Pink Floyd are a British rock band, famous for their progressive songs, sonic experimentation, thoughtful lyrics, cover art and especially for their elaborate live performances. The band is one of the most successful acts of the rock, reported to have sold over 70 million albums in the United States and about 200 million albums outside the U.S.

Following Pink Floyd formation in 1965, the band enjoyed temperate success as a psychedelic group led by Syd Barrett. However, Barrett's unpredictable behavior forced other members to invite guitarist David Gilmour who in due course replaced Barrett. With the new member the band recorded several sophisticated albums, achieving international success with the Dark Side of the Moon released in 1973 and The Wall in 1979; both albums are among the most enduringly popular and best-selling albums in the history of rock music.

Pink Floyd is famous for their extravagant stage performances, mingling exaggerated visual show with their music to make a show where the musicians themselves are about secondary. In their dawn period, Pink Floyd were amongst the first rock bands to employ a dedicated traveling light show in combination with their live performances, film clips, projecting slides, pyrotechnics and psychedelic motives. In their first shows, however, there were many technical difficulties.

Pink Floyd's early combination of visuals and music established the standard for later rock tours on both shores of the Atlantic. The band's later performances featured gigantic balloons, crashing planes, a giant high point disco ball, over hundred multi-colored programmed 'dancing lights, and multi-colored lasers. Their persistent drive for technological advancement in their live shows is notably illustrated by the use of exceptionally powerful, isotope splitting lasers in the 1994 tour. These lasers colored in gold were worth more than $120,000 each and earlier utilized only in high speed photography and nuclear research.

In 1985, band's bassist Roger Waters stated Pink Floyd disbanded, but the other band members twice toured and recorded under the name of Pink Floyd without him. Waters tried to stop Gilmour through court action, declaring that the "Pink Floyd" band consisted only of Syd Barrett, Richard Wright, Nick Mason, and himself. Waters also stated that David Gilmour couldn't use the name for the reason that Waters had written nearly all Pink Floyd's lyrics. Gilmour won the court bout, thus giving the post-Waters group rights to most of the songs and the name.

Waters rejoined Pink Floyd -- if only temporarily -- at the London Live 8 concert on July 2, 2005, performing to Pink Floyd's largest audience ever.

Pink Floyd Discography":

1967: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
1968: A Saucerful of Secrets
1969: More
1969: Ummagumma

1970: Zabriskie Point
1970: Atom Heart Mother
1971: Relics
1971: Meddle
1972: Obscured by Clouds
1973: Dark Side of the Moon
1973: A Nice Pair
1975: Wish You Were Here
1977: Animals
1979: The Wall
1981: A Collection of Great Dance Songs
1983: The Final Cut
1983: Works
1987: A Momentary Lapse of Reason
1988: Live - Delicate Sound of Thunder
1992: Shine on
1994: The Division Bell
1995: PULSE
1997: Zabriskie Point