Rosebud was a studio band put together by Lebanese-French composer Gabriel Yared (best known for his later film scores including Betty Blue, The English Patient and The Talented Mr.Ripley). This brief album of Pink Floyd covers performed in a disco style was released in 1977, with Have a Cigar becoming a US club hit in 1979.
Tag Archives: Pink Floyd
Comfortably Numb – The Scissor Sisters
First appearing as the B-side of their debut single Electrobix in 2002, the Scissor Sisters’ cover of Pink Floyd‘s Comfortably Numb received such positive reviews that it was released as a single in 2004, reaching number 10 in the UK charts and a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording. Apparently even Roger Waters had nothing but nice things to say about it.
Singer Ana Matronic later commented, “It’s one of those songs that people were either gonna love or hate, and that’s really, really powerful, because it basically means you’re evoking a reaction in everyone. The first time I heard it, I thought that if it doesn’t make us famous, it’ll make us infamous because somebody will shoot us!”
Comfortably Numb originally appeared on Pink Floyd’s 1979 album The Wall, and was the last song ever performed live by the band’s classic line-up of Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright.
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun – Bedouin
Brooklyn based duo Bedouin’s cover of Pink Floyd’s Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun was released in 2017.
First appearing on the 1968 album A Saucerful of Secrets, the original recording is the only Pink Floyd song to feature all five members of the band, as there are guitar parts recorded by both Syd Barrett and David Gilmour. The song was written by Roger Waters, with lyrics borrowed from a collection of Chinese poetry Waters had found – Poems of the late T’ang, Translated by A.C Graham. The title of the song was derived from a quotation by William Burroughs.
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun also gave Douglas Adams the idea for Disaster Area, the loudest band in the universe – and in fact the loudest noise of any kind, anywhere – who featured in his book The Restaurant At The End of The Universe; the band would crash a space ship into a nearby star to create a solar flare effect during their concerts.
Dark Side of the Moonshine – Poor Man’s Whiskey
Released in 2009 by San Fransisco based Poor Man’s Whiskey, Dark Side of the Moonshine is a bluegrass interpretation of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album in its entirety.
You’ve got to admire artists who choose to cover an entire album, especially when the results are this good. Poor Man’s Whiskey approach the task as a serious musical experiment rather than a flippant joke; although there’s still a fair bit of tongue in cheek humour going on, the arrangements and harmonies are so well crafted. Where Pink Floyd borrowed at times from The Byrds, this is is like The Byrds covering Pink Floyd; it’s just lovely.
Cover to Cover 