celebrity status today, but I do care for the creative power of great music and Richard Wright was part of some of the greatest music of the era. No matter what Floyd have become with the departure of Waters ( I have my views, I know I am in a minority), there is a series of recordings this band made in the 1970s that are impossible to categorize or dismiss. Radiohead as pioneers? Don’t make me laugh — Floyd put the very British crowning touch on a form that sprang to existence in the blues and country music of the US decades earlier and merged it with the theatrics of technology. Everything since is a re-hash. Welcome to the machine.